In an effort to expand its online efforts beyond the confines of its own websites, IKEA is planning to test selling its furniture and other home goods through third-party sites starting next year for the first time.
Of course, IKEA Has its own website, but it’s a new world out there, and the company is willing to try new things in order to adapt.
“On digital platforms, we only sell our products through our own website, and there we also see that the competitive landscape is changing,” Inter IKEA Group Chief Executive Torbjorn Loof told Reuters.
He’s staying mum for now on which companies IKEA would be willing to work with — Amazon has made some noise about getting into furnishings, including making deals to sell retail brands like Ashley Furniture and Jonathan Adler — but did say the retailer will “test and pilot” so it can learn what digital shopping looks like in the future.
Though IKEA’s sales jumped 30% in the last fiscal year to $1.6 billion, that’s just a small slice of the company’s total sales of $34.2 billion.
“There is a rapid change in the market where much of what we have learned and what we know of is changing radically,” Loof said, while remaining optimistic that IKEA can stay ahead of the pack with its big advantage — the company designs, produces, and distributes its own products.
by Mary Beth Quirk via Consumerist