Australia Post rival Sendle shuts down operations leaving small businesses in limbo. Popular parcel delivery service Sendle has abruptly ceased operations, leaving Australian small businesses scrambling. The company, which positioned itself as an alternative to Australia Post, sent out an email to customers advising it would be halting all bookings for pickup and delivery "effective immediately". Customers were told parcels already picked up and in transit would be delivered "at the discretion of the delivery partner", including eBay, Shopify and Woo Commerce. Any existing bookings scheduled for pickup on January 12 or later will be cancelled. "We understand this may be disruptive to your business and we apologise for any inconvenience caused," the email sent to customers on Sunday morning said. In a statement provided to Yahoo Finance, Sendle said it had told customers that it was no longer taking any future bookings. "We are not able to provide any further comment at this time," the company said. Sendle started in 2014 in Australia and it claimed to have shipped more than 65 million parcels across three countries since its inception. Small business owners have shared their surprise over the shutdown online. Siddament, a Sydney business providing 3D printing materials, told customers it had been repacking all orders since Friday, and was now out of pocket by around $4,000. "I'm very sorry for the delay. This is going to take a day longer than expected. The site is disabled until we ship all pending orders," the business advised customers. CLD Fabrication, a Victorian metal fabrication business, told customers it received no warning ahead of the shutdown. "This affects us majorly as the good shipping prices allowed us to do flat rate shipping as well as the free shipping threshold," the business wrote. Deliveries cancelled months after US merger. In August last year, Sendle merged with FirstMile and ACI Logistix to form a new company called FAST Group. At the time, co-founder and chief executive, James Chin Moody, said he would continue to run Sendle from Sydney, and there would be no immediate impact on its workforce of 180 people. Sendle is backed by investors, including Federation Asset Management, Touch Ventures, Rampersand and King River Capital. However, Sydney-based Federation Asset Management reportedly froze investor withdrawals from its $100 million Federation Alternatives Investment Fund II in December.

Sendle are currently working on a new Delivered Duty Paid service - which will be available next month but just to be clear all prices for US Citizens will be imposed an additional 10% tax (which I believe is the current tariff for Australian import... but who knows!)