With its new commerce capabilities, Roblox is becoming a powerful platform for brands to drive product discovery, boost sales, and build long-term loyalty.

In this blog, we’ll explore how brands can use phygital strategies within Roblox to create seamless, engaging experiences that connect both worlds.

How In-Game Shopping Works on Roblox

In 2025, Roblox partnered with Shopify to launch its commerce API, allowing brands to sell physical products directly within their immersive Roblox experiences. Now, users can explore, interact, and even purchase real-world items –like makeup, clothing, or collectibles –without ever leaving the game.

This new model closes the loop between discovery, engagement, and purchase, turning high player interaction into real, measurable revenue for brands.

Here’s how brands are making it work:

1. Product Discovery Inside Gameplay
   Users explore branded environments and come across products through gameplay –such as mini-games, quests, or customizing their avatars.
2. Virtual Try-Ons & Digital Twins
   Players can try on branded outfits or accessories as digital wearables. These often match real-life items, increasing interest in purchasing the physical versions.
3. Integrated Checkout
   Using Shopify’s checkout system, players aged 13+ can buy real products directly within the Roblox platform –no need to exit the game.
4. Real-World Items Unlock In-Game Rewards
   Some brands offer exclusive in-game items that are unlocked when users buy a physical product, encouraging real-world purchases.
5. Timed Drops and Special Events
   Limited-time in-game events, special drops, and bonuses tied to real-world purchases create urgency and boost conversion rates.

Real-World Brands Winning with Roblox Commerce

1. Fenty Beauty
   Fenty launched a shoppable Roblox experience where users could try on virtual makeup, learn about products through interactive mini-games, and make real purchases. The campaign generated buzz while boosting sales –especially for its new lip gloss collection.
2. The Weeknd Experience
   Fans were offered exclusive merchandise bundles that included in-game perks, early music access, and real-world apparel. The activation highlighted how entertainment brands can blend digital fan engagement with physical product sales.
3. Twin Atlas Merch Stores
   Developer studio Twin Atlas created in-game merch stores where users could buy branded items directly within Roblox. Impressively, over 90% of purchases occurred inside the platform –and more than half came from repeat customers.
4. Paramount’s SpongeBob Toys
   Each physical SpongeBob toy came with a unique code that unlocked a matching in-game accessory. This strategy boosted both toy sales and in-game activity, especially among younger players, strengthening brand loyalty and recall.
5. Roblox’s Approved Merchandiser Program
   This program allows brands to attach redeemable codes to physical products, unlocking exclusive digital content. It’s a powerful way to bridge the physical and virtual worlds, driving engagement and encouraging repeat purchases.

Key Takeaways

• Phygital commerce on Roblox allows brands to turn in-game engagement into real-world sales.
• Digital twins and avatar customization boost product visibility and create emotional connections with users.
• Shopify’s built-in checkout makes the buying process easy and seamless –right inside the game.
• In-game rewards like unlockable items and limited-time drops add urgency and encourage repeat visits.
• To succeed, brands need to deliver a smooth user experience and clear communication –especially for younger audiences.

Conclusion

Phygital commerce isn’t just an idea anymore—it’s a strategy that’s already working. Roblox creates a unique space where users can discover products, connect with brand stories, and make purchases –all within one seamless experience.

Brands that lean into this model are better positioned to connect with the next generation of shoppers in ways that feel engaging, meaningful, and effortless.

Ready to Take Your Brand Phygital?

If your brand sells physical products, now is the perfect time to explore phygital strategies on Roblox. Create an immersive world that draws users in, showcase digital twins of your products, and use tools like CreatorExchange.io to track engagement and performance.

In our next blog, we’ll dive into the analytics that power the most successful Roblox campaigns –and how you can use that data to optimize your own.

FAQs

Q1. Can any brand sell on Roblox?
A1. As of 2025, only approved Shopify merchants with Roblox partnerships can sell real-world items directly inside Roblox.

Q2. Are there age restrictions?
A2. Yes. Commerce is limited to users aged 13 and older. Brands must comply with age-gating rules and disclosures.

Q3. Do digital items help drive physical sales?
A3. Yes. Digital try-ons, avatar customization, and unlockable codes have been shown to increase purchase intent and conversions.

Q4. How do I get access to commerce tools?
A4. You’ll need to apply through Roblox’s commerce partnership program and work with a development partner familiar with commerce API integration.

Q5. Can I track ROI from commerce in Roblox?
A5. Yes. Tools like CreatorExchange.io offer dashboards to measure transaction rates, funnel performance, and user retention.

The probability of true immersion via virtual reality technology is evident to many, starting with the growing gaming scene. While gaming is a lucrative industry, it is important to examine the vast opportunities outside this niche and how such advancements showcase a world-changing platform.

