Zip.ca was an online DVD rental and movie rental kiosk company operating in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. It had a database of over 82,000 unique titles. Zip.ca was a member of the privately held Momentous Group of companies and was the owner of the

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team until its first-season bankruptcy. 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.

Corporate history

2000s: inception

Zip.ca began its rental operations in February 2004, from its base of operations in Ottawa,

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. In July 2005 it arranged to provide the fulfillment services for

Rogers Video Rogers Plus was a brand name for the retail operations of Rogers Communications. It was formerly two separate brands, namely the Rogers Wireless chain of telecommunications stores previously operated by InterTAN under licence from Rogers, and the ...

Direct, a new online subsidiary of one of Canada's largest video store chains. By February 2006, Zip.ca had over 30,000 subscribers. In December 2006, Zip.ca announced passing the 6,000,000 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 Sonic Solutions was an American computer software company headquartered in Novato, California. In addition to having a number of offices in the U.S., the company also maintained offices in Europe and Asia. It was acquired by Rovi Corporation in 20 ...

as it prepared to offer a streaming

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of ...

service similar to that introduced in the U.S. in 2007 by its largest American counterpart,

Netflix Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...

. In May 2011, after Netflix's 2010 Canadian launch as a streaming-only service, Zip.ca announced a further partnership with

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, and said its service would launch as a transactional VOD platform, not as a subscription service. The service remained unlaunched at the time of the company's closure in 2014.

Rental plans

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 The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

disc. 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 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. They also bought out rival Mississauga based Moviesforme

References

{{coord, 45, 19, 58, N, 75, 42, 17, W, type:landmark_region:CA, display=title Video rental services of Canada Retail companies established in 2004 Retail companies disestablished in 2014 Companies based in Ottawa Defunct companies of Ontario 2004 establishments in Ontario 2014 disestablishments in Ontario