Zip.ca

Zip.ca

Company type	Private [1]
Industry	Electronic commerce
Founded	2004
Defunct	2014
Headquarters	Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Key people	Robert Hall, Founder and Chairman Christina Beavis, CEO
Products	Online DVD rental Movie rental kiosks
Revenue	Not disclosed
Number of employees	~50

Zip.ca DVD Rental Kiosk

Zip.ca was an online DVD rental and movie rental kiosk company operating in Canada. It had a database of over 82,000 ^[2] unique titles.

Zip.ca was a member of the privately held Momentous Group of companies and was the owner of the Ottawa Rapidz baseball team until its first-season bankruptcy. ^{[3] [4]}

On August 17, 2014, Zip.ca announced on its website that it was closing its doors and was no longer shipping discs to its members. ^[5]

Corporate history

2000s: inception

Zip.ca began its rental operations in February 2004, ^[6] from its base of operations in Ottawa, Ontario. In July 2005 it arranged to provide the fulfillment services for Rogers Video Direct, a new online subsidiary of one of Canada's largest video store chains. By February 2006, Zip.ca had over 30,000 ^[7] subscribers. In December 2006, Zip.ca announced passing the 6,000,000 ^[8] disc rental milestone.

2010s: kiosk debut

Zip.ca's movie rental kiosks were introduced in 2010.

Abandoned digital service

In July 2009, Zip.ca announced it had partnered with Sonic Solutions as it prepared to offer a streaming video on demand (VOD) service similar to that introduced in the U.S. in 2007 by its largest American counterpart, Netflix. ^[9] In May 2011, after Netflix's 2010 Canadian launch as a streaming-only service, Zip.ca announced a further partnership with Samsung, and said its service would launch as a transactional VOD platform, not as a subscription service. ^[10] The service remained unlaunched at the time of the company's closure in 2014.

Rental plans

Monthly disc shipments	Discs included	Blu-ray
Up to 2	1	No
Unlimited	1	No
Unlimited	2	Yes
Unlimited	3	Yes
Up to 11	4	Yes
Up to 16	6	Yes
Up to 22	8	Yes

Zip.ca imposed a free shipping limit per month, unless the customer chose the special "Unlimited" plan. When the DVD shipment limit was reached, the customer had to pay for additional shipments ($2.49 per DVD) in the billing month or wait until the next billing month before Zip.ca would continue shipments. In November 2011, Zip.ca began charging a $1 rental fee for each Blu-ray disc. ^[11] The Blu-ray fee was removed in October 2012. Blu-ray was not available on either of the 1-DVD plans.

Canadian rental marketplace

On August 30, 2005, Zip.ca announced ^[12] that it was buying out the online operations of its then main Canadian rival, VHQonline.ca, and has also picked up assets from other companies going out of business.

References

1. "Federal Corporations Data Online". Archived from the original on March 12, 2007. Retrieved August 21, 2005.
2. "Zip.ca and Canada Post Deliver Success". Zip.ca. August 18, 2006. Archived from the original on November 14, 2006. Retrieved September 7, 2006.
3. "New owner rename-z Ottawa Rapids baseball team". CBC News. April 28, 2008. Retrieved August 17, 2008.
4. "Ottawa Rapidz go under". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. September 30, 2008. Archived from the original on September 25, 2013. Retrieved November 16, 2008.
5. Bagnall, James (August 18, 2014). "Zip.ca video rental service shuts down". Ottawa Citizen . Postmedia Network. Archived from the original on November 29, 2018. Retrieved January 13, 2015.
6. "The Disks are in the Mail". Ottawa Citizen. February 24, 2004. Archived from the original on March 12, 2007. Retrieved September 7, 2006.
7. "Forum posting from Zip.ca President". Zip.ca. February 2, 2006. Archived from the original on October 31, 2007. Retrieved June 7, 2006.
8. "Canada's largest online video service ships 6 millionth rental DVD". Zip.ca. December 15, 2006. Archived from the original on February 20, 2007. Retrieved December 16, 2006.
9. Arellano, Nestor (July 7, 2009). "Canada's first online movie streaming service unveiled". ITBusiness.ca. Archived from the original on August 18, 2021. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
10. "Zip.ca to launch movie streaming with Samsung". CBC.ca . CBC News. May 6, 2011. Retrieved August 18, 2021.
11. Jameson Berkow (October 18, 2011). "Zip.ca to raise prices amid growing costs, competition". Financial Post. Archived from the original on October 20, 2011. Retrieved October 20, 2011.
12. "Zip.ca and VHQ Online Enter into Purchase Agreement". Zip.ca. August 30, 2005. Archived from the original on September 9, 2006. Retrieved September 7, 2006.

45°19′58″N75°42′17″W / 45.33278°N 75.70472°W / 45.33278; -75.70472