Fastway has gone out of business has it?
Well, the company behind Fastway Couriers Ireland has entered receivership and that means there are serious concerns over the future of 300 people who are employed directly by the company not to mention the 700 others who work for it on a contract basis – mostly delivering the parcels.
How big is Fastway anyway?
It is a pretty big player in Ireland and handles around 20 million deliveries annually. It has two big sorting hubs – in Cork and Dublin – and more than 20 smaller depots dotted around the country, as well as administrative offices in Dublin. Its clients include fashion brands Boohoo, Pretty Little Thing, Zalando, Missguided and Very.
That is a big footprint all right. But why has it been struggling when online deliveries seem to be flying?
A spokesman for the Nuvion Group, which also includes Parcel Connect and Nügo said the “business has faced sustained inflation, rising operating costs and ongoing price pressures across the parcels market, which have made it no longer viable in its current form”.
[ Hundreds of jobs under threat as Fastway Couriers enters receivershipOpens in new window ]
But other companies seem to be doing okay?
That is part of the problem some of the other companies are doing – at least from Fastway’s perspective – too well.
RM Block
What do you mean by that?
An Post is the big player in the Irish delivery market and it has been very astute in growing its parcel services in recent years. It has massive economy of scale advantages and a very well established delivery network and can offer retailers rates that smaller players like Fastway have struggled to compete with.
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Is An Post is the only well funded competitor that companies like Fastway has to deal with?
Not even remotely. Then there is Amazon which has a huge delivery network of its own and a massive fulfilment centre just outside Dublin city that can get products to consumers within a day in many cases and that makes it even more challenging for other delivery companies.
And what impact will this have on consumers?
In the short term, the impact will not be insignificant and could see people waiting longer than they might like for deliveries. Fastway delivers around 30,000 parcels a day and there are around 50,000 parcels and packages currently in its system and sitting in its large sorting centres in Cork and Dublin or in its smaller delivery hubs around the country.
Delays in getting these to the consumers who ordered them are inevitable. That point has been accepted by the receivers but they have committed to working with retailers who have contracts with the company to minimise any impact.
And what about longer term?
While the receivership will cause headaches for retailers who have been using Fastway, those issues should be easy enough to resolve. As it stands, Fastway will not be accepting any new deliveries so retailers who are processing orders now will have no choice but to go to other operators in the sector.
That might cause problems for delivery companies who already have full order books but consumers will be hoping they will not see too many delays.
What happens if a parcel I am expecting today or tomorrow – one that is already in the Fastway system – doesn’t get to me?
It is important to note that a consumer’s contract is not with a delivery company but with the retailer they bought the product from.
That means that if a product goes missing or never shows up or is delayed for too long the retailer and not the consumer is on the hook and it is the retailer who will have to send out a replacement or issue a full refund.
So how long will I have to wait until I get on to the shop if my delivery hasn’t shown up?
Unless otherwise stated in the Ts&Cs you should expect to wait no longer than 30 days for a product to be delivered. There is probably no point in contacting any retailers immediately as they will just tell you to wait and see what happens.
But if it goes beyond the 30 days and you still have not received your order then you will have to contact the shop and alert them to that fact after which they will have to honour their contractual obligations to you.
“If the delivery cannot be rearranged within a suitable period, or where the delivery of the goods is no longer appropriate in the circumstances, consumers have the right to cancel their order due to non-delivery and receive a full refund, including delivery fees. The retailer must refund the consumer within 14 days,” the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) said on Wednesday.
Are the difficulties Fastway has likely to be seen again?
It is hard to say. Online shopping is only getting more popular and a huge volume of parcels is travelling through the Irish delivery network every day with deliveries ramping up in the weeks ahead with Black Friday, Cyber Monday and – of course Christmas looming.
That will see a huge demand for the services of delivery companies and it will place huge demands on their drivers but all the extra business and the higher expectations comes at a cost to many of the smaller players in the sector.
