Tictail, the 'Tumblr of ecommerce', eyes bricks and mortar stores

Carl Waldekranz, chief executive and co-founder of Tictail, which allows businesses to launch an online shop “within minutes”, told Retail Week the firm wants to boost awareness of the brand.

“My aim is to have permanent stores in cities such as London, New York, and Stockholm,” said Waldekranz.

Tictail will open a Christmas pop up shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in the coming weeks. It will be Tictail’s first physical presence and will sell products from 200 of the 60,000 brands on its platform.

Waldekranz said Tictail has “a lot of work to do” to boost its brand recognition among consumers.  “We can do so much more to be that retail force,” he said.

Dubbed ‘the Tumblr of e-commerce’ by Wired Magazine in 2012, Tictail targets small to medium sized brands that want to launch online without setting up their own platform.  It was launched in 2011 and is backed by ecomm investor giants including Balderton Capital, which also backs Achica and The Hut in the UK.

Tictail sells brands across 140 countries with a focus on the UK, US, France, Germany and Sweden.

Large brands including H&M have also used the platform and Waldekranz said Tictail is looking at bringing more big retailers on board.

H&M used Tictail to launch its Sneak Peak online pop up shop for its Cheap Monday brand in 2012. The retailer offered new season lines before they hit the shops to its Facebook fans. German airline Lufthansa has also used Tictail.

Tictail has also launched an app to meet changing shopping habits; more than 50% of its traffic comes from mobiles. The app enables users to shop 1.5 million products in one destination, and can curate products across the 60,000 brands into shops, such as Christmas.

Waldekranz  likened Tictail to “your favourite shopping neighborhood”.

The platform also offers brands the chance to take advantage of large scale buying power for costs including shipping.  “Small businesses are in no position to negotiate with them [shipping companies],” he said. “We do it on behalf of 60,000 brands.”