Lulu Direct

I launched a print on demand store for stationery. And have had a horrible experience in terms of the length of time it takes for orders to be delivered in addition to customer assistance. The "estimated time frames" are merely suggestions. The real dates of arrival could be more than 2 weeks past then... Also, they never actually say how long production takes. however, once they list your order's status as "in production" they refuse to allow you to cancel your orders. Would definitely look into other print on demand partners for books

(SECOND REVIEW - 9/21/2020): Production times are over a month. I have customers complaining daily, asking where their orders are. This is not an issue of the USPS or Fedex, this is a production/manufacturing issue that Lulu has faced since we began working with them.

We get the same old runaround from customer service about how they are working on it. We have been working with Lulu for about a year now and it has just been painful from start to finish.

If you're serious about starting a print-on-demand product, look elsewhere. It will save you a lot of headache in the long run for your business. Do not be fooled by Lulu's flashy interface and design. It's all smoke and mirrors. Behind the scenes it's a mess.

(FIRST REVIEW - 4/27/2020): If you are planning to start a business around selling books, be vary wary before jumping in head first with this app. There are issues with the app as well as print quality control.

We have been using the Lulu Xpress App for about 4 months now to print thousands of books. Our library consists of about 90 titles and we have spent thousands of dollars with Lulu.

The app is riddled with bugs and issues. It is finicky and breaks easily. Many times it feels like wrestling a bear to get the app to do what it is supposed to.

Whether you're trying to view your orders or trying to upload/update a book, a new error or bug will present itself. The app requires various workarounds to avoid these bugs, but regardless a new one will pop up in its place, bringing production to a halt. "Internal Server Errors" seem to never go away. We hold our breath every time we launch the app, cringing at what broken mess we're going to run into.

This is not something that a business can afford to deal with on a weekly basis. As it stands, we have not been able to access the app at all in over a week.

We have been working with customer service to solve these issues. This is an additional problem in itself. The line of communication is not efficient. You will be in contact through an email support ticket chain. With this chain, your customer service rep will relay or mediate your issue to a "developer" who is "working on the problem."

It is just flat out inefficient and we expected more support and competency considering the volume we are producing and future plans of growth for our business.

To their defense, customer service does reply fairly quickly. They do try and it seems they are sincere in their efforts to help in whatever way they can. Unfortunately, they're dealing with a broken app.

The backend development of this app has a long way to go. The errors and bugs shouldn't exist to begin with.

Because we are in this far, we will continue using Lulu for the time being, in hopes that they are able to iron out these issues soon. I will update this review once they do. Until then, I would not recommend this app.

At first I was intimidated by Lulu’s self-publishing platform because I had never published a book and am not proficient in Adobe Suite products which several of the templates require. My customer support expert, Tim S, was fantastic. He answered all my many questions, in detail, within 1-2 business days and was helpful in sending me templates to help me format my book. He even helped prepare my files when I ran into a printing issue with certain images not printing correctly - he helped me understand what the problem was with my file and fixed the issues for me so that my books would print correctly. When I received a damaged book I ordered for myself as a sample, he issued me a refund so that I could get a new sample book clear of shipping damage, which was considerate. He was always professional, positive, responsive, and immensely helpful in the setup process of my book. I am so grateful to have had his support through the file creation process and initial ordering process to help me get my book set up online correctly. I'm proud to now officially be a published author and happy the quality of the books looks very nice. I can't speak to other customer rep experiences at Lulu but Tim S. was 5 stars! Thank you Tim!!

Recommended. The app works well. So far, all orders have been fulfulled properly. There have been one or two minor problems which customer service have handled well and promptly. In general customer service is excellent. [EDIT - over one year later, customer service continues to be excellent]

There are some downsides to consider before using the app:

- Orders to some locations seem to arrive very slowly... some took around three weeks. Need to let customers know about this, especially if they are expecting Amazon fulfillment times. Customers see the shipping time when they order, but this doesn't include production time to actually print the book, so from their point of view the book often arrives later than scheduled.

- There is basically no functionality for looking through your own orders and gathering data, even just how much you've actually given Lulu. You have to email them to ask for a csv file (which they do provide promptly). In general the app is very poor for looking at data, looking at past orders etc. Searching for past orders is glitchy.

