Ikea Ditches Amazon: Why the E-Commerce Giant Needs to Show 3rd-Party Sellers More Love

Another brand has followed Nike's lead and severed its official selling ties with Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN). Chic, low-cost furniture designer Ikea will no longer directly supply the e-commerce platform with inventory. Although Ikea goods will still be available at the site through third-party vendors that have stock from a wholesale supplier, the move will measurably mute the exposure of the Ikea brand on Amazon.

Ikea hasn't yet explained its reason for the decision, though it's not a stretch to broadly suggest it just wasn't worth maintaining the relationship. For Nike, the website never really staved off the counterfeit goods the athletic apparel company said ultimately damaged its brand image. Ikea hasn't voiced an identical complaint, but furniture competitor Williams-Sonoma sued Amazon in 2018, claiming Amazon's private-label furniture line copied one of its designs. In a similar vein, Ikea's short-lived partnership may have led management to decide their name was being used to lead consumers to a competitor's similar products, including those manufactured by Amazon.

In a bigger sense though, interpret the decision as an early skirmish of a conflict that's quickly coming to a head.

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Source Fool.com