Zmags, the Boston-based e‑commerce and dig­i­tal pub­lish­ing start­up, has just clinched an invest­ment deal with North Atlantic Cap­i­tal worth $6 million.

E‑commerce man­agers with an ear to the ground for new busi­ness devel­op­ments will be inter­est­ed in just how the com­pa­ny plans to chan­nel this cash injec­tion.  It’s being ploughed into the expan­sion of tablet-based e‑commerce, a trend toward mobile that’s being increas­ing­ly adopt­ed by e‑commerce firms.

The startup’s Pres­i­dent, Scott Bleczin­s­ki, said, “The mas­sive adop­tion of tablets has ampli­fied demand for our offer­ing, as con­sumers increas­ing­ly engage with their favorite retail­ers and brands on this per­son­al device…This invest­ment is val­i­da­tion of the huge mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ty for a unique plat­form like ours.”

Roll over print cat­a­logs, the inter­ac­tive dig­i­tal cat­a­log is here 

Inno­v­a­tive web con­tent man­agers may also wish to take a leaf from Zmags’ cus­tomer engage­ment book.  With a glit­ter­ing reper­toire of high pro­file clients to its name, includ­ing Harper’s BAZAAR, PartyLite, Lily, Ser­e­na, Express, Ken­neth Cole and The Con­tain­er Store, it’s a safe bet that inno­v­a­tive meth­ods will be deployed to keep cus­tomers hooked on the con­tent.  Zmags doesn’t dis­ap­point, it’s been busi­ly devel­op­ing a high­ly inter­ac­tive iden­ti­ty for itself.  Browse through the Musician’s Friend cat­a­logue, for exam­ple, and instead of sim­ply gaw­ping at entic­ing stills of your favorite gui­tars, you can actu­al­ly lis­ten to them.  Print cat­a­logs sud­den­ly start to look dull and jaded.

Zmags’ aim is to cre­ate a cus­tomer expe­ri­ence as close as pos­si­ble to shop­ping in a phys­i­cal store.  It’s pre­serv­ing some aspects of tra­di­tion­al print cat­a­logues, how­ev­er, but in a dig­i­tal­ly souped-up form.  Hold the tablet in one hand and you can flip the dig­i­tal page with a strum of the thumb.  The firm is plan­ning to devel­op oth­er inno­va­tions specif­i­cal­ly for the tablet mar­ket, but details are under wraps for the time being.

Is there gold in these tablets?

The proof of the pud­ding will, as always, be in the eat­ing and the new ven­ture remains unchart­ed ter­ri­to­ry for the firm at this stage.  But if past per­for­mance is any­thing to go by – and the com­pa­ny claims it can dou­ble sales for its clients — the tablet direc­tion looks as though it might be very promis­ing indeed.