- More costly than manually ordering from Lulu or making a bulk order. They add a fulfillment charge for orders through Lulu Direct.

However I am glad I am using the app, despite these limitations

Absolutely the worst app I had to use because there is no alternative that connects to Shopify. The prints take forever to get made and sent to customers. There're no notifications if there is a problem. Using this app only had a negative impact on my business's reputation and brand image because Lulu is unable to do their part. I get customers who never receive the products, only to find out that Lulu marked an address invalid because it had a special character used. Ridiculous. I do not recommend this service to anyone. It's better to not sell printed products at all then sell them with this app.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Poor communication, especially with price increases, delays etc. I wish they would communicate with us about pending price increases as they affect our bottom line.

UPDATE: Rating updated from 3 to 4. The company is committed to making things work, and it is seen. Customer service is 10 stars! Top notch. They are very responsive and kind and work very hard to resolve issues. Things have improved since my last review. Give them a try. I believe in this app and will keep using.

Old review
Not sure how to review this app. On one hand, I am happy to have the app, but it is so new they are STILL working out bugs. Very frustrating.

Lulu is a dream come true. You are able to print books on demand and ship them all over the world! But that is where my love affair stopped. The app is new and there are constantly kinks.

The support team is responsive on half of the issues and none responsive on the other half. So I am somewhere in the middle of loving this app and hating the growing pains.

PROS
You can get your book printed on demand and shipped all over the world.

CONS
My first order was messed up, thank goodness I was the guinea pig on the order. I always do a test order to see what the customer sees. Still waiting on a response for a REAL reason why my book was printed incorrectly and everyone else was not.

If you are selling a few books this app is great. If you are selling a few hundred books, be prepared to spend hours manually fulfill all those orders yourself. Very time-consuming. I am so happy for this app, that I am willing to overlook this. But the app within Shopify is very difficult to maneuver back and forth for order fulfillment. You will need patience.

International shipping is not tracked. I hope they resolve this issue soon as of right now there is no way to provide proof of delivery. (as sellers we need this protection) Cheapest shipping option internationally says 'priority', but priority shipping has no tracking info. The next best options will cost twice as much as your book. Again, happy to have the app, so will keep overlooking these issues and pray Lulu works it out.

I will wait patiently until they work the kinks out. When they do I will update my review.

Update: 2/5/2021. I am no longer using this app. I had a lot of calendars ordered that took months to arrive, and only did get printed and shipped because I contacted customer service relentlessly. I have entire threads of emails. Customer service did help get the orders fulfilled after customers started complaining, and after MANY emails back and forth. The calendars were really nice, and I would have preferred to keep using Lulu but not at the expense of my customers' business. Update: I really wanted to come back and change my original review saying things were resolved, but I can't. After multiple attempts, I finally got a human on the phone, who I thought was helpful. They did enable my product in my store so that customers could order, which they did, however, it has been 20 days now and the order has not even gone to production because the original issue was not fixed. I am stuck with $400 in sales, no product, angry customers, and still, no answer when (or if) they will get their product at the height of the holiday season. If I could give zero stars I would since they have done nothing to assist nor can I get any product. I made a calendar for my Shopify store, it shows up in my store but you can't order it, I keep getting an error message when attempting to place an order. I have contacted their customer service, no response. I contacted Shopify, they confirmed it was not on their end and contacted Lulu xPress's customer service copying me on the email and I did get an email back several days later. I sent screenshots as requested and since then nothing. I have tried for 10-days to resolve this and nothing. I will move on to another app and start over.

I am very disappointed with the Lulu app. When attempting to edit my books the page will not load. I can't make any updates to my books because of this. The shipping time is marketed at 3-5 business days but all of my orders have taken 10-15 days to deliver. I get that shipping may take longer under certain circumstances but if the majority of my orders are going to take almost 2 weeks to deliver then this app is not worth my time and I would rather go a different route. If someone could help me with these 2 issues that would be much appreciated but as of now I am looking for other options.

A little slow on actually processing and shipping orders but amazing customer service and high-quality book production.

This was originally a ONE STAR review. I will say that tech support fixed it. Please note there is NO HELP during holidays for this international company so schedule your drops accordingly. I can say there was a problem with their plugin on my account that didn't exist before. Thank you for fixing this LULU.