QVC executives have tuned into the prospects of channeling the significant buying power of millennial women into their West Chester home shopping and e-commerce operation by buying 5-year-old Zulily.

The $2.4 billion deal — for less per share than Zulily’s late 2013 initial public offering and a fraction of its 2014 high — aims to reinvigorate the smartphone app-focused flash sale company that trades in adult and children’s apparel, fashion accessories, toys, gifts and home décor, according to a Philly.com report.

“QVC and Zulily share a passion for creating a unique shopping experience that is rooted in discovery and brings carefully curated products to life. Together, we will further engage modern women who love to shop in new and compelling ways,” QVC CEO Mike George said in an announcement of the deal. “As online shopping evolves, this partnership brings together two high-performing and highly-complementary leaders in e-commerce. We look forward to welcoming the talented Zulily team to the QVC Group, as our shared values and beliefs create an incredibly strong foundation for us to collaborate across all aspects of the business and transform how we serve customers in new, digital-first ways.”

The combined company is expected to better leverage technology and target younger women while feeding and cross-marketing more products in both sales pipelines — and putting Zulily on TV.

“The brands that we are out chasing at Zulily oftentimes don’t have distribution on QVC, and candidly, some of the brands we are chasing, that we haven’t been able to close yet, are on QVC,” Zulily CEO Darrell Cavens said in a GeekWire report. “I think … there is a real synergistic nature where we can take these brands and these merchandising teams, both that are at scale, and kind of bring together an opportunity to source these different products and put them on the complementary channels, be they Zulily or QVC.”

Zulily products fit into existing QVC expertise and resources within the beauty, home décor and apparel categories, and it will also benefit from QVC’s easy-pay financing for customers and global reach. QVC stands to gain from the new market of younger moms and Zulily’s mobile platform, which accounts for about 56 percent of the company’s orders. Zulily features a curated, constantly changing collection of special finds each day on its desktop and mobile websites and mobile apps. It uses historical and real-time data to customize offerings for millions of customer touch points every day as a means to enhance customer engagement, and it operates on an extraordinarily agile and efficient digital content production system.

While much of the two business models align, Zulily diverges from the high-inventory practice at QVC by purchasing from its 10,000 vendors after orders have already been placed, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

“Zulily and QVC are two distinctive customer-centric brands that are passionate about delivering an exceptional shopping experience and surprising and delighting our customers, each and every day,” Cavens said. “There are tremendous opportunities to accelerate the growth of the Zulily brand for our customers, our employees and our vendors with QVC’s partnership.”

Cavens said he anticipates that Zulily’s Seattle-based management will not change and it will retain separate branding from QVC, the WSJ article noted. George and Zulily Co-Founder Mark Vadon will both become directors of the board of QVC parent company Liberty Interactive Corp. Cavens will report to George. The acquisition is on track to close by the end of the year. Zulily anticipates adding $1.3 billion in sales this year to bring QVC’s annual total to $10 billion from 19 million customers in 85 countries.

In addition to cash, QVC will pay $18.75 for shares that once traded for $68 at Zulily’s peak in February 2014. Shares traded at $12.57 on Friday, WSJ reported.

Read more about the transaction on Philly.com here, in The Wall Street Journal here and on GeekWire here, and check out previous VISTA Today coverage of new developments in QVC’s world here.