The express home shopping delivery platform Getir announced on Wednesday that it was leaving the French market and seeking a buyer for “all or part of the group in France”, in a press release sent to AFP. The disposal plan announced by Getir will concern the French company Frichti, owned by the Turkish platform. Its other subsidiary, the German Gorillas, will cease its activities in France.
“The complex legal environment and the regulations imposed by local administrations have made the success of the company very difficult”, justified the French subsidiary of the Turkish giant which had established itself on the national territory in 2021. The same argument had was put forward at the beginning of June by its competitor Flink, which had announced that it was throwing in the towel in France for the same reasons.
The “quick commerce”, which offers the delivery of everyday products in a few minutes by a delivery man on a bicycle or electric scooter, was the catalyst for strong criticism from local residents and elected officials, who denounced pell-mell nuisances, arrival of “warehouse cities” or even development of a “lazy economy”. In March, the government inflicted a final snub on them, decreeing that the “dark stores” – the premises in the city center where products for delivery are stored – were warehouses, not businesses, paving the way for regulation by the town halls of this activity. These premises could be forced to close if the local urban plan (PLU) prohibits this type of activity at their address.
After being placed in receivership at the end of March, like the two other companies he owns (Gorillas and Frichti), Getir announced in May that he was considering the elimination of 900 jobs on national territory, in the three entities. On Wednesday, the group declared that it “will not finance a continuation plan to continue its activities in France”, leaving in uncertainty the approximately 1,800 employees on permanent and fixed-term contracts (according to the CFDT, the Getir group refusing to communicate numbers). “The judicial administrators in charge of the Group’s receivership will open up the possibility for third-party buyers to propose plans for the sale of all or part of the Group in France”, he specified.
Despite a cumulative turnover of the three brands (Getir, Gorillas and Frichti) of the order of 120 million euros in 2022, and in marked growth in recent years, the group totaled 200 million euros in debt on the three entities at the end of March 2023, according to an internal memo to the company that AFP consulted. The announcement of the departure from France is “brutal and disrespectful for these employees who have harbored so much hope in the possibility of the future of the company” regretted Johann Tchissambou, CFDT union representative, in a press release sent to AFP . The trade unionist demanded that the payment of wages be guaranteed until September.
