Roblox Launches E-Commerce with Walmart

Retailer offers 3 physical items for sale within its Roblox experience Walmart Discovered

Every week we publish exclusive research about how brands are activating on the Roblox platform.

Roblox Delivers Physical E-Commerce to Players

Roblox is a big company that generates billions of dollars in revenue, primarily driven by the sale of its own currency, Robux. But the company is looking to expand beyond the digital world and into the physical world.

For a variety of reasons, which I outlined previously, this is a big deal.

My main takeaway is that e-commerce on Roblox provides brands with major revenue potential.

Here's what I wrote back in November:

"E-commerce has the potential to be huge for brands.

As I mentioned earlier, is it incredibly difficult to drive real revenue just selling virtual goods. You're doing really well if selling virtual items generates tens of thousands or maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars. But those numbers are just not big enough for most big corporations, which need to be generating millions or tens of millions of dollars in revenue to justify their investments.

But when brands can start selling physical items, the economics change drastically. Instead of selling customers virtual items for $1 and taking home $0.28, brands will be able to theoretically drive orders for $25, $50 or even more. This can quickly add up to large sums that brands are looking to unlock, especially from the highly-coveted Gen Z demographic."

Walmart is Roblox's E-Commerce Launch Partner

Not only is Walmart one of the biggest companies in the world, but it is also one of the most active brands on Roblox (along with the NFL and Gucci). Their Walmart Discovered experience, made by Sawhorse, has amassed over 20 million lifetime visits and boasts an impressive 96% user rating.

Full disclosure, I work with Sawhorse and am part of the team working with Walmart.

When it comes to e-commerce, Walmart is a logical partner for Roblox for a variety of reasons, including their massive size and appetite for innovation.

The myriad of ways that Walmart is pushing innovation on Roblox and other immersive environments shows me that they're committed to being pioneers in these emerging spaces.

And what's been particularly unique about Walmart is that they've taken a very community-centric approach to building on Roblox. They've partnered with native Roblox UGC creators a variety of times, including for this latest activation.

In this shopping experience, player can select from 3 items available for purchase: a tumbler, a bag / purse, and a set of wireless headphones.

Each of these 3 physical items is accompanied by a digital twin of that item, which players can get for free if they purchase the physical item.

How Roblox E-Commerce Works in Walmart Discovered

So now players can purchase physical items on Roblox via Walmart. Well, what does that actually look like from a customer / player perspective?

It's a combo of 3D gaming and traditional e-comm.

Let me show you.

First off, here's a comprehensive video walkthrough:

For those of you more interested in skimming, here's a photo summary.

After accepted terms of service, US players 13+ enter Walmart Discovered.

From there, they navigate to a shopping area displaying 3 real-life products and their digital counterparts designed by Roblox creators.

Players can inspect the items and press a "buy" button to bring up Walmart product page, which has photos, pricing, and description.

From there, the add to cart and checkout flow is pretty standard.

Purchasers input their personal information to complete the transaction.

This is v1 of shopping for real products looks like on Roblox.

What will v10 or v100 look like? I'm sure a lot different and way more streamlined.

More brands will certainly be trying out e-commerce on Roblox in the future. Who will win? Time will tell. But as I tell my 7-year-old son before every soccer game he plays, "you miss 100% of the shots you don't take."

If you're a brand that wants to figure out how to connect with young audiences and drive sales with Gen Z via gaming, you have to take a close look at Roblox and start taking shots.

What do you want to learn more about on Roblox? Let me know if the comments here or on LinkedIn.

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