Zip.ca
Canadian video rental company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
| |
| 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 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.