Ynot Posted December 29, 2014 Share Posted December 29, 2014 I was a little surprised to hear of the fall of one of the regular carriers I've had deliveries via over the years. CityLink were actually one of the better ones - a couple of the local guys even realised some time ago that they'd have deliveries for me both at the theatre as well as my home address, so if I wasn't at one, they'd often take a punt and try me at the other - which is in many ways excellent service. With some carriers even if you ASK them to use a different address they won't even consider it. Flints are one such supplier who've used them (amongst others) and just seen a message on their FB page from Alasdair apologising to any Flints customers who may have been caught by this. He does say that they're ringing round anyone who they did send out to in the last week or so to check if they got their goods, so hopefully they'll be sorted. But is anyone else affected directly by this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerry davies Posted December 29, 2014 Share Posted December 29, 2014 Not affected but if anyone thinks they have goods in transit or at depots then waste no time and sort out collection ASAP. Any undelivered parcels stand more than a very good chance of being destroyed very soon. Spare a thought for the so-called self-employed who have bought vehicles and now have no work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted December 29, 2014 Share Posted December 29, 2014 Indeed - my local guy was telling me how he'd had to pay for his van wrap and how expensive it was, plus the load he'd taken out for the van itself. I wasn't listening that well, but I'm sure he told me he got less than a pound a delivery? That can't be right surely - I suppose with lots of deliveries it might have been viable in a small area, but I do feel for all the owner/drivers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themadhippy Posted December 29, 2014 Share Posted December 29, 2014 but I'm sure he told me he got less than a pound a delivery? That can't be right surely -Indeed, it sounds to much when others are paying 25p-50p a parcel,self employed of course Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamharman Posted December 29, 2014 Share Posted December 29, 2014 Might just about be viable in towns, but no hope in rural areas! When I get deliveries from DPD / Interlink / whatever the other one is with decent tracking, even a 6pm delivery is only usually drop 70-80 and they've driven 100+ miles. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the kid Posted December 29, 2014 Share Posted December 29, 2014 im sure City link used to take anyones custom but a few years ago when I tried they said I needed an account and to do a good couple of grand a month worth of business with them. I am sure other people operate like that but that model alone seems crazy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigclive Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 In this era of e-commerce I find it strange that a courier has actually gone bust. Especially when Yodel actually had to stop taking further packages due to being absolutely maxed out just before Xmas. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 Even from far, far away, this seems odd. Courier deliveries are on the up and up as folks buy more and more stuff online, its postal services that are supposed to be under stress due to falling volumes of mail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyb Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 We had a lucky escape. We had just signed up to move our courier business to city link. Or first collection was scheduled for the 6th Jan. The thermal printer arrived on the Friday before they declared out. A rep from another firm had suggested to us that their time was up but had put a date on of the end of January. They apparently had a number of debts due for payment then. Incredibly harsh on their employees, but from a practical point of view I imagine the 40000 parcels left in the network is the lowest number at any point in the year. Andrew Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
timsabre Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 It's a highly competitive market though. Just because everyone wants parcels delivering doesn't guarantee a profitable business. It's all too easy to be very busy but not profitable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ImagineerTom Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 I've had nothing but problems with them for several years - they are too reliant on your local driver being a "good egg" as described above. Our office is in the city centre but a residential bit (so delivering to us means you're ONLY delivering to us, not several nearby address's) which means that without fail if they have just one parcel for us it'll be days before it's delivered but they would enter on the system that they attempted delivery and left a card. Getting stuff delivered to site was a similar problem; if it's a big building in a built up area with a reception desk right at the front then we're ok, if it's "deliver to stage door" or "deliver to the big top in the park" then again, mysteriously they would visit several times and claim no-one was in before finally delivering days later. We reached the point last summer where we asked all suppliers to NOT ship to us using city link because of the stress and expense they caused us. Despite that one company has insisted on shipping all our consumables for a Christmas show via them - according to the citylink website the driver had visited us 5 times and found the (circus tent, open and lived in 24/7) "building closed" in the middle of december. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Junior8 Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 Miss J8 came home just before Xmas reporting that City Link had written to unload smaller customers below a certain number of consignments - she predicted their iminent demise. Her customer experience was much the same as Tom's over the years. As a side issue, after all the debates we've had on yer about self-emplyed status it does seem mighty strange that someone can operate on a self-employed basis in a van liveried for one client! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GR1 Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 They are not self employed as they are operating as employees of a franchise which is contracted to City Link. They may in practice end up being self employed but they should be employees and pay all the taxes and claim all the deductions that any business with employees would. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the kid Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 Ah the ol' Amazon trick (not strictly Amazon) where you dont work for Amazon you work for a company that is NOT Amazon (on the outside but is a shell company) who is employed by Amazon to contract staff in the warehouse. Though it might be standard practice with lots of people, like the BT open reach guys, the AA / RAC. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
themadhippy Posted December 30, 2014 Share Posted December 30, 2014 And it looks like the tax payer yet again is picking up the redundancy bill whilst those at the top walk away scot free to donate another fee grand to the torys coffers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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