At its annual developer conference in San Jose, California, Roblox announced a partnership and integration with Shopify that will allow Shopify storefronts to sell physical items to U.S. consumers over the age of 13 directly in their Roblox games from 2025.
This means that Shopify sellers will gain an extremely valuable new channel, and Roblox creators will be able to partner with Shopify brands to further their own commercial aims. With Roblox scoring 80 million daily active users as of Q2 2024 and growing, this integration has the potential to reward the millions of smaller brands and retailers on Shopify who are willing to link up with Roblox creators.
This new in-game shopping feature will be piloted with creators and brands in the fourth quarter of 2024 prior to its full launch early next year.
What is Roblox?
Roblox is an open world platform where anyone can create their own games for others to play. It’s often described as both an MMO and a metaverse, and certainly combines elements from both into a much bigger whole.
The platform is used by all ages and especially beloved by families who can game together, and has a powerful suite of parental controls (including disabling chat) that parents can use to protect children from the harmful aspects of its multi-user nature—however, many user-created games and environments within Roblox do feature adult content and children’s use of the platform needs to be supervised.
Roblox has an in-platform currency called Robux which is purchased with real money and then used within the different areas of the platform, including to buy in-game currency on games within Roblox. Creators can also set their games as Paid Access, which means that access to these games needs to be purchased using Robux.
What is Shopify?
Shopify is one of the biggest ecommerce companies and brand names in the world, and online shopping is its bread and butter. Now closing in on 20 years since its founding, Shopify gives entrepreneurs a suite of tools for managing inventory, shipping, marketing, and customer service while allowing them to service customers both in-person and via an online storefront.
Shopify claimed a 10% share of U.S. ecommerce sales in 2023, and that makes sense given how Shopify caters to a wide variety of entrepreneurs. You can power your brick-and-mortar retail business through Shopify just as you can use the platform for dropshipping or other sorts of digital business.
Wasn’t This Already Possible on Roblox?
Several larger brands are already attempting their own ecommerce integrations with Roblox, including Walmart. Walmart launched two metaverse experiences on Roblox back in September 2022, and their commerce shop within the experience allows Roblox users to check out certain real world items. Each purchase of a real world item then comes with a free digital twin that customers can use with their Walmart Discovered avatar.
E.l.f. has also tested real-world commerce on Roblox, as have Ikea, LensCrafters, Pacsun, Fenty Beauty, and more—but the Shopify integration will open up Roblox opportunities for much smaller sellers than these established brands.
What Other Plans Did Roblox Announce?
Roblox is also opening up further opportunities for its creators by changing the game with Paid Access. We mentioned that there are premium games on Roblox that users have to pay to play, and this needs to be done using Robux.
Now, Roblox is attempting to increase the appeal of the platform to existing developers by letting them charge real money rather than Robux. They won’t get to keep all of the money they get from sales, though—there’ll be a sliding scale in operation, with $50 games giving the creator a $35 payout, $30 games netting them $18, and $10 games giving them $5.
Sales of the digital currency Robux currently account for the majority of Roblox’ revenue, which in Q2 of this year rose 31% YOY to $893 million. Net losses were also moving in the right direction for Roblox in Q2, down from $282 million to $207 million year-over-year.
