FOR many shop owners, e-commerce remains a riddle. Each step, from creating an online shopfront that lures in customers to taking payment for goods, can flummox retailers selling their wares online. In many cases, intimate knowledge of such technical wizardry as Perl, PHP and MySQL databases is needed.
Enter Tictail, a ten-month-old Swedish start-up, which aims to radically
simplify the process for businesses to go online. It takes no more than a few
minutes before a new virtual store is ready to accept orders. Owners only need
to follow a few simple steps, link their shop to a PayPal account, and set a
price for their items.
Like every ambitious entrepreneur, Mr Waldekranz has big plans for his product:
he wants Tictail not only to become the world’s most used, but its most loved
e-commerce platform, with millions of users worldwide. Whether he will get there
remains to be seen, but lowering the barrier to entry for online retailing will
certainly push many bricks-and-mortar businesses to move into the virtual world.
