Move is expected to open up a massive audience of 80 million potential young customers to brands.
Shopify is set to pilot its checkout in Roblox, one of the world’s largest online games, the two companies announced today.
“This will open up a massive audience of 80 million daily active, highly engaged, Roblox users, and potential customers, for creators and brands.”
Harley Finkelstein
The announcement was made during this year’s Roblox Developers Conference in San Jose, California. With this integration, developers, creators, and brands who are on Shopify can sell physical items to customers using real currency within Roblox games without ever leaving the Roblox platform.
For example, a Roblox player can interact with a shirt displayed on an in-game mannequin to summon a Shopify-powered checkout where they can purchase a real-life version of the clothing in addition to a digital replica for their character. Shopify said it plans to follow the soon-to-be-launched pilot with a “larger launch” in early 2025.
“This gives Roblox creators a brand new avenue into entrepreneurship, and brands will be able to sell their products in Roblox experiences,” Shopify president Harley Finkelstein said in a video in the form of a Roblox avatar. “This will open up a massive audience of 80 million daily active, highly engaged, Roblox users, and potential customers, for creators and brands.”
Finkelstein’s digital avatar added that Roblox was one of the most relevant places in the digital world right now and that the partnership will shape the future of “immersive commerce.” Immersive commerce refers to interactive shopping environments in virtual, augmented, and mixed reality.
First launched in 2006, Roblox is a free-to-play online game creation platform that allows users to create their own games or “experiences,” as well as play games created by others, in a marketplace-like format. The platform is available on PC, mobile, consoles, and Meta’s virtual reality headset Quest.
Dress to Impress is one example of a viral hit on the platform, becoming Roblox’s most popular experience in recent months with 334,000 concurrent players according to Eurogamer, and scoring a collaborative partnership with singer Charli XCX. The game prompts players with a theme, who then must dress their avatar from a variety of clothing options before rating other players’ fashion choices on the virtual runway.
The large popularity of the platform amongst global youth underscores recent questions Roblox has faced on its moderation practices. The company faced a class-action lawsuit last year alleging the company targeted child users with an illegal gambling ecosystem. Roblox was banned in Türkiye over child exploitation and inappropriate content concerns last month following a report from Bloomberg that revealed online predators attempting to lure and groom children on the platform.
In an email statement to BetaKit, Shopify referred to Roblox regarding the potential of parental controls for the integration. Roblox told BetaKit that shopping on its platform is only available to users in the United States aged 13 and up, and all payments are done via fiat rather than its virtual currency.
Roblox went public on the Nasdaq in 2021, closing at $69.50 per share and a market cap of $38.26 billion according to CNBC. The company’s share price peaked above $134 per share during a pandemic-fuelled popularity surge in Nov. 2021 but has since dropped below $43 per share as of market open on Friday.
Disclosure: BetaKit majority owner Good Future is the family office of two former Shopify leaders, Arati Sharma and Satish Kanwar.
UPDATE (09/06/2024): This story has been updated with commentary from Shopify and Roblox on the platform’s parental controls for shopping.
Feature image courtesy Roblox via YouTube.
