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Last week, Shopify President Harley Finkelstein showed up on social media looking like he was straight out of a comic book. To be clear, Finkelstein showed up as an animated version of himself in, well, drumroll please, Roblox.
This was to announce that Shopify had become the first official commerce platform partner of the gaming platform. The move, Shopify said in a release, was part of its plan to shape the future of immersive commerce and shopping. Roblox said it will pilot its Shopify integration in Q4.
“This means that developers, creators, and brands who are on Shopify can sell directly within their Roblox games,” Finkelstein tweeted. Roblox users will soon be able to shop for physical products like clothing, accessories, and collectables designed by Roblox creators, and branded items from other sellers that have a Shopify storefront.
The way Mark William Lewis, founder and CEO of Netalico Commerce, sees it, with the Roblox integration Shopify is going after a younger demographic between 13 to 25. This after Roblox’s head of fashion and beauty partnerships, Winnie Burke, said last year that Roblox was not just a “kids platform.”
“This really means that they’re [teens and up] going to be able to buy physical things,” Lewis told Retail Brew. “They’re going to be able to shop in a virtual world, like they would if they walked into a Walmart or Target.”
Lewis also said that he could see preteens in their fashion game looking forward to shopping from a virtual store instead of having their parents driving them to a physical store.
“I could definitely see this being very engaging,” Lewis said. On the flip side, he added, it might be hard for the parents, whose kids may want to use their credit cards to buy on Roblox.
Roblox did show its intent to ramp up monetization on the platform when it hired ad tech company PubMatic in April to boost video ad revenues on its platform.
“Roblox I don’t think is a particularly [well] monetized platform,” Lewis explained. “It’s just a game that kids are playing—I think it’s an opportunity for brands to access a new audience that they probably couldn't really get to.”
“A larger launch is expected in 2025,” Finkelstein said.
Editor’s note 9/10/24: The headline of this story has been updated since its original posting to more accurately reflect the age demographic.