Tictail Secures €1.2M For Its Super Simple Store Creator

In recent times we’ve seen the rise of super-simple sites which make the creation of content or the ability to sell something as easy as possible. Sites like CheckThis, Tumblr, Shoply and Etsy have made names for themselves allowing the easy creation of content and shops. But now another site hopes to make selling something online even easier. Tictail, a “DIY” ecommerce platform from Sweden, has now raised €1.2 million in seed funding in a round led by Balderton Capital and European super-angel Klaus Hommels. Spotify CPO Gustav Söderström and Tumblr COO Fredrik Nylander – both already on the advisory board, have also invested.

Stockholm-based Tictail was launched in May this year with a very, very simple store creation process – so simple in fact that it’s been described as the Tumblr for e-commerce. It now has over 5,000 stores mainly in the Nordics, Germany and UK. With the new funding Tictail plans to focus on the UK specifically, with bigger growth targets also set for Europe.

The trick with Tictail is not only that you can just set up a store in virtually seconds, but that it has a built-in marketing and sales assistant feature (the ‘to do feed’), making it easier to generate daily tasks to promote the shop. In particular it has built in social media integration, reminders of orders that need shipping, SEO advice and CRM-support to keep track of loyal customers. It’s also introduced a feature allowing people to subscribe to their favourite store. The site accepts payments with Paypal and Klarna, but consumers don’t need a PayPal account to checkout.

Carl Waldekranz, CEO of Tictail, says the startup is not only about starting a Store, but what happens next such as getting your first sales/traffic. The platform will suggest, for instance, that “it’s been 2 days since you updated Twitter, you should write something.”

It’s clear that these simple to use services are a shape of things to come. Let us know your views in the comments.