diff --git a/sparse/coo/common.py b/sparse/coo/common.py
index 741450b8..f189f581 100644
--- a/sparse/coo/common.py
+++ b/sparse/coo/common.py
@@ -184,10 +184,17 @@ def matmul(a, b):
             "Cannot perform dot product on types %s, %s" %
             (type(a), type(b)))
 
-    # When one of the input is less than 2-d, it is equivalent to dot
-    if a.ndim <= 2 or b.ndim <= 2:
+    # When b is 2-d, it is equivalent to dot
+    if b.ndim <= 2:
         return dot(a, b)
 
+    # when a is 2-d, we need to transpose result after dot
+    if a.ndim <= 2:
+        res = dot(a, b)
+        axes = list(range(res.ndim))
+        axes.insert(-1, axes.pop(0))
+        return res.transpose(axes)
+
     # If a can be squeeze to a vector, use dot will be faster
     if a.ndim <= b.ndim and np.prod(a.shape[:-1]) == 1:
         res = dot(a.reshape(-1), b)
diff --git a/sparse/tests/test_coo.py b/sparse/tests/test_coo.py
index 40de0e5d..79c70b6e 100644
--- a/sparse/tests/test_coo.py
+++ b/sparse/tests/test_coo.py
@@ -283,6 +283,7 @@ def test_tensordot(a_shape, b_shape, axes):
     ((5,), (5, 6)),
     ((4, 5), (5,)),
     ((5,), (5,)),
+    ((3, 4), (1, 2, 4, 3)),
 ])
 def test_matmul(a_shape, b_shape):
     sa = sparse.random(a_shape, density=0.5)