Meet the 31-year-old ex-advertising exec behind Inkbay, the world's first online booking system for the £38 billion tattoo industry

Inkbay

Swedish-born Fredrik Glimskär quickly got addicted to tattoos soon after first getting inked 11 years ago. He now has about 45 tattoos — and he's not finished yet.

The 31-year-old found that the more tattoos he acquired, the more people would persistently reach out to find out which artists he was using. A former CEO of digital advertising agency Oystr., which worked with brands such as Adidas and Grolsch, he concluded that if there were that many people looking for guidance purely within his network, there was probably a market for something to answer the question on a greater scale.

“Tattoos are fairly mainstream now, with many people inspired by the latest celebrity inking or tattoo art on Instagram," he told Business Insider. "Yet when it comes to getting their own tattoo, people are still relying on word-of-mouth recommendation."

"People don’t know where to go, who’s good at what, or how much a particular tattoo will cost.”

Enter Inkbay, the world’s first free-to-use online platform and marketplace for finding, booking, and buying tattoos, and Glimskär's answer to bringing the tattoo industry kicking and screaming into the digital age.

To understand the relevance of the product, first consider some facts. The global tattoo industry is worth an estimated $50 billion (£38 billion). 40% of all millennials have tattoos, and 92% of people with tattoos are already looking for the next one. As of October 2016, first tattoos were the second most popular search subject after personal health.

In other words, tattoos are big business. Yet, the reality of getting a tattoo is pretty dated.

As a customer, once you've finally chosen what you want permanently etched on your body — and chosen who you want to do it — you usually have the hassle of visiting the studio in-person to get a quote for your desired design and leave a deposit.

On the other side of the coin, most tattooists are dependent on walk-in appointments and recommendations. While this works for some, others struggle to promote themselves.

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Inkbay aims to connect the dots between these tattoo-seekers and their local artists.

"We are trying to navigate the jungle of studios and artists for the consumer," Glimskär said.

Tattooists can sign up for free and can then use the platform to showcase their work. Meanwhile, customers can then book and pay for tattoos online.

"For tattooers it's a completely different way to reach customers and for the consumer it answers really simple questions, like 'How much does this kind of tattoo cost?'"

Inkbay first launched in Glimskär's hometown of Stockholm in July 2016.

"We're close to having 100 artists on the platform and it has facilitated hundreds of transactions," Glimskär said. Its next city was Gothenburg, and it plans to launch in Copenhagen at the beginning of August.

Glimskär is also in the process of bringing Inkbay to the UK via London and then Manchester. While the process basically involves knocking on the doors of the more respected artists and studios across the capital to get them signed up, Inkbay hopes to launch to London-based consumers by the end of the summer.

Here's how it works.

First, you set your location.

InkbayNext, enter the tattoo motif that you're looking for — let's go with "rose."

Inkbay

Inkbay will then throw up different options from different tattoo artists complete with prices.

Inkbay

By using Inkbay, the customer knows exactly what they're getting before the even step foot in the shop, according to Glimskär. It also serves to guide people to the right man for the job.

"It's important that customers who want a certain style of tattoo, be it something traditional or Japanese lettering, find artists who specialise in those kind of designs."

If a customer can't find exactly what they're looking for, there is the option to send a direct request to an artist. "So if you find a rose that you really like but you want it a little different, say in pink, it can be created in under an hour," Glimskär added.

For now, it's operating as a website rather than an app, because people don't buy a tattoo every day, according to Glimskär, and therefore don't need an app taking up space on their phone. "It's something you might get once a year, or every six months," he added.

Inkbay receives 15% commission on every closed deal. It essentially works as an advanced booking system. "You pay us and then we release the money to the tattooist on the day of appointment," he said.

The platform also offers benefits such as a cancellation policy. Customers can cancel their appointment up to 48 hours in advance, with a full refund. Otherwise, they get charged. "To respect the artists' time, we want to eliminate the 'no show' element from the industry."

Instagram is making artists more famous than studios.

Inkbay

"In the tattoo industry it had always been that you knew the name of a studio, but with the rise of Instagram, and the fact that artists tend to shift studios a lot, now it's the individuals who have become more famous than the studio," Glimskär said.

So, Inkbay works with individual artists rather than studios.

"We built Inkbay to suit them. So they have a physical studio where they work and then they we give them an online studio where customers come from."

For Glimskär, one of the most valuable things the platform gains is insight. "Today I could say we have 5,000 people in Stockholm that are looking for a swallow tattoo, and we can communicate this to tattooers that do those designs," he said.

On a global level, he says the trend at the moment is for "blackwork" — traditional sailor-style motifs, but in black ink (shown in the image below).

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This currently accounts for around 50% of the tattoo designs available to buy on Inkbay.

'Huge online potential'

Glimskär is not the only Scandinavian on a mission to both digitalise and monetise the tattoo business. Danish entrepreneurs Mik Thobo-Carlsen and Johan Plenge launched Tattoodo, a social platform where people can find and share tattoo designs, three years ago.

As of December 2016, it was the world's largest online tattoo portal with 15 million monthly visitors, 40 million Facebook fans, and two billion monthly content views.

However, it doesn't allow customers to actually book and buy their tattoos online. If Tattoodo is a benchmark for success, though, Glimskär could be onto a winner.

"Tattoodo has done really well in creating inspiring and educational content for the tattoo community, and the rapid growth of traffic on Tattoodo proves that the tattoo industry has huge online potential."

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