Comment from a warehouse worker of Bid

[steveh31]

A member of the warehouse posted a comment on Digital Spy I asked him about working for Bid:

Hi Mick as an employee from start to finish did you see this coming?

At what point do you think the channels started to decline?

As a warehouse op did you see less items leaving the warehouse and they quality of the stock declining quickly?

Best of luck I am being made redundant soon hope you find a new job quickly.

I am employed by the distribution company that picks, packs and ships out the orders from the channels, but the end result is the same.

Yes Steve, we knew this was going to happen sooner rather than later. When I started in 2005 we had two huge warehouses bursting at the seams plus an overspill facility all here in Tamworth. We worked 24/7 on a four on four off 12 hour shift system and probably had around 200 full time and agency workers.

We now operate from half a warehouse with approx 50 employess and no agency.

I would say the decline started around three years ago when it seems customers finally had enough of paying £5.99 then £6.99 then £7.99 for a black plastic bag and delivery plus a premium rate phone call to place an order in the first place.

I wouldn't say the quality of the stock has the declined over the years, it would be more accurate to say the quality has never improved or changed much from the start

 

[Wirral70]

A member of the warehouse posted a comment on Digital Spy I asked him about working for Bid:

Hi Mick as an employee from start to finish did you see this coming?

At what point do you think the channels started to decline?

As a warehouse op did you see less items leaving the warehouse and they quality of the stock declining quickly?

Best of luck I am being made redundant soon hope you find a new job quickly.

I am employed by the distribution company that picks, packs and ships out the orders from the channels, but the end result is the same.

Yes Steve, we knew this was going to happen sooner rather than later. When I started in 2005 we had two huge warehouses bursting at the seams plus an overspill facility all here in Tamworth. We worked 24/7 on a four on four off 12 hour shift system and probably had around 200 full time and agency workers.

We now operate from half a warehouse with approx 50 employess and no agency.

I would say the decline started around three years ago when it seems customers finally had enough of paying £5.99 then £6.99 then £7.99 for a black plastic bag and delivery plus a premium rate phone call to place an order in the first place.

I wouldn't say the quality of the stock has the declined over the years, it would be more accurate to say the quality has never improved or changed much from the start

Of course that could have contributed but I also think many people had simply got sick to death of all the lies, the screeching, the utterly unbearable hard sell from creatures like Mason and Jacks, the ripoff tatt, the endless locking of phonelines, the underhand 'games', the insulting £10 credits which were harder to spend that a Sixpence. I could go on but there's no point now.

There's a lot of reasons these channels went bust. It seems some of the ex-staff don't seem to want to acknowledge most of them which is understandable as they must still be feeling raw. It does seem they've mostly decided that it's easier to just place the majority of blame on the new bosses though, Guy Kean certainly has which in my opinion shows a breathtaking arrogance.

But they might want to take a moment to consider what kind of company those new bosses bought. It was an utter shambles, Merlin would have struggled to sort that shower out. They clearly made mistakes, none more so than the inexplicable format for Price Drop but I think the staff should perhaps be a touch more realistic.

Sit-Up should arguably have gone bust a long time ago. They've been in freefall for years, maybe for the reasons I mentioned. Sadly they were irrelevant in 2014, they were obsolete.

 

[Paul_s]

Of course that could have contributed but I also think many people had simply got sick to death of all the lies, the screeching, the utterly unbearable hard sell from creatures like Mason and Jacks, the ripoff tatt, the endless locking of phonelines, the underhand 'games', the insulting £10 credits which were harder to spend that a Sixpence. I could go on but there's no point now.

There's a lot of reasons these channels went bust. It seems some of the ex-staff don't seem to want to acknowledge most of them which is understandable as they must still be feeling raw. It does seem they've mostly decided that it's easier to just place the majority of blame on the new bosses though, Guy Kean certainly has which in my opinion shows a breathtaking arrogance.

But they might want to take a moment to consider what kind of company those new bosses bought. It was an utter shambles, Merlin would have struggled to sort that shower out. They clearly made mistakes, none more so than the inexplicable format for Price Drop but I think the staff should perhaps be a touch more realistic.

Sit-Up should arguably have gone bust a long time ago. They've been in freefall for years, maybe for the reasons I mentioned. Sadly they were irrelevant in 2014, they were obsolete.

People talk about 200+ employees being made redundant at Bid. And whilst I feel for those behind the scenes (excluding the management and producers who allowed the presenters to lie etc) I also feel sorry for those other companies who lost out due to Sit-up's financial state of affairs. For anyone to allow a company to go into the red by £64m (sixty four million!) is breath taking! and they didn't even file accounts with Companies House since 2011.

Just who is to blame for that and surely some investigation should take place into it all? Whoever allowed it should be banned outright from managing a company in the future (whether from the German owners or the ones who took the reigns towards the end of 2013).

 

[steveh31]

put in separate thread