Your favorite furniture may soon be coming from a completely different company than the one you’re used to. Ikea, a world-wide leader in ecommerce, with its U.S. headquarters in Montgomery County, is considering a move to third-party sales.

Ikea is stepping up its push online including a test to sell its flat-pack furniture on other big ecommerce websites in what the owner of its brand calls the biggest change in how it interacts with customers in its 74-year history, writes Richard Milne for the Financial Times.

Torbjörn Lööf, chief executive of Inter Ikea, said that fewer and fewer people were prepared to visit the retailer’s out-of-town stores, forcing it into a big change of strategy with an emphasis both on new types of shops particularly in city centres as well as new digital ideas.

“[This] is the biggest development in how consumers meet Ikea since the concept was founded,” he told the Financial Times on Monday when the company announced the initiative.

A test will begin next year with a number of websites – rumours have concentrated on the likes of Amazon and Alibaba but Mr Lööf declined to comment – in what would be the first time Ikea has sold its products through a third party.

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