Lori Twomey, interim president of Zulily. (Zulily Photo)

Zulily finished 2017 with a record number of active customers as the online retailer continues to navigate a time of transition.

Zulily reported 5.8 million active customers for the year — defined as customers who made at least one purchase in the last 12 months — an increase of 800,000 over 2016, and the largest annual increase since 2014. Changing up the marketing focus from member sign ups to encouraging customer purposes and connecting with existing customers drove the increased customer activity, the company said.

Zulily reported $520 million in revenue in the fourth quarter, up 11 percent from the same period a year ago. The main driver was a 12 percent increase in orders placed, the company said, thanks to the jump in active customers. For the year, the company took in $1.6 billion in revenue, a 4 percent increase over 2016.

Zulity’s numbers came out of the latest earnings release from Liberty Interactive. The company owns QVC, the home shopping company that bought Zulily in 2015 for $2.4 billion.

Zulily’s revenue growth outpaced that of QVC, for all of 2017 and the fourth quarter on a year-over-year basis. Zulily reported an operating loss for the year of $129 million, which is a 15 percent improvement over 2016.

Liberty Interactive announced today it will rebrand under the name Qurate Retail Group. The group includes Zulily, QVC and Home Shopping Network, which merged with QVC last year. It will focus on “offering a third way to shop — beyond traditional brick-and-mortar or transactional eCommerce,” according to Liberty/Qurate’s earnings release.

Zulily is currently without a permanent CEO. Former CEO and co-founder Darrell Cavens left his post in October to lead a new ventures initiative for the parent company.

Zulily Chief Merchant Lori Twomey took over as interim president of the company when Cavens left the CEO position. QVC said at the time that it planned to announce a “permanent leader” for Zulily in the coming months. GeekWire asked for an update on the search, and we will update this post if we hear back.

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