When virtual reality (VR) first appeared on the tech scene, gamers immediately recognized its extraordinary potential. Their enthusiastic embrace of VR caused it to be perceived as frivolous during its early phases and may have contributed to slower adoption in non-entertainment sectors. Alert software pioneers, however, always knew that VR’s capabilities lay far beyond just the gaming universe and continued developing new applications. At this point, enthusiasm for VR is spreading widely, and its enormous potential is finally being realized far beyond gaming. DigiCapital reports that only about 1/10 of all 2017 investment in virtual and augmented reality was directed into the gaming industry. The remaining 90 percent was divided among navigation, photo/video, business, education, music, entertainment, and other sectors. The size of these investments is growing as well, with virtual and augmented reality startups raising over $1 billion in the third quarter of 2018.

Virtual Reality Technology: What is it good for?
Jeremy Bailenson, a professor of communication at Stanford University and the founder and director of its Virtual Human Interaction Lab, has some interesting insights about the reasons for using VR, and the places where it is and is not applicable. In a Slate interview, Bailenson points out that VR still comes with certain built-in obstacles, and for this reason, its use won’t become ubiquitous. He cautions enthusiasts that VR is not going to transform consumer technology because it is not only expensive to create, but can also fatigue people’s visual capacity and take a psychic toll. Bailenson identifies four key criteria for judging when virtual technology is beneficial: Can it reproduce (or create) experiences that in real life would be expensive, rare, dangerous or impossible. To Bailenson’s four criteria, we might add a fifth: facilitating unique avenues for creativity. Here’s a quick look at each of these five criteria with examples of each.

1. Leveling the Economic Playing Field
Taking a classroom full of elementary school children to Europe is prohibitively expensive for all but the most well-funded private schools. Using virtual reality evens the playing field, allowing kids from every economic stratum to travel the world together on a virtual field trip. Nearpod VR offers affordable VR field trips, neatly packaged as curriculum material, ready to be licensed by a school or a district. The trips work on a broad range of devices (including VR headsets), enabling students to visit historical and geographical landmarks around the world. Through this type of experience, students will be able to benefit from a realistic visit to important and interesting sites without incurring the cost of physical travel. Furthermore, having once seen a place close-up, young people will feel more connected to that place and its people in real life. TechCrunch commentators opine “Perhaps the most utopian application of this technology will be seen in terms of bridging cultures and fostering understanding among young students, as it will soon be possible for a third-grade class in the U.S. to engage in a virtual trip with a third-grade class in India or Mexico.”

2. Opening the Door to Unique Experiences
Rare experiences in the real world take even more resources than ordinary travel. In his discussion of this criterion for the benefits of VR, Bailenson cites the example of whale-watching. Even if you pick a good day to go out on an excursion boat in the peak of the animals’ migration season, there’s no guarantee that you’ll see a whale breach right next to your boat. With a virtual reality experience, viewers are reliably witnessing a breathtaking encounter at close range.

Similarly, complete solar eclipses occur only a few times over the average person’s lifetime and traveling to one is seldom easy. However, thanks to the coverage of Time and other news outlets, anyone can enjoy the experience whenever they wish.

New opportunities for journalism abound through VR. The Navy recently allowed USA Today to send a reporter and a photographer on board the USS Eisenhower, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, as it prepared for a combat mission. These two guests captured and recorded their experience during three days of the vessel’s operations so that their unique access would be virtually accessible to anyone else in the future. Geekwire covered this event, exploring the possibilities offered by VR for the profession of journalism.

3. Providing Safety Amidst Danger
Law enforcement officers and first responders face deadly situations in the course of their daily work, but up until now, it has been nearly impossible to provide frequent training that is sufficiently realistic and diverse. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department has acquired a 5-screen simulator from VR provider VirTra with which to provide advanced officer training. The immersive environment is extremely realistic, using actual guns and tasers, and enhanced by vibration and sound from the specially-wired floor. VirTra works with various law enforcement agencies to create custom scenarios for their specific needs. These simulators are in use around the world and are found to improve officer confidence, threat perception, decision-making under stress, and other essential skills.

Companies in dangerous industries are offering instruction via virtual reality training as well so that workers can learn how to safely operate in a hazardous environment. When a false move can cause millions of dollars of damage, injury, or even death, it’s important that staff are able to learn in a more forgiving setting. Bechtel, a global construction firm, uses VR training modules from New York Human Condition Safety, which specializes in construction safety. Bechtel now trains workers within an immersive virtual environment at the company’s innovation center in Houston.

In entertainment and educational sectors as well, virtual reality design welcomes users safely into dangerous environments. A trip to the top of Mount Everest or to the depths of the ocean courts more risk than most of us want in our lives. However, Everest VR and The Blu allow us to experience what a visit to these places could be like without putting ourselves at risk. WildTouch Expeditions offers users a cozy and safe opportunity to explore the continent of Antarctica, and more such journeys are being rolled out continuously.

