Ikea to Sell its Goods Through Online Retailers

Ikea will soon sell its products through third-party online retailers in an attempt to reach more customers. A pilot program is scheduled to start sometime next year, the Swedish furniture retailer said Tuesday. The company is "curious" about what will happen as it plans to gather new insights from the pilot, Ikea spokesperson Josefin Thorell said in an email.

Total Retail's Take: While Ikea has yet to confirm which online retailers it will make its products available on, all signs point to Amazon.com. In June, Ikea squashed reports that it already had a deal in place with Amazon to begin selling products on the online marketplace. With Ikea officially announcing that it's going to sell its products through third-party merchants, it makes sense that it would look to the largest online retailer as a potential partner. Perhaps concerns over brand degradation from selling on Amazon or a hit in margin from selling on the marketplace (as opposed to on its own website) is what's holding up the partnership. That said, I fully expect that we'll soon here Ikea announce that Amazon is one of the selected third-party merchants selling its furniture.