Flink soon to be liquidated in France, the shopping delivery platform liquidated Friday April 19

The express home shopping platform Flink, which employs 218 people in France, “will be liquidated” Friday, its management announced to AFP this Thursday, April 18, which declared a cessation of payments before the Paris commercial court.

The company, one of the last to operate in France in this sector, suffered from the inflationary context, “still strong regulatory pressure” and a “disinterest of investors” for the sector, declared President and CEO Guillaume Luscan.

Placed in receivership last June, Flink France was taken over in September by Guillaume Luscan, then its general director, the German parent company and the Algerian start-up Yassir. The new entity was called New Flink France. This takeover then made it possible to maintain 56% of the workforce, or more than 200 employees.

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The Yassir start-up, “specialized in on-demand and payment services, one of the most valuable in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region”according to Guillaume Luscan, had injected five million euros into the company.

But inflation has weighed on product purchasing conditions and regulatory pressure, “who remains strong”would involve investments on the part of New Flink France “significant” to transform a number of its sites, its CEO explained to AFP.

Recent very restrictive regulations

Finally, the “financial context is very difficult”Investors “disinterested in the sector” after the recent disappointments of “quick commerce”or express home delivery of groceries, he concluded.

Indeed, in March 2023, very restrictive regulations put a stop to players in the “quick commerce”. The government decreed that the “dark stores” – these premises where the products to be delivered are stored – were warehouses and not businesses, opening the way to regulation by town halls of this activity, and even to the closure of certain sites.

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The Turkish company Getir, which operated the Getir, Frichti and Gorillas brands, then announced its withdrawal from the French market. Getir and Gorillas had been liquidated, leaving 1,300 employees in the lurch, but Frichti had been taken over by a competitor, La Belle Vie.

Flink, created in 2020 in Germany by logistics and distribution experts, established itself in France in 2021. Its turnover in France amounted to 37.5 million euros.