IKEA to team up with third party e-commerce site in China

Swedish furniture retailer IKEA plans to team up with a

third party e-commerce site starting in 2018, aiming to increase sales

in the Chinese market, China Business Journal reported.

IKEA

has opened up online retailing in over 10 other countries, and has been

testing it out in China since September last yearin Shanghai, with

9,500 products available on the its own website. Shipments of small

items are handled by Amazon Logistics and large furnishing products by a

local logistics company. The website crashed on the first day as

registration requestsflooded the system.

The

furniture retailer previously had talks with Tmall, one of China's

biggest online retailers operated by Alibaba group, but no official

deals have been reached thus far. Whether or not will IKEA open up

full-scale shipment in China this time is yet to be seen.

With

only 22 stores in China, IKEA finds it hard to keep up with consumer

needs. But that is not the only reason for it to turn to e-commerce in

China.