The delivery market does not give any gifts. Relais Colis, one of the historic operators of delivery to relay points and homes in France, has just reached a milestone: the company has officially filed a request for placement in receivership. The information, revealed on Friday March 13, quickly circulated in professional circles in the sector, and confirms already persistent rumors.
After belonging to the La Redoute group, the company founded in 1969 was finally bought in March 2022 by the Walden group, which then intended to consolidate its transport division and open up to BtoC delivery on a national scale. At the time, the ambition was clear: Relais Colis represented an ideal entry point into the retail delivery market, with its 6,300 collection points and 45 million parcels processed each year. Four years later, the situation is completely different.
A changing market
The parcel delivery sector in France is in full convulsion. Competition is fierce, driven by giants like Colissimo, DPD, Amazon Logistics and Chronopost, without forgetting Mondial Relay, a subsidiary of the Polish group InPost, which had 200 million packages delivered in France last year. The latter has not been content with dominating the market, since it has recently transformed it, with the help of automatic deposits.
For Relais Colis, stuck between heavyweights with strong backs and a structural change in the sector, the situation has visibly deteriorated to the point of making recourse to judicial protection inevitable. Judicial recovery is not liquidation: it opens an observation period during which the judicial administrator evaluates viable options. The stated objective remains the maintenance of activity and the preservation of jobs.
6,300 partner businesses waiting
The question that now arises is that of the future of the network. For the 6,300 partner businesses, tobacconists, grocery stores, dry cleaners and florists who receive Relais Colis parcels daily, the situation is worrying.
The question of the takeover of Relais Colis will be decisive in knowing whether this historic network will survive in one form or another, or whether its 6,300 partner points will have to turn to other brands to continue bringing in parcels and customers. The market has no shortage of candidates for consolidation, and a number of giants in the sector should respond in the event of a proven sale.
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