Ikea has launched a flagship store on Alibaba’s marketplace Tmall, the first third-party platform the brand has partnered with in Asia, and after leaving Amazon last year. 

Initially with a six-month trial across the Chinese provinces of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui, and the city of Shanghai, the Ikea online flagship store features more than 3600 products.

“At Ikea, we are very proud of our [physical] stores, but we are always eager to learn how to improve our service,” said Jon Abrahamsson Ring, MD of Inter Ikea Systems BV. “We are happy about this collaboration with Alibaba. I’m convinced that we will learn a lot and develop even better ways to meet our customers.”

The launch of the Ikea online store on Tmall is part of the brand’s strategy to broaden the ways it reaches Chinese customers, making the brand more accessible.

The coronavirus outbreak had no influence on the timing of the Tmall launch, an Ikea spokesperson confirmed.

Ikea shut half of its 30 stores in China earlier this year due to the coronavirus outbreak. Recently, Ikea China is slowly returning to its normal business as the brand is reopening some of its stores across the country.

This story was first published on sister site Inside Retail Asia.