IKEA wants to counter declining sales in its shops by selling furniture through external webshops.
So says top executive Torbjörn Lööf to the Financial Times. It is the first time IKEA has sold products through third parties. "IKEA's entire value chain has been geared towards supplying shops. That is now changing," Lööf said. "We want to figure out how to maintain our identity also on a third-party platform." The top executive would not disclose which e-commerce platforms IKEA will partner with. Large parties like Amazon and Alibaba would be the most obvious.
Ikea is also changing strategy for its physical stores. Instead of shops on the outskirts of big cities, it wants to open more smaller shops in inner cities. The aim: to attract more visitors and boost sales in shops.
IKEA to catch up online
In recent years, IKEA has been catching up on e-commerce. Because customers still faithfully came to shops, the furniture giant only saw fit to sell online in 2013. In early 2015, then ceo Peter Agnjefall admitted that Ikea had missed the boat online. The retailer now sells online in almost all its markets. Last year, IKEA's website was visited 2.3 billion times.
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