Ikea is getting with the times. The world’s biggest furniture retailer has officially launched its e-commerce channel in Singapore — about seven weeks after it quietly went live.

Before that, what’s front and center on its site is the company’s catalog. Today, it’s a proper shopping channel, where you can pay via credit card, make assembly appointments, have your items delivered, and track and trace your order. There is a great deal you can learn for an online storefront like Ikea, you may even want to look up some tips for a better optimized store.

All Ikea sites used to feature mostly its catalogs, such as this one.

This is part of the company’s goal to boost its e-commerce business while making everything more convenient to shoppers, and with the use of ecommerce SEO they can reach even more potential customers in different parts of the world. The first online store Ikea put up was the one for the United Kingdom, which went live in September 2016. And it caters to a new shopping behavior, where consumers check out the items in physical shops first before going home and making the final purchase. When making this final purchase, shoppers can check out any online offers in place from websites such as PromoCodeWatch.com to get discounts on their shop and save money.

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But what’s next after Singapore? Mike King, Ikea Southeast Asia’s retail director, reveals that their digital retail store will also be launched in the following Southeast Asian countries, most likely in this order:

1. Malaysia
2. Thailand
3. Philippines
4. Vietnam

Ikea sets its sights on a mid-2018 launch in Malaysia. As for the rest, King has not mentioned any tentative schedule for them.

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Of the four countries mentioned, only the Philippines and Vietnam have no official Ikea presence yet. However, the Swedish furniture retailer earlier confirmed that it will enter the two markets. So our guess is that Ikea’s online store and brick-and-mortar shops will be unveiled at the same time.

Again, we still don’t know when exactly, but at least it’s something that we tito and tita of Manila can look forward to.

Story via Mashable

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Alora Uy Guerrero

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Editor-in-chief: Alora Uy Guerrero has 22 years of experience as an editor for print and digital publications such as Yahoo. She took time off journalism to manage OPPO’s digital-marketing campaigns. When not busy with her babies, she’s working on Revü, a passion project — or probably traveling or obsessing over her favorite bands, movies, TV shows, and basketball teams.