Blinds City in liquidation

Based out of Thomastown, Blinds City marketed itself as Australia’s premier online destination for readymade and custom window treatments. 

According to its now defunct website, CEO and Founder Pierre Boutros has been working in the window treatment industry since 2006, involving in both the manufacturing and retailing side. 

“It was during this time that Pierre observed the 40 years old industry and its lack of innovation in its distribution model. The result of this traditional business model is customers always ending up paying more for very limited options,” the company said on the website. 

In 2016 the company announced an official alliance with Australia’s largest home services marketplace, hipages.com.au. 

“This new alliance will allow customers to get quotes from hipages’ local qualified tradespeople for installation services directly via the Blinds City website.” 

 “Teaming up with hipages means that our customers no longer have to waste their time in manually searching for local installers or go with expensive traditional window treatment retailers. Everything needed for their perfect and most affordable windows are now accessible in just one page,” Boutros said in a release at the time. 

However, its demise has impacted 75 customers, who are collectively owed $142,000 after paying a deposit and not receiving their goods according to the liquidator.

Eddie Muscat of Mayfields Business Advisors was appointed as the liquidator on 1 August.

The company’s failure has also hit 12 employees who are owed outstanding entitlements, Muscat said.

Muscat is still gathering evidence to determine what went wrong with the company.

“The director has been overwhelmed by the failure and has not yet provided statutory required information sought from him,” he said.

“On August 19 we negotiated a settlement with the landlord, which will enable the liquidator to recover the books and records from the premises, and deal with the customers whose stock is on site.

“The liquidator will be seeking assistance from ASIC (the Australian Securities and Investments Commission) if the director remains unwilling or unable to assist.”

Several irate customers have left comments on review site productreview.com.au claiming they are thousands of dollars out of pocket.

Others claimed they had waited weeks for blinds to be installed, only to discover later that the company’s phones had been disconnected.

As well as its website, Blinds City’s social media accounts have been taken down.