One of the country’s largest garden and outdoor living retailers has apologised to customers left waiting for extended periods for products after one of its main suppliers went into administration.
Rathwood Garden & Living has been operating from large premises on the Wicklow-Carlow border for just over 30 years and has expanded in recent years with concessions in other retail outlets as well as a significant online presence.
It also hosts a series of popular themed family events, including those centred on Halloween and Christmas.
Since early this year, however, customer dissatisfaction and concerns with the retailer have been mounting, with people contacting The Irish Times to complain about long delays in orders being fulfilled and problems getting in touch with the company to inquire about the status of products that have been paid for.
Others have highlighted how orders were rescheduled repeatedly for delivery before, ultimately, being cancelled with little or no explanation from the company as to what was going on.
The level of frustration has increased in recent weeks.
Rathwood Garden & Living has acknowledged there have been problems since earlier this year. But the company stressed it had significantly expanded its customer support since the start of summer, sourced new funding and developed more robust supply chains as it worked through the order backlog.
“Over Christmas, Mercer Agencies, a key supplier who made up more than 70 per cent of our supply chain, suddenly went into administration,” said company managing director James Keogh.
“The impact was severe. It forced us to rebuild huge parts of our operation and the reality is that some of our customers were affected as a result.”
He said the company had secured a multimillion euro cash injection from a strategic investor and had been “able to get back on our feet, restoring core brands, securing new partnerships and putting better systems in place”.
However, Mr Keogh said the process of rebuilding after the setback connected to the breakdown of the relationship with its main supplier had not been without its challenges.
He accepted that “orders were delayed, lead times increased and communication sometimes fell short of what we expect from ourselves. We’re not going to shy away from that. We know we let some people down – and we’re truly sorry”.
He said 90 staff, including those employed in the restaurant on the premises in Co Wicklow and in its events programme, had been redeployed to help with customer support and hundreds of consumers who had faced delays have been offered vouchers for its restaurant and popular Santa Train experience.
He committed to continue working to resolve outstanding issues and expressed confidence that the bulk of these would be resolved before the end of this month.
