The Zee group has set up Ez-Mall Online Limited as a wholly owned subsidiary of its media company Zee Media Corporation. Ez Mall Online Limited is expected to "engage in web-based e-commerce business" and will "complement TV-based e-commerce business currently housed under Company's 49% Associate entities viz., Today Merchandise Pvt Ltd and Today Retail Network Pvt Ltd." Two things: Firstly, we thought Zee already had an ecommerce business. Secondly, this is Homeshop18 all over again. Zee already has an ecommerce business Remember that Zee had acquired the two "Today" companies from the India Today group last year, because they were preparing to launch a TV Shopping channel. Zee had put in Rs 39.78 crores for 49% stake, with plans to increase stake to 80% by putting in Rs 126 crores over 4 years. The pre-acquisition numbers for these businesses: Today Merchandise Pvt Ltd FY15: turnover of Rs 3.84 crores FY14: turnover of Rs 5.25 crores FY13: turnover of Rs 5.11 crores Today Retail Network Pvt Ltd FY15: turnover of 37.36 crores FY14: turnover of Rs 52.45 crores FY13: turnover of Rs 49.80 crores Bagittoday seems to have shut down Now a part of this portfolio was BagItToday.com, the ecommerce business that was being run by the India Today group. So why does Zee need to set up a separate entity for ecommerce when it already has BagItToday.com? That's probably because it doesn't: BagItToday seems to be offline now: the site doesn't load, it's not even showing up on Google Search, so it…
