Walmart adds dorm shop to virtual shopping platform

Dive Brief:

• In time for back-to-school season, Walmart on July 30 launched Walmart Realm, an immersive shopping experience that centers on dorm room curation, according to details sent to Retail Dive. 
• In collaboration with virtual reality tech developer Emperia, the Your Dorm Your Way shopping experience features five immersive dorm rooms from which college students can shop.
• Each virtual dorm is equipped with a mini game, social content from Walmart’s creators and other surprises, according to the company. 

Dive Insight:

Walmart Realm’s Your Dorm Your Way is the second phase of Walmart’s immersive shopping platform first announced in May. In its debut, influencer-led virtual shops display items among a model room and lets shoppers directly purchase from the retailer’s site as they explore all the virtual spaces. 

In order to reach the younger generation as they start back-to-school-shopping, Walmart turned again to the metaverse to grab their attention.

“Walmart Realm, powered by Emperia, continues to embrace the limitless possibilities of virtual technologies, allowing us to create stunning immersive commerce experiences to inspire our customers & shorten the distance between inspiration & commerce as they shop online,” Justin Breton, director of brand experiences and strategic partnerships at Walmart, said in a statement.

https://youtu.be/09qjkrIPulk?feature=shared

Mini games in the new update, like Byte-sized Crush in the Y2K dorm, amongst others like Sanrio and Lofi, as well as a surprise doll house in the Royal dorm, offer shoppers various rewards. Gamification elements in metaverse spaces offer opportunity for more engagement, personalization and the chance at winning freebies.

Emperia’s virtual reality tech has powered immersive online stores for other brands like L’Occitane’s summer fragrance metaverse experience, Lacoste, Tommy Hilfiger and Bloomingdales for its 150th anniversary. 

Additionally, Emperia’s Creator Tools for Developers lets brands, creators, studios and enterprises, “convert 3D designs into fully-functional, cross-device virtual worlds,” per its site, at a fraction of time and development costs.

This isn’t Walmart’s first time deploying immersive commerce experiences. The retailer launched on Roblox with various shoppable virtual worlds like the back-to-school-themed game Supercampus, Walmart Discovered and the E.l.f. Up! experience in a partnership with E.l.f. Beauty. 

However, Walmart’s tie-ups in the virtual commerce space hasn’t come without challenges. As the metaverse aims to grab the attention of younger shoppers, others have called for a closer look at privacy policies. In March 2023, the retailer quietly dismissed a branded space in Roblox six months post-launch, dubbed Universe of Play. Following a push by advocacy groups like TINA.org, the game was assessed for potential “manipulative stealth marketing.” Children’s privacy concerns in the metaverse led Roblox to amend its ad policies for messaging targeted towards kids. Walmart said the Universe of Play’s closure was planned saying, “The intent of our presence on Roblox is to continuously innovate. Taking down some experiences to work on new [ones] is part of that innovation.”