Walmart finds success with Walmart Land on Roblox 

Grocery shopping is finding its own spot in the metaverse, and the experience is a whole lot more fun than your average trip to the supermarket.

With Walmart’s amusement park-like Walmart Land in Roblox, gamers, represented by their avatars, can zoom across the island on a zip line, visit food trucks, try on clothes from major brands, slide down a pair of pumps, roller skate, dance on an interactive piano walkway on Electric Island or catch a live concert, and hit a high note onstage in front of their fellow avatars. If visitors can track down all 15 Walmart bags on a scavenger hunt, they can also win various prizes like gear for their avatars.

The game has received more than 13 million visits and has been favorited by more than 60,000 visitors since launching this past September, sitting among the most popular branded options on the platform. Walmart is one of the largest U.S. brands to work with Roblox to create immersive experiences for the gaming platform’s 59 million daily active users.

Along with Walmart Land, the major retailer also launched a separate game called Walmart’s Universe of Play, which has garnered 667,000 visits itself, and aims to bring to life the best of Walmart’s aisles to a virtual island world with activities designed around the popular toy brands Walmart carries. Visitors can host an L.O.L Surprise fashion show, interact with Paw Patrol characters, create their own Magic Mixie, and ride Razor scooters around a track in the sky.   

The efforts are the major retailer’s first attempts to experiment with metaverse experiences, a continuing trend among many major brands like Gucci, Chipotle, H&M, and even other grocers like Carrefour, as they work to connect with young consumers, all experimenting in different ways. Forever 21, for instance, has already sold millions of dollars in virtual goods on Roblox. Spending among brands in the metaverse space is expected to total between $144 billion to $206 billion by 2030, according to a June 2022 McKinsey report.

“We are delivering on our goal of driving meaningful engagement and fostering authentic relationships with the next generation of customers,” writes Justin Breton, Walmart’s director of brand experiences and strategic partnerships, on LinkedIn. “From launching Electric Fest, a motion-capture music festival celebrating diversity, to transforming Walmart Land into a winter wonderland, our learnings from this launch are invaluable and will help inform what we do next in the metaverse.”  

Walmart worked with Publicis and creative agency Journey on the experiences. Users can freely access the Walmart Land experience on Roblox.com and Walmart’s Universe of Play on any device.   

At the time of launch in September, Walmart’s U.S. Chief Marketing Officer William White stated in a release: “We’re showing up in a big way — creating community, content, entertainment, and games through the launch of Walmart Land and Walmart’s Universe of Play.”     

“Roblox is one of the fastest-growing and largest platforms in the metaverse,” White added. “We know our customers are spending loads of time there. So, we’re focusing on creating new and innovative experiences that excite them, something we’re already doing in the communities where they live, and now, the virtual worlds where they play.”