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Post by Deadshot on Jul 21, 2020 8:33:24 GMT
I am processing a significant shipment of my book to an educational distributor but then I got the message attached. I am at loss and nearly in despair.  |
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2020 14:22:16 GMT
I am processing a significant shipment of my book to an educational distributor but then I got the message attached. I am at loss and nearly in despair. Wow.
Hmmm...
Check that that you're in the UK store.
Seesh, everything is complicated.
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Post by benziger on Jul 21, 2020 15:41:47 GMT
Check that that you're in the UK store. I never heard from a UK shop of Lulu. I know only www.lulu.com/shop. I tried www.lulu.co.uk, but this looks to be something else. Can anyone unlock the secret of the British bookshop?
Honestly, I'd be interested how to switch countries and currencies. I see books in the shop and the price in $, but when I put them in the shopping cart, the price change to €. Now that Lulu has abolished the prices in Swiss Francs, it would be nice if I could buy in $ and only have a one-time exchange rate loss. But the question at support how to set the currency has been unanswered for three months.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2020 18:10:45 GMT
Check that that you're in the UK store. I never heard from a UK shop of Lulu. I know only www.lulu.com/shop. I tried www.lulu.co.uk, but this looks to be something else. Can anyone unlock the secret of the British bookshop?
Honestly, I'd be interested how to switch countries and currencies. I see books in the shop and the price in $, but when I put them in the shopping cart, the price change to €. Now that Lulu has abolished the prices in Swiss Francs, it would be nice if I could buy in $ and only have a one-time exchange rate loss. But the question at support how to set the currency has been unanswered for three months.
It doesn't exist anymore.  I just logged in and went through every nook and cranny.
It used to. Up top on the right. A small arrow pointing down.
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Post by benziger on Jul 21, 2020 19:57:10 GMT
Lulu.com Support Case 02523280: When did Lulu stop delivering to the United Kingdom? When will Lulu cease operations altogether? (Deadshot's picture included)
Lulu.com Support Case 02523283: Where can I set the currency? Why does the currency keep changing? I see all $ in the bookshop and € in the shopping cart.
Since neither $, € nor £ is my currency, I want to select the most appropriate one. How can I do this?
Tickets are still closed within seconds and must be opened again. Apparently (according to Lulu), support ist still "facing an extremely high volume of support cases and is unable to send personal replies to everyone".
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Post by Deadshot on Jul 22, 2020 5:39:35 GMT
Thanks Benziger for logging this with Support.
As I wanted to honour the order put forward by the Ed distributor, I had eventually to ship 210 books to the UAE branch instead of the UK. As an author I had to stomach £300 in extra cost for shipment. The distributor had already sent me the money I quoted (based on UK delivery)so I had to make a decision and go with it.
So Lulu has just cost me £300 because of god-knows-what in their system. I am not happy at all. (Yes, I am grateful for the order but that's beside the point).
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Post by Deadshot on Jul 22, 2020 5:42:10 GMT
Thanks Benziger for logging this with Support. As I wanted to honour the order put forward by the Ed distributor, I had eventually to ship 210 books to the UAE branch instead of the UK. As an author I had to stomach £300 in extra cost for shipment. The distributor had already sent me the money I quoted (based on UK delivery)so I had to make a decision and go with it. So Lulu has just cost me £300 because of god-knows-what in their system. I am not happy at all. (Yes, I am grateful for the order but that's beside the point). Plus, the discount option we used to have... That would have been very useful as they would have used my discount code and did their own shipping etc... Frustrating that with upgrades fewer services are offered than before. I thought progress meant doing better/more not worse/less. |
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Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Jul 23, 2020 19:42:41 GMT
The main differences when you had the option to click a country of choice's flag was what currency was displayed, (and also a small selection of languages such as French and Spanish). I recall from the English 'site' option was that book sizes in Create were also in metric and also as actual imperial names (A5 etc.,) and had differing options to the US. But, it was all still processed by Lulu US, it was not actually in the selected country. (Or we could have been paid from those countries with their tax rules …)
I am amazed by that 'we do not deliver to ...' popup because one of the concepts behind Lulu was that they would deliver to almost anywhere, trying to make it more practical by having an order printed as close as possible to the delivery address. Some items would only be printed in the US, though, but that did not rule out being delivered to almost anywhere, if one was willing to pay the cost. Perhaps it's a temp rule due to the pandemic rules? Hard to deliver to another country when no planes or ships are operating!