4. Changing the Meaning of the Possible
Many people learn best from hands-on experiences, but there’s no way to have first-hand interaction with the orbital mechanics of bodies in space. Unless that is, they enter the virtual world of Universe Sandbox. This VR app allows a user to interact with solar systems that behave and evolve in accordance with the laws of gravity, climate, materials, and basic laws of physics. Users enjoy the majestic beauty of intricate creations that they assemble from suns, moons, and planets … and then immolate them all with giant space lasers!

Google Expeditions has received considerable attention as well, offering virtual travel to Machu Picchu, undersea coral fields, and even the surface of Mars. Using Google Cardboard headsets or pricier gear, users can explore any place that can be captured photographically.

5. Amplifying Creativity
In the world of art, the use of VR is still in its infancy, although pioneers in the field have created several fascinating early efforts. Sydney’s Sculpture by the Sea exhibit uses VR to offer entirely different viewpoints on the sculptural works in Mark’s Park. Visitors book ahead for appointments to this on-site experience, deepening their appreciation of the artists’ work.

VR provides powerful new tools for creating narrative experiences as well. Due to this advancement in technology, storytelling has entered an entirely new arena. Mind Show allows storytellers to create their own animated VR experience and share it with others. Users choose a background, characters, and props, and then act out their stories. After giving the animated characters the actions and voice, they then invite other users to enter the created world and view the action from any angle.

A Statista Survey notes that what people find most interesting about virtual reality technology is “the feeling of jumping into another world.”

In addition to offering new ways to experience artists’ work, VR enables terrific creative tools for visual arts. Tilt Brush and Google Blocks provide 3D painting and sculpting tools that allow anyone to create paintings and sculptures with an intuitive ease that is difficult to achieve in any other medium, which can also even be 3D printed– bringing them into the real world.

SoundStage is a music production toolkit that allows the user to float drum kits, keyboards, synthesizers, theremins, and more in virtual space around their body, and then to play them in real-time.

As we’ve seen, VR provides opportunities for its users to create and enjoy content and information in a tremendous number of new ways– ways that would have been impractical or impossible before. Clearly, VR is a substantial force in sectors far beyond just gaming and will only continue to grow more important over time as businesses, artists, musicians, and educators continue to embrace it.

 
The ability to enter different realities may well become the 21st century’s defining characteristic, and this technology will transform every industry.

1. Travel: Tourism Australia

Tourism Australia provides 18 different 360-degree film sequences, showcasing various destinations. The most popular of these include some interaction with wildlife, such as swimming with sea lions or snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. Users can view the film clips with a Google Cardboard or any other mobile headset. The tourism board’s chief marketing officer, Lisa Ronson, comments, “We have a very competitive landscape in destination marketing, with national tourist offices spending a lot of money. We need to be able to tell the story of Australia in new and engaging ways.”

After launching their campaign, Tourism Australia partnered with Google Think Board and TNS to study its effectiveness. The results provide solid evidence for VR’s value: The videos have been viewed over 10 million times, and they have helped drive a 9 percent increase in visits to the country. After introducing this campaign, the Australia tourism industry experienced a record-breaking year.

To draw travelers with more resources, tourism boards and hospitality brands are offering a sensory taste through VR. Tourism Australia comments, “Virtual reality is one of the most exciting innovations in tourism marketing, enabling consumers to live and experience a destination directly from their living rooms.”

Future Directions for VR in Travel
Video tourism previews such as these are only the beginning. Virtual reality offers many fresh possibilities for the travel industry. A virtual tour guide could provide consumers with a deeper dive into the real-life location they are contemplating. This tour could have an added story element, allowing users to “choose their own adventure.” Some light gamification could also enhance the travel shopping experience. A travel game could give people simple tasks within their virtual preview. Offering them rewards for these tasks would encourage them to make the leap and actually go on vacation.

2. Automobiles: Toyota

Toyota’s virtual reality strategy contributed to a 5 percent lead conversion rate, and that’s not surprising: Shoppers who can personally experience a car and virtually activate all of its features will develop a highly engaged relationship to the vehicle.

In their real-life marketing, Toyota whetted the appetites of customers for its model C-HR before it was released. By offering a virtual experience powered by Zero Light, Toyota captured users’ interests and then stayed connected with those users through an at-home mobile VR experience.

Toyota Takes the Lead in VR
Toyota has been stepping forward aggressively into the world of VR automobile marketing. As an exhibitor at the TechCrunch Disrupt Conference in 2016, Toyota previewed their immersive VR sales experience. Their demo offered the high-quality immersive technology of the HTC Vive, as well as spatial audio and a steering wheel with haptic sensors. The compelling demonstration uses an actual seat from the Prius Prime. Sitting in this seat contributed to a powerful sense of immersion.

