SINGAPORE - Fans of Swedish furniture giant Ikea will no longer have to make the trek to its Tampines megastore or Alexandra Road outlet. The popular chain's long-awaited online store is slated to go live in October.

Several websites such as Marketing Interactive and Inside Retail Asia published comments by Ikea's South-east Asia managing director Christian Rojkjaer about the brand's online plans at a groundbreaking ceremony for the Ikea Penang store earlier this week.

Mr Rojkjaer said: "We are planning to launch the e-commerce service in Singapore in the next two weeks, and introduce it in Malaysia next year."

While Ikea Singapore confirmed that the online store is in the works, it is keeping mum about the e-store's actual launch date, how extensive the online catalogue will be and details about the website's features.

Ikea's roll-out of its Singapore and Malaysia store comes weeks after it launched its e-commerce business in Shanghai. It will expand its e-commerce services across China if the Shanghai trial run is successful.

In Singapore, the Alexandra store was opened in 1995, while the Tampines store opened in 2006.