Holiday Preparation: Avoiding Print-on-Demand Production & Shipping Delays

Publishing 5 min read

Fall is nearly here. And with it comes the annual boost in shopping. This is the time of year you’ll be focused on reaching new readers, providing discounts, and delighting your fans.

What you don’t want to be doing is worrying about shipping logistics.

This quick guide goes through some of the potential delays your customers might experience when you sell your books or calendars on demand. I’ll also offer a timeline you can use to help understand how long a book takes to order, print, and ship.

Now is the time to prepare before the holiday rush starts!

What Causes Shipping Delays?

According to Shopify, there are five primary causes of shipping delays:

Labor shortages
Holidays
Extreme weather
Supply chain issues
Inaccurate shipping information

They do a great job of further defining each, so I won’t rehash it here. But there is one common factor among all five causes that should stand out to you: each one is (largely) outside of your control.

You can’t control the weather, when holidays will happen, or if your customers can type their mailing address accurately. That leaves most entrepreneurs and independent creators stuck: you can’t make products ship faster, and you can’t make your customers order early enough that shipping delays aren’t a factor. You are, very unfortunately, at the mercy of the postal service.

And because you’re creating and selling books using print-on-demand (or POD), you’re also at the mercy of your print-on-demand company’s timeline, product supplies, and fulfillment schedule.

Publishing and Print-On-Demand

When it comes to shopping and buying products online, there are two distinct ‘sourcing’ methods that can cause some confusion. The historical method is to source a product from a warehouse. This one is pretty easy to understand.

Let’s say I want to buy a lamp. I go online, find the lamp I want, and order it. An automated system sends my request to the appropriate warehouse. Someone at the warehouse finds the lamp and packs it up for shipping.

Bam! I’ve got a sweet new lamp!

Because the product is just waiting and ready for someone to buy it, the process of fulfilling an order from a warehouse can be fast (thanks, Amazon).

The other method uses print-on-demand services to create and ship your product. For some goods, this is necessary because the product is customized before ordering. Like a book of family photos with customized introductions for each family member.

Print-on-demand is great for custom products but does require longer production times. That lamp can ship and arrive in a matter of days or even hours.

My custom photo book has to first be checked to ensure it can print, then sent to a printer to be printed and bound. Once all of that is done, it is added to a shipment and picked up by the carrier. Only then does it start the journey to my mom’s doorstep.

Planning Ahead for the Holiday Shopping Season

For all the awesome things Amazon brings us, Prime Shipping has created one huge problem for every business creating custom and on-demand products: the expectation of speed.

It’s an unrealistic expectation. While you can get an item that’s been sitting in a warehouse packaged and shipped in very little time, custom products take longer. To get your book to your customer, we have to print the order. Then your book has to be bound, packaged, and shipped.

That takes time.

And since this process is out of your control and could still be impacted by weather no one can control, you have to be prepared.

Here’s where you can do something. You can ensure your site and ecommerce store are working perfectly, that your books are flawlessly designed, and that you’ve got a customer support system in place in case anything does go awry.

Selling books online through your ecommerce platform (using Lulu Direct) is a great way to sell to your fans, earn the most from each sale, and control your product. But you’ll still have to allow for standard shipping times and keep a watch on holiday shipping deadlines to ensure your customers know what to expect and can get your book delivered in time for the holidays.

Customer Education

During the holiday season, you’ll likely make an added push to attract new readers. That’s just smart marketing.

You have to remember that new customers might not be familiar with print-on-demand for books. It’s important that you make it clear on your product pages that your books will take a little bit of time to arrive.

Preparation + Print-On-Demand

For print-on-demand retailers like you, delays in shipping and shortages of material may impact the printers. Then there are inevitable delays in shipping, either due to weather or the extreme demand for deliveries.

Printing

Most orders Lulu prints take only a day or two from the time of order, but with the holidays approaching, we expect that print time to grow.

The first thing you should do is order some books now. Get a box of your books to have on hand, ready to use for fulfilling rush or last-minute orders. It’s always been smart to keep some books stocked and available; with the potential for delays in shipping and printing, it’s likely to be necessary.

If you rely on retailers (like the Lulu Bookstore) to sell your books, you’ll need to focus instead on sharing information with your readers. Start marketing for your holiday sales earlier than in years past and share information about delays from a variety of sources.

Shipping

Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot you can do to allow for shipping delays.

In the fourth quarter, carriers always experience an increase in delays and lost or damaged orders. It’s just natural when they’re trying to get more packages delivered in a short timeframe.

When you are messaging your readers (and potential readers) about inevitable delays in shipping, be sure to encourage them to order early and plan for the longest predicted shipping time.

Potential Delays For Lulu

We expect our printers to need a couple of extra days for some orders, and we anticipate unpredictable shipping delays. You can use our Pricing Calculator to see Lulu’s shipping time estimates—we keep this page updated so you’ll always see the most accurate estimate for shipping times we can offer.

That doesn’t mean you can’t have a successful holiday season, though! You just need to plan ahead and actively share information with your readers. To help you plan your holiday sales, we’ve created this infographic to help you plan around potential delays in printing or shipping.