A Practical Guide for Retailers Needing to Stabilise Fulfilment, Fast  

When Fastway Couriers Ireland entered receivership this week, it left many retailers and fulfilment providers facing an immediate challenge: keeping orders moving when your main courier suddenly goes offline.

The disruption has been severe for merchants using Fastway's integrations or franchise network: uncollected parcels, tracking failures, and customer service teams flooded with delivery queries.

The situation underscores a truth every retailer eventually faces: you can't afford to have your fulfilment flow tied to one courier. Here's how to act quickly and rebuild delivery stability when things go wrong.

Step 1: Assess Your Current Exposure  

Start by identifying exactly where your processes depend on the affected courier:  

• Which sales channels (Shopify, TikTok, Amazon, etc) route orders through that carrier?  

• How many shipments are currently in transit or awaiting collection?  

• Which parts of your system (label generation, tracking, returns) rely on their API or data feed?  

You’ll need this map to understand how wide the disruption is and where to plug in replacements.  

Step 2: Communicate Early with Customers  

Customers care less about which courier is used and more about whether their parcel arrives on time.  

Be upfront about potential delays, offer transparent tracking updates, and set realistic expectations. A short, proactive update can prevent days of customer frustration and refund requests later.  

Step 3: Integrate a Replacement Courier Quickly  

This is where speed matters most. With Voila, retailers can connect to leading courier networks (DPD, AnPost, Royal Mail, Evri, DHL, UPS, FedEx, GLS, and more) through a single API, without reengineering their fulfilment setup.

Step 4: Reconcile In-Flight Orders  

Parcels already handed to Fastway may take time to process through receivership.  

To minimise confusion:  

• Keep copies of manifests and tracking IDs.   

• Use Voila's centralised shipment dashboard to track statuses and flag exceptions.

• Update customers proactively if tracking freezes or the courier confirms delays.  

Maintaining complete visibility, even during uncertainty, is key to protecting customer confidence.   

Step 5: Future-Proof Your Courier Setup  

Once the immediate crisis is under control, it’s time to prevent the same issue from happening again.  

With Voila, retailers can create multi-carrier rules based on destination, weight, SLA, or cost, ensuring no single courier is ever a single point of failure.

If one network experiences issues, Voila automatically reroutes shipments through an alternative, keeping orders flowing and customers informed without manual intervention.  

The Takeaway  

Courier failures are unpredictable, but your response doesn't have to be. The Fastway receivership highlights how fragile delivery networks can be, and how vital it is to have systems that let you switch, reroute and recover quickly.

With Voila's single API, multi-carrier rules, and real-time visibility, retailers can move from crisis response to operational resilience in hours, not weeks.

Talk to us if you need help switching couriers quickly.