Ikea to expand online offering Ikea is to make a renewed push into online shopping with more products and cheaper distribution, as the world's largest furniture retailer seeks to counter criticism that it is missing out on a big source of sales. The Swedish purveyor of self-assembly, flat-pack furniture has struggled to find a way of shipping items cheaply, worrying that high costs could cut across its image of cheap chic. "We will continue to develop the online offering over the next few years ...There will be a lot more articles in the next few years," Mikael Ohlsson, chief executive, told the Financial Times in Älmhult, southern Sweden, where the company was founded. Ikea currently has a limited online offering in 10 out of the 40 countries where it operates, but Mr Ohlsson said that by the end of the decade most of its markets would have ecommerce. He also hinted that it was close to finding a more affordable distribution system. The challenge for us is we want to have an affordable logistics solution. We could hook on ecommerce to store distribution - it is under development. We still feel we have steps to take before we launch it worldwide," he added. In the countries where Ikea has introduced online sales, it has been a great success. They rose 25 per cent last year in the UK after the retailer increased the number of items on offer by a third, to 6,000, in an experiment to see if more aggressive ecommerce operations would work. Matthew Stych, research director at consultancy Planet Retail, said Ikea was missing out on sales. I do think it is a mistake and something they need to start thinking about and ramping up more. It could be huge," he said. But he suggested that cultural reasons could be holding Ikea back. The Swedish company likes to push its idea of a shopping experience, with a visit to its store not just involving looking at furniture, but eating at its restaurant, putting the children in a special playroom, and walking around its maze-like floors. There has been a general reluctance to invest in and push ecommerce to their shoppers. Their whole model has been built around getting people into the store and round the racecourse model," Mr Stych said. That is very difficult to replicate online. Ikea picks up a lot of impulse purchases, particularly in the small household items such as the candles and picture frames it places on the ground floor. Other retail experts suggest that the company's traditional set-up is also a factor. Ikea is still essentially controlled by Ingvar Kamprad, the 86-year-old founder. However, the company is experimenting with technology, recently releasing an interactive version of its catalogue in the US and mobile apps in the UK.