Pi Chapter 100th review for Lulu Direct

Aug. 9, 2021

I used the Lulu xPress app with Shopify to publish a commemorative book as an internal fundraiser for my college fraternity. I wanted to remove the "middle man" costs of publishing the book on an online retailer platform. The target audience for this book was very limited, and I wanted the maximum net margin for the book. The solution worked very well and support our project. We experienced an IT issue, and one book shipping issue and Lulu was extremely responsive and timely with resolving those two issues. Otherwise, Lulu xPress app worked flawlessly. Very easier to use and you can view sales in real-time. Lulu Support staff was great in responding to any questions I had. Points to consider when using Lulu xPress App with Shopify. 1. Lulu has responsive and knowledgable customer service support where Shopify really does not; 2. I needed to establish a bank account and U.S. Tax ID number to support your book project with Lulu and Shopify. I did not know this before starting the project; 3. Recommend speaking with an accountant on tax collection and tax payment for your book project. Shopify only collects taxes you specify for your book project and does not pay taxes to municipalities for you; 4. Shopify does an outstanding job of timely paying revenue to you. Shopify transfers funds collected in book sales in 1-3 business days; 5. The integration between Shopify and Lulu Xpress app is outstanding and very easy to implement; 6. Shopify recently made reporting where you have to purchase Shopify Plan $79/month. I needed reporting functionality to obtain transaction-level sales data for my book project. When I created my Shopify page in March 2021, reporting fee when purchasing the Basic Shopify Plan was $29/month.