Super-fast delivery companies Gorillas and Getir have officially been liquidated. Their departure marks the end of quick trade in France.
It is the end. On Wednesday July 19, 2023, the Paris Commercial Court ordered the liquidation of Getir and Gorillas, which the Turkish company had bought in December 2022. The two companies will disappear from France, bringing with them nearly 1,300 jobs, mainly delivery people on permanent contracts, according to Le Parisien. However, notes the daily, the company Frichti, which is also part of the Turkish group Getir and has more than 300 employees, has not yet been fixed on its fate at midday “.
With the withdrawal of Getir and Gorillas, the uncertainty around Frichti, and the placement in receivership of Flink, their last competitor, the whole quick trade sector in France is collapsing.
Quick commerce companies in France did not survive
Getir, Gorillas and Flick were companies specializing in quick commerce, that is to say the super fast delivery, in town, of everyday consumer products. To be able to ensure the speed of deliveries, companies relied on armies of delivery men equipped with electric bicycles or scooters, and above all, on dark stores.
These controversial shops were sort of warehouses in which customer orders were prepared before being sent for delivery. Installed in the city center to allow very short delivery times, they could not accommodate customers, and served only as a storage point and logistics center.
Their installation in the city center had been strongly criticized by the mayors of the large French cities in which the companies had settled, such as Paris, Lyon, Toulouse or Nice. Despite the mayors’ protests against dark stores, the government was rather in favor of their establishment.
In March 2023, the Council of State had finally decided: dark stores could no longer be considered as shops, but had to be recognized as warehouses – a categorization which prohibited them from settling in the city center. The city of Paris had thus sued 25 dark stores installed in the capital in order to force them to close.
Between the change in legislation and inflation, business continued to be very difficult, despite the millions of dollars the companies had raised. Getir, who was a leader in the sector and had bought out Gorillas, denounced in June a “ unfavorable contextual environment “.
Numerama had investigated the underside of quick commerce and deliveries in 10 minutes in 2021, when these companies arrived in France. Although the deliverers were employed on permanent contracts, unlike deliverers on platforms such as Deliveroo, bags that were far too heavy and deadlines that were impossible to meet made working conditions very difficult.
If you liked this article, you will like the following ones: do not miss them by subscribing to Numerama on Google News.