Tictail, the Swedish ecommerce platform, has finally launched something like a directory of stores for customers to browse through to allow shoppers to dig deeper into Tictail than finding one store link at a time. A web version is in the mix, but Tictail has first launched this concept on iOS which points to the trend that how people are shopping online is rapidly changing. Around 50% of the traffic on Tictail stores is mobile, and 40% of their purchases are made on mobile. It won’t be long before they see a majority of purchases happening on mobile devices.
The concept of the app is to bring back window shopping onto your mobile device. Rather than other e-commerce platforms want to motivate you to search for “Jeans” of which they can show you 100 iterations of jeans, Tictail’s app allows you to slide past storefronts with a little background on the store as well as a few products that might catch your attention.
“The experience we wanted to give was seeing all the shop windows, and if you see something in the window that’s compelling enough its just a slide away,” says Tictail CEO Carl Waldekranz.
Ebay has been successful targeting the used-products niche, Etsy has cute and cuddly products nailed down, but concept plays well into Tictail’s niche of indie designers looking to build up their brand while still getting exposure.
The app should keep users coming back due to experiments and promotions here and there. In Stockholm Tictail is doing a promotion with Uber in an experiment with fulfillment running only today. One of the main categories in the app, like For Her, For Him, Interior Design, and so on is “Free One Hour delivery with Uber”, which curates 22 Tictail stores from around Stockholm and gives quick delivery – only available until 6pm.
This sort of collaboration is a sign of how Tictail can both work with brands like Uber and others, and do rapid experiments with fulfillment and other ideas.
Growth has been good with Tictail, they’ve now hit 55,000 stores and half a million products. CEO Carl Waldekranz is now based out of New York where they’re targeting the American market.
Up next for the company they’re going to continue tweaking the app based on what they learn. The company is going to be beefing up features for store owners and customers before the Christmas boom, and additionally adding more advertising tools to merchants in the customer interface, such as being able to purchase Google Adwords or other marketing solutions in a simple way.
The iOS app can be downloaded here.
