Zip.ca was an online

DVD rental The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

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 tota ...

. 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

Ottawa Rapidz The Ottawa Voyageurs, previously the Ottawa Rapidz, were a professional baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course o ...

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding ...

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 Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

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 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 201 ...

as it prepared to offer a

streaming Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content i ...

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 ...

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

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

, 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 s ...

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