Booktopia has entered voluntary administration after struggling with the expense of transitioning to a $12 million robot-enabled warehouse facility and to raise further funds.
The Australian e-tailer began building a new highly automated customer fulfilment centre (CFC) in Sydney last year in a bid to support future expansion.
However, due to the CFC’s operational disruption and costs, ASX-listed Booktopia’s most recent half-year revenue and profit took a dive.
Having been in a trading halt since mid-June to secure more funding, the company today announced it had entered voluntary administration, appointing McGrathNicol [pdf].
In February last year, Booktopia secured $12 million in funding to support the building of its CFC in South Strathfield, which would come with an “advanced, scalable, flexible robotics platform that…