City Link RIP

mrcol1000

Apparently they went into administration Christmas Eve. Sorry can't post link as on mobile.

Sounds like no one is going to buy them. Business being wound down. No parcels being accepted.

If you sent a parcel with them and its not been delivered yet, being returned to senders local depot for collection.

Also sounds like John Lewis and other retailers who use them have been left high and dry with no contingency plan.

marvin

We posted at the same time different boards

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5141101

mgdavid

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30602326

bad news all round as they were one of the better ones as far as I'm concerned. Reliable, and helpful local driver.

COOLTRIKERCHICK

I used to use them via Parcel Monkey...


and they offered a great service...


shame...


it just shows how cut throat the parcel/delivery service is, either that, the big online retailers have beaten them down on prices too, like the supermarkets and prices they pay the farmers..


Its like no one can make money anymore except the big retailers

Brooker_Dave

COOLTRIKERCHICK wrote: »

Its like no one can make money anymore except the big retailers

Everything is a race to the bottom, customers expecting "free" delivery don't help.

George_Michael

Brooker_Dave wrote: »

customers expecting "free" delivery don't help.

The only reason that some customers expect free delivery is due to the fact that some retailers offer this to try to attract custom then other businesses have to offer the same in order to compete.

If no retailers provided free delivery then it wouldn't be too long before customers stopped expecting it.

RFW

George_Michael wrote: »

If no retailers provided free delivery then it wouldn't be too long before customers stopped expecting it.

One of the biggest put offs for a buyer was clicking through three pages to discover postage is ridiculously high. It has now gone the exact opposite. It's not necessarily the reason behind City Link's failure. Reading up on it, City Link seem to have been losing money for over a decade. Previous owners Rentokil offloaded it in April 2013 for £1, so it was hardly a successful company fallen on hard times.

Its demise seems carefully calculated especially having read of users who were told their accounts were being closed over the last few weeks.

Brooker_Dave

George_Michael wrote: »

The only reason that some customers expect free delivery is due to the fact that some retailers offer this to try to attract custom then other businesses have to offer the same in order to compete.

Ebay and Amazon both really push free delivery, thus forcing the bottom feeders like Citylink and Yodel to offer unprofitable rates and retailers to work for nothing.

I charge £10 for next day, customers are always demanding that it should be cheaper, one called me a thief - but I have to pay to ship stuff, so they do.

mrcol1000

I think we should have a whip round for these "poor" courier firms. It must be awful for them trying to deliver parcels with next to no money for it. Profits below for 2013/2014ish

Hermes Parcelnet £8.9m
DHL £1.5billion
UK Mail-£22.8m
DX- £34.4m
UPS- £2.8billion


Even Yodel is expected to move in to profit next year. Granted DHL and UPS are global companies but UK Mail is a similar size independent company to City Link but still managed to make a few quid.

Personally I found City Link to bit a bit unreliable. I gave up using them after I found 50% of the parcels I sent via them either were not picked up next day or not delivered next day.

I do feel sorry for staff though, the majority found out via the TV news on Christmas Day afternoon. They had been assured in the lead up to Christmas that rumors the company was about to implode were false. The investment company that owned them managed to burn through £40m before deciding enough was enough.

RHemmings

I'm sorry to hear that many CityLink workers have lost their jobs, and wish them well for the future.

My personal experiences with CityLink were from quite a few years ago. Two instances of it being claimed that a card had been left when I was in, and no attempt at delivery was made. After that I mostly was able to avoid them. The two CityLink delivered packages I had after that were addressed to my work, and that seemed to work OK.

Personally I believe that services that allow collection in centralised places such as Collect @ Argos are more convenient for many people. Certainly so for myself, and that this will be the way of the future.

Kernow666

i used city link twice this year ( via parcel2go) and both times they lost my items ( one was a Jagermeister machine )

i do feel sorry for the drivers though some finding out on the news they lost there jobs

off to the foodbank monday morning for them then