delivery service lost to Uber, Thuisbezorgd and FNV

• Charlotte Klein

  Economics editor

After years of fighting to be the biggest, legal disputes with the union and stories about illegal immigrants working for the platform, Deliveroo’s adventure in the Netherlands has come to an end. About 4500 delivery men and 50 employees will do something else from November 30th.

According to the UK delivery service, they don’t make enough money here. The company says it generates 1% of its revenue from the Netherlands and wants to focus on countries where it is a bigger player.

But there’s more, experts tell NOS. Like an impending Supreme Court ruling and the fact that borrowing money is no longer free.

The legal troubles started in 2017 when Deliveroo announced work only with freelancers as delivery boys, much to the indignation of the FNV union. Since then, several judges in the Netherlands have considered the question: are delivery men really self-employed or do they belong to permanent employment?

Last year the appellate court decided that the knights should actually receive permanent employment. In December and February (the case has been split in two), the Supreme Court, the highest court in the Netherlands, will hear the matter.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Deliveroo leaves the Netherlands three weeks early,” says platform economy expert Martijn Arets. “When a similar law was introduced in Spain, they left there too.”

Some delivery drivers are disappointed with Deliveroo’s departure, saying:

To accommodate delivery drivers, Deliveroo – in negotiations with the union – introduced a compensation scheme equipped. This is not a severance pay, says Anja Dijkman, director of FNV, because Deliveroo emphatically does not recognize delivery drivers as employees.

Delivery drivers had until 8 November to sign on and, according to Deliveroo, 90% did. Salient detail of that agreement: “Deliveroo and the rider grant each other final discharge and therefore waive all claims against each other.”

If Deliveroo loses to the Supreme Court and has to retroactively hire its couriers on a permanent basis, the couriers who have signed on can then not claim any follow-up payments.

Why then did the union agree to this? Dijkman: “It’s a reasonable rate, especially for foreign-born couriers, of which there are many. They won’t easily start legal proceedings here and they can choose for themselves.”

Those weren’t the only problems, Arets says: “The era of free money is over. You could borrow and invest for little money, but interest rates are now rising, and that makes investors more critical.”

Eva de Mol of CapitalT, an investment firm that mostly invests money in startups, recognizes this trend. She describes Deliveroo’s problem as two-fold: people spend less anyway and run out of food quickly. Also, in her eyes, these types of companies have been worth far more on paper than they really are.

De Mol: “Over the past few years, entire industries have been knocked out of the ground by that cheap money. For example, not a penny has been made in flash delivery, but billions have been invested in it. But what do you actually gain from someone who do you sell a pack of diapers? late delivery?” In that regard, it is now survival of the fittestinstead of survival of the richest, she thinks. “You are seeing investment drying up in ‘nice to have’ companies and the focus is shifting to what we need.”

The latter trend is visible among flash delivery drivers. One after another hit the market at lightning speed last year, but the decline is almost as rapid. Zapp has already left the Netherlands and the Gorillas have withdrawn from several cities.

Customers are also dropping out. Data from market researcher GfK shows that the number of users has dropped by a third since the spring. About half of the remaining customers expect to order less.

Getir is now busy taking over competitor Gorilla. This is not the case for meal delivery companies in the Netherlands, although Thuisbezorgd and UberEats will prey on Deliveroo couriers.