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Post by Deadshot on Jul 24, 2020 6:11:34 GMT
The main differences when you had the option to click a country of choice's flag was what currency was displayed, (and also a small selection of languages such as French and Spanish). I recall from the English 'site' option was that book sizes in Create were also in metric and also as actual imperial names (A5 etc.,) and had differing options to the US. But, it was all still processed by Lulu US, it was not actually in the selected country. (Or we could have been paid from those countries with their tax rules …) I am amazed by that 'we do not deliver to ...' popup because one of the concepts behind Lulu was that they would deliver to almost anywhere, trying to make it more practical by having an order printed as close as possible to the delivery address. Some items would only be printed in the US, though, but that did not rule out being delivered to almost anywhere, if one was willing to pay the cost. Perhaps it's a temp rule due to the pandemic rules? Hard to deliver to another country when no planes or ships are operating! It is a mystery. They shipment request to the UAE was accepted. So they can ship to far away places. Unless the UK notified them of something different - which I doubt. |
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Post by Deadshot on Jul 24, 2020 6:18:32 GMT
Something else that is rather annoying. The shipping address form will not accept input beyond a certain length. I tried to enter the Company Name 'All Prints Distributors and Publishers' and I had to take the last two words out for the transaction to move on to the next step.
I am not aware of any 'indystry-standard' recommendation for company name length! As I build websites in my spare time, the fix is absolutely simple. Go figure.
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Post by benziger on Jul 24, 2020 8:16:18 GMT
Thanks Benziger for logging this with Support. Maybe you open a ticket, you too. You could then also enter the order number or the project number. This will allow Lulu people to take a more sophisticated view of things. I would also open a ticket regarding the much too short names on the order forms.
If Lulu still has too many tickets, it's up to them to prioritize them in a first triage. (You will receive a message within seconds that your ticket is already closed. You will have to "answer" for the ticket to be processed. With such individual problems you can do this without hesitation. The address form also seems to be unknown, so reopen it immediately so that someone can take care of it - here maybe only in second priority.) |
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Post by Deadshot on Jul 25, 2020 7:23:23 GMT
Support ticket created (Lulu.com Support Case 02524713)
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Post by Deadshot on Jul 28, 2020 15:11:24 GMT
So...... I opened a support ticket and I got the instant reply ..etc...etc... and then the real person's reply. I think it's very polite and reads genuinely helpful. Email below minus some personal details. My problem has not been solved but there's consolation in knowing that someone will try to fix this and now they know about it. Someone else will benefit....
Some silver lining for me and possibly others... I did not know about the bulk order guy! Ha! Now I do and I will certainly make a point of emailing him/her in the future.
Here's their email. Bonne lecture.
Dear XXXXXXX,
First of all, I would like to apologize the for the issues you've experienced during check out.
I was able to replicate the order, but did not find the error that you sent a screenshot showing. We do certainly ship to the UK, so this error message is simply not accurate, and I apologize for any confusion. I will be reporting this to the appropriate team for further investigation.
Though the wording is not right, this error is most likely appearing due to an error with the address. I used the following address that I checked against Google to enter with the order, and I was successful.
All Prints Distributors & Pub.
XXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXX
United Kingdom
I have also attached a screenshot of my page to show the shipping options I received. However, they are in USD.
As for the character limit, these are set to ensure that all information can be clearly printed on the packaging labels for the carrier companies.
In addition, I do see that you are placing an order for more than 100 books. We can also recommend that you reach out bulkquote@lulu.com to speak with our bulk specialist representative as well to provide custom quotes based on the specifications and quantity you need.
Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Kind regards,
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Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Jul 29, 2020 0:42:23 GMT
Lulu do ship to the UK, but I doubt they have for quite a few months. The skies have been devoid of planes, as have the ports, of ships that is, not planes. That's slowly being relaxed now though. On and off, they can't seem to make their minds up here.
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Post by And still Kevin 2024 on Jul 29, 2020 0:43:30 GMT
Oh, and yes, Lulu do have a bulk option, but the saving is never great unless you order 1000s. Then I doubt POD is used.
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I just logged in and went through every nook and cranny.
