Confused customers. Furniture brand Made.com will close and delist from the UK stock exchange on Tuesday, November 1, pending the appointment of a trustee to carry out the liquidation. Present in France, the firm explains that it no longer accepts new orders and cannot proceed with cancellations, returns or refunds at the moment. It leaves several thousand consumers waiting. Your orders of 500, 1000, 2000 euros and sometimes more are suspended.
7400 euros of order and without news
Made.com last officially communicated on Tuesday, announcing its intention to appoint a trustee. And it quietly tweaked the language elements of its website to finally ensure Wednesday night that it could fulfill ongoing orders.
However, no deadline is mentioned, customers mention scheduled delivery times of summer 2023. When asked, the brand declined to comment, referring to its earlier financial communication.
The courier company that insures your orders placed in France, VIR, explains for its part to Business B.F.M. that you cannot continue with the deliveries.
The carrier does not comment on the status of orders in progress, content to specify that “a large part of the order flows are computerized” rather than physical: it considers that it is not in possession of a large part of the orders. (furniture, decorative elements) not yet recognized by Made.com.
So what can distressed customers do who want to make a return or get a refund? The remedies are few and delicate. The first of them goes through the banks: contacted, the UFC-Que-Choisir refers to the recent example of the mattress manufacturer Eve, another English-law company that slammed the door without notifying its customers. The association argued against him for “blocking the payment by contacting his bank.” But he underlined the uncertainty about the continuation of operations.
When the payments have already been made, it is sometimes possible to use insurance, included in the offer of credit cards from certain banks: then you will have to justify the fact that the order has not arrived or is inadequate.
Disputing payments could be difficult for Made.com, as the site is powered by a split payment service (3X payment free of charge) offered by Oney, a French online bank. And Oney, who paid the full amount of the order to Made.com at checkout, only to be refunded later, requires a full refund from the customers in question.
Consumers have also already seized the FEVAD, Federation of electronic commerce and distance selling, and its mediator, who can help find amicable settlements in case of commercial disputes.
frustrated ambitions
Made.com is bearing the brunt of a very difficult period for furniture. Founded in 2010 by Julien Callède, Chloé Macintosh, Brent Hoberman (founder of lastminute.com) and Ning Li (future founder of cosmetics brand Typology), the brand had also been ambitious, leading a European expansion since 2013 and going public. in 2019. The firm had offices in London, Paris, Berlin, and Amsterdam.
But clouds have been gathering for three years: Following the peak of the covid-19 pandemic, which shut down activity, value chains remained in disarray in China, weakened by Xi Jinping’s “covid zero” strategy. Shipping costs have skyrocketed. Along the way, inflation in 2021 and 2022 in energy prices has made deliveries more expensive and materials, such as wood, essential for the sector, more expensive.
Even the giant Ikea is facing difficulties, between the shortage of stocks and the sharp increase in prices. Made.com, for its part, gradually fell on the stock market (losing 99% of its value at the end of October), multiplying attempts to reduce costs. The brand maneuvered to raise additional funds, but the tense macroeconomic context did not allow it to find fresh cash to relaunch. Not strong enough, her kidneys ended up failing.
Source: BFM TV
