Sendle Shutdown 2026: What Happened and What to Do Next

Last updated: July 2026

What happened to Sendle

Sendle stopped accepting new parcel bookings and pickups on 11 January 2026. The shutdown was abrupt: the directors of parent company FAST Group had voted to cease operations the previous day, and support operations wound down alongside deliveries. The Australian and Canadian businesses closed.

On 25 February 2026, roughly six weeks later, Sendle formally entered creditors' voluntary liquidation. Shaun Fraser and Jason Preston of McGrathNicol were appointed liquidators, per documents filed with ASIC.

Sendle had operated for about twelve years and raised in the region of $100 million. It positioned itself as an Australia Post challenger for small business, and for many small sellers it was the default way to ship.

Why Sendle collapsed

The collapse traces to a merger rather than to Sendle's own delivery operation. On 7 August 2025, Sendle announced a three-way merger with two US logistics companies, ACI Logistix and FirstMile, forming FAST Group.

After the deal closed, Federation Asset Management — which held roughly 64% of FAST Group's capital — identified significant deficiencies in ACI Logistix's financial records. Federation froze redemptions in its Federation Alternatives Investment Fund II. An emergency capital injection of about A$12 million and changes in leadership did not resolve it.

FAST Group's own statement was direct: "Despite these efforts and the progress made in building a differentiated platform, we were ultimately unable to secure the capital required to sustain operations."

The lesson for merchants is not about parcels. It is that a logistics partner can be operationally fine and still disappear because of something happening two levels up in its ownership structure.

If you shipped with Sendle, do these three things

1. Stop quoting Sendle rates in your checkout. Any live rate integration or saved shipping profile referencing Sendle needs removing so customers are not sold a service that cannot be fulfilled.
2. Account for parcels already in the system. Consignments picked up before the shutdown were left to be delivered at the discretion of third-party delivery partners rather than under a guarantee. Reconcile what actually arrived before assuming a refund position with your own customers.
3. Register as a creditor if you are owed money. Liquidation is a formal process with appointed liquidators. If you are out of pocket, that claim goes through McGrathNicol, not through customer support.

We are not able to tell you what any individual will recover, and nobody honestly can while a liquidation is in progress. Treat any site promising a specific refund outcome with suspicion.

Replacing Sendle: carrier aggregator or 3PL?

Sendle's stranded customers split into two groups, and they need different answers.

If you pick and pack your own orders, you need another carrier or carrier aggregator — a service that buys rates in bulk and gives you labels. Shippo, EasyShip, ShipStation and EasyPost all operate in this space, as do the national carriers directly. Compare on the routes you actually ship, not on headline rates: a price that looks good domestically can be poor on the lanes that make up most of your volume.

If shipping has become the bottleneck, this is a natural moment to move fulfilment to a third-party logistics provider instead of replacing one label service with another. A 3PL holds your stock, picks, packs and ships, and absorbs carrier relationships on your behalf.

That second option carries the risk Sendle just demonstrated. Handing your inventory and your delivery promise to one partner concentrates risk, and you will not get an early warning from a press release.

How to not be stranded twice

The pattern we see repeatedly is that a logistics partner performs well while it is winning your business and drifts afterwards. Nobody tells you. Performance decays quietly, and you find out from customer complaints months later.

That is what Forthmatch exists to catch. It is 3PL performance tracking and accountability software for Shopify merchants: it tracks fulfilment speed, flags SLA violations, and generates RFPs using your real order data when you do want to put fulfilment out to tender. Core tracking is free, with pay-per-use pricing for premium features.

To be explicit about what it is not, because this article is about a company that overpromised: Forthmatch is not a 3PL and not a carrier. It does not ship parcels, does not hold your stock in a warehouse, and does not get you shipping rate discounts. It will not replace Sendle. What it does is make your next partner's performance measurable, so a decline shows up as data while you still have time to act on it.

Frequently asked questions

Is Sendle still operating in 2026?

No. Sendle stopped accepting new parcels on 11 January 2026 and entered creditors' voluntary liquidation on 25 February 2026. It is not accepting bookings and is not expected to resume.

When exactly did Sendle shut down?

New bookings and pickups stopped on 11 January 2026. The directors of parent company FAST Group voted to cease operations on 10 January 2026. Formal liquidation followed on 25 February 2026.

Why did Sendle shut down?

Not because of its delivery business. Sendle merged with ACI Logistix and FirstMile in August 2025 to form FAST Group. Its majority backer, Federation Asset Management, later found significant deficiencies in ACI Logistix's financial records, froze the relevant fund, and the group could not raise the capital needed to continue.

What happened to parcels that were already in transit?

Parcels already picked up were left to be delivered at the discretion of the third-party delivery partners carrying them, rather than under any guarantee from Sendle. Some arrived; merchants were not given certainty either way.

Can I still access my Sendle account?

Support operations wound down with the shutdown in January 2026, and the business is now in liquidation. Do not plan around retrieving data or resolving claims through the ordinary account interface; formal claims go through the appointed liquidators.

Is Sendle coming back?

Creditors' voluntary liquidation is the process by which a company is wound up and its assets distributed. A brand can in principle be bought out of liquidation, but no return of the service has been announced, and it would be unwise to hold shipping plans open for one.

What is the best Sendle alternative?

It depends on which problem you are solving. If you ship your own orders, you are looking for another carrier or aggregator and should compare on your actual lanes and parcel profile. If you would rather stop packing boxes, a 3PL is the alternative, and the thing to get right is not the onboarding but the monitoring afterwards.

Was Sendle's collapse a warning about other logistics providers?

It is a warning about concentration and about ownership. Sendle's delivery operation was not what failed. The useful response is not to distrust every carrier but to keep the switch cost low and the performance visible, so that neither a decline in service nor a collapse leaves you without options.