In the latest development from House of Fraser, the department store has informed customers that it has cancelled all online orders due to “significant delays”.
The announcement comes just two days after the retailer stated over Twitter that deliveries would be fulfilled “as soon as possible”.
A dispute over payments with the businesses’ distribution centre XPO Logistics has led to XPO refusing to accept goods or process deliveries for HoF.
It’s thought that XPO Logistics have called for new HoF owner Mike Ashley to honour the contract terms it held with its previous owner.
HoF’s concessionaires and suppliers are collectively owed at least £70 million in payments due this week relating to sales in June and July.
However, House of Fraser administrator EY said the amounts owed will not be paid.
XPO could currently be owed tens of millions of pounds, but under the pre-pack administration deal in which House of Fraser was acquired, the purchases are able to discard existing pension liabilities and creditor claims.
As a result, HoF have now contacted shoppers to say they will be cancelling and refunding “all orders that have not already been sent to customers”.
In a statement the retailer said: “We didn’t take this decision lightly, but since we cannot give our customers clear assurances of when their orders will be delivered, we believe cancellation is the best option.”
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2 Comments. Leave new
As with similar pre pack admin deals recently, the apparent lack of morality and ethics in the proceedings tells us a lot about the character of the persons involved … British business seems to be going the way of that in the USA if my viewing of US business practice on youtube is anything to go by. Does this sort of conduct and non payment of invoices suggest a move, in some cases at least, to pro forma invoicing ?
Although this is harsh, at least over 5000 jobs were saved, and although the terms are going to change, I am glad HOF was bought and not liquidated.