This article was taken from the September 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
Last May, Stockholm resident Carl Waldekranz set out to build a
Tumblr for e-commerce. "I wanted to create a platform for people like my mother to sell things," he says. The result: Tictail, a free service that simplifies the creation and running of online stores. Growth has been exponential -- more than 15,000 stores have opened since its launch in May 2012, with customers including fashion brand Cheap Monday and airline Lufthansa. "We knew there were several platforms out there already, but our idea is an evolution of the e-commerce concept," says Waldekranz. "We don't focus on just starting a store, but on its first six months -- how to get traffic, follow up with old customers and give out deals."
Waldekranz, 27, founded Tictail with Kaj Drobin, Birk Nilson and Siavash Ghorbani. To differentiate the app, they built in the Tictail Feed -- a stream of messages telling retailers how to run their shop. "It could say: 'Tweet five ideas to increase your user base'; or: 'Write to a customer who filled up his shopping cart but didn't end up paying'," Waldenkranz says.
Tictail makes money by selling further apps that retailers can add to their stores for a monthly subscription fee ranging from €1 to €10 (85p to £8.50). They include discount codes, password protection and integration with Google AdWords. With seed funding of €1.2 million (£1 million), Tictail plans to open up its platform to developers, so they can create a range of new apps for its users around the world. "We want to become a local first-choice e-commerce platform for every world market."
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