VR Actively Engages Auto Shoppers
Enjoying a virtual test drive as part of a game can help people move beyond passive viewing and begin to actively engage with the car. Toyota’s VR experience puts people in the middle of a story. Customers play the role of a getaway driver for a mysterious rider carrying a briefcase. They virtually careen through traffic and escape other vehicles until they reach the culmination of the story and find out what was inside that briefcase.

A CBS news video in January 2018 highlighted some of the uses of VR in future auto sales. The report emphasizes the fact that virtual reality allows buyers to avoid human sales representatives. Instead, buyers can privately (and safely) explore the car’s features and behavior through a virtual test drive.

3. Commercial Real Estate: Macerich

The ability to visualize what an office or apartment building will look like before it’s built is only one advantage of VR Another key benefit is the ability to offer virtual tours to multiple people at once, so an entire investment team can simultaneously tour a property. Decision-makers in a different city can get a full view without having to personally travel to the site.

Residential home buyers have been able to access 3D walkthroughs for a few years. Commercial real estate is breaking new ground with virtual reality design, offering 3D views of future properties. As commercial leasing platform VTS explains, “On the commercial side, one of the most prominent applications of VR is marketing for space that is under construction– or even still on the drawing board. Virtual tours can help potential tenants visualize a space that doesn’t yet exist, and effectively speed lease-up for developers and owners.

Removing Time and Distance Barriers
When Macerich wanted to showcase its 500,000 square foot shopping development in San Francisco, it used VR technology from Floored. Macerich has been at the forefront of defining VR’s usefulness in the commercial real estate market. AZ Big Media notes that Macerich has been using VR to “enhance a building’s impact for stakeholders.”

Customizing Spaces with VR.
Seeing a space ahead of time can be interactive, rather than simply passive. VR gives buyers the ability to reconfigure layouts altogether, including moving walls and reshaping rooms. Leaseholders can choose the right colors and furnishings, customizing their space before it’s assembled. Links to furniture retailers within the virtual showroom allow customers to purchase the furnishings they prefer.

4. Education: Oxford University

A Classroom of Avatars
At the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show, Oxford University teamed up with Immersive VR Education to showcase its new offerings. The platform, called Engage, uses HTC Vive headsets to accommodate up to 30 students at once. The students are represented by avatars in the virtual world, allowing the teacher to provide real-time feedback on student work. The subject of the demonstration is Oxford’s “Life-Saving Instruction for Emergencies (LIFE) Project,” which trains health workers who will be doing medical relief work in developing countries. Dr. Chris Paton, Group Head for Global Health Informatics at the Centre for Tropical Medicine, states that “VR allows students in remote areas to connect with trainers in a virtual hospital ward where they can access equipment and practice performing tasks with a virtual instructor.”

People learn best when they are involved, and VR is the most direct way of actively engaging students with any subject matter. Placing people in new environments often evokes emotions, and these emotions help form strong memories.

Teaching is an ideal example of virtual reality use cases, and new technology will make it easier to share such experiences. This technology enables instructors to set up virtual classrooms, in which students all over the world can interact at the same time.

5. Retail: Alibaba

Redefining Today’s Virtual Shopping Experience
Alibaba is the largest online shopping site in China, and they are using virtual reality to fundamentally transform the shopping experience. In Fall 2016, Alibaba launched its Buy+ VR platform, giving users the chance to view virtual representations of a selection of products. The only equipment needed was a Google Cardboard VR headset and a smartphone. Within one hour of launch, 30,000 users had tried out the experience. A year later, Alibaba upgraded this platform by erecting a “virtual mall” in which shopper could explore offerings from six different retailers.

These sensory explorations are still in their very early phases, but Alibaba’s innovations suggest the shopping methods of the future. A few technologies need to become more sophisticated in order to make the virtual storefront comparable to in-person shopping. Gaze-based interfaces are beginning to be functional, but they still face design challenges. Haptic gloves, which allow users to experience tactile sensations with their hands, will inevitably become part of the virtual shopping experience.

VR’s Bright Future
To recognize the enormous power of VR’s emerging influence, one only has to look at the investment forecasts: IDC projects that global spending on AR and VR will rise from 2017’s $11.4 billion to over $200 billion in 2021. The ability to enter different realities may well become the 21st century’s defining characteristic, and this technology will transform every industry.

Just as Amazon disrupted brick and mortar storefronts, virtual reality is enabling the next quantum leap in retail. Although the state of portable VR technology is still evolving, some companies are pushing the envelope of what’s possible.

Appealing to the Senses
As part of its virtual shopping mall, Alibaba rolled out a new form of payment. VR Pay allows customers to make purchases within the virtual environment. They only have to look or nod at a product, and it is placed in their shopping cart. The user provides personal identification through voice print technology. They also have to input a password, which they can do by directing their gaze at a certain point for a specified length of time.