Walmart Realm is a trippy store geared toward Gen Z and Gen Alpha

When most people picture a shopping trip at Walmart, the images that likely come to mind include endless rows of products, fluorescent lighting, and a blue and yellow color scheme. They probably don’t imagine an underwater mermaid cove or a trippy outpost in the Wild West, but that’s exactly what they’ll find on Walmart Realm , the company’s new immersive e-commerce site.



Launched on May 22, Walmart Realm is taking a social media-driven play to snag Gen Z and Gen Alpha consumers. It’s part of Walmart’s broader trial-and-error process to reach a younger generation online, which has also included multiple partnerships with the popular gaming site Roblox and tapping into influencer marketing. But while Walmart Realm has all the trappings of a metaverse retail shop, the company won’t call it that—and their denial shows just how passé the metaverse has become.



[Image: Walmart]



A platform powered by Pinterest



Walmart Realm is made up of virtual storefronts that are designed based on insights from Pinterest Predicts , a trend forecasting report that compiles data on the aesthetics that are most likely to go viral each year. There’s “So Jelly,” a fantastical coral reef drawing on the “ mermaidcore ” trend; “Y’allternative” a “Wild West meets gothic glam” town à la Beyoncé’s western Cowboy Carter look; and “Go Chromatic,” a futuristic city made of silver blobs .



The platform was created by Emperia , a design firm that specializes in creating virtual worlds for fashion and retail companies like L’Occitane and Bloomingdale’s. According to Emperia’s CEO, Olga Dogadkina, one of the keys to a successful virtual platform is to show customers something they haven’t seen before—a concept that Walmart Realm clearly embraced.



[Image: Walmart]



“Surreal environments are something we highly recommend brands doing, especially when we’re looking at younger audiences,” Dogadkina says. “The main reason for that is, when we think about omni-channel strategy, everyone knows what Walmart looks like—you don’t want the same type of experience online. It’s much more about continuation of the brand vision.” 



Walmart Realm lives on its own web page separate from Walmart’s main site. It plays like a classic point and click game, except there are products like Elf lip plumper floating in the gothic desert cathedral and a chunky white sofa in the jellyfish cove. Users can collect Walmart sparks and play basic games to earn rewards like online discount codes. To entice Zoomers to actually visit the page, Walmart brought in recognizable influencers, including Mai Pham, Nava Rose, and Makenzie and Malia Fowler, to promote the venture and curate its offerings. 



[Image: Walmart]



The metaverse is dead . . . long live “immersive e-commerce”?



While Walmart Realm is the corporation’s only owned and operated site of its kind, it’s not Walmart’s first pass at engaging a younger audience through e-commerce experiences. In 2022, at the apex of hype around the metaverse , the company announced two branded experiences on Roblox: Walmart Land and Walmart’s Universe of Play.



“Roblox is one of the fastest growing and largest platforms in the metaverse, and we know our customers are spending loads of time there,” said William White, chief marketing officer of Walmart U.S., in a press release at the time. “So, we’re focusing on creating new and innovative experiences that excite them.”



However, shortly after the two virtual worlds launched, Walmart came under fire from consumer advocacy groups for potential stealth marketing to kids . Ultimately, both Walmart Land and Walmart’s Universe of Play were shut down. But the company wasn’t giving up just yet. In September 2023, it returned to Roblox with Walmart Discovered, a new experience that compiles trending user generated content (UGC) on the platform.



According to Justin Breton, Walmart’s director of brand experiences and strategic partnerships, Walmart Discovered has accumulated more than 21 million visits and is the top-rated brand experience on the platform. In March, peak time spent in Walmart Discovered was nine minutes.



The success of Walmart Discovered showed Walmart that it could commercially benefit from immersive e-commerce experiences. But the company is careful not to describe Walmart Realm as part of the metaverse. Nowadays, companies that even flirt with referencing the metaverse for a new product run the risk of appearing cringe and outdated . Other companies, like Disney, have walked back their investments in the metaverse, while well-known metaverse platforms like Decentraland and The Sandbox have reportedly seen dwindling user bases .



“I think the term ‘the metaverse’ was a darling of the headlines in 2021,” Breton says. “But the metaverse is so all-encompassing; it includes NFTs and Web3 and virtual and AR, but each of those things are their own respective technologies. So we never really leaned into the notion of, ‘We’re investing in the metaverse,’ it was was always, ‘We’re investing in meeting customers where they are online.’”



[Image: Walmart]



A vision for a future that may not even exist



From Dogadkina’s perspective as a virtual world designer, the problem with the metaverse hype was that brands didn’t seem to have a clear understanding of the word. And, indeed, much of the tech world has played it pretty fast and loose with the definition of the metaverse. It normally describes a 3D virtual world where players interact through avatars, but that can span anything from an immersive high-tech video game played with a VR headset to games like Fortnite and Roblox.



While “immersive e-commerce” is a more specific descriptor of Walmart Realm, that doesn’t change the fact that, in practice, it leans more toward a metaverse-type game than a typical online shopping experience. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly offers no assurance that this strategy will work commercially for Walmart. 



The first issue is getting young consumers to actually find and use the site. Walmart Discovered has an impressive presence on Roblox, but all of its target viewers are already inside the game; no one is signing up for Roblox just to check out what Walmart is up to. 



The second, and perhaps most telling problem, is that Walmart seems to be designing for a future of e-commerce that’s still a bit far off at best. Breton says Walmart Realm is “built for the future”: namely, one wherein wearables like the Apple Vision Pro and Oculus become commonplace, and users can feel like they’re actually inside the virtual storefronts. That dream might come true down the line, but it’s definitely not here yet. Supply chain data suggests that sales of the Apple Vision Pro have tanked since the gadget was released. Frankly, wearing a headset outside the comfort of your own home remains a social faux-pas . And even with billions of dollars and nearly endless resources at its disposal, Meta’s VR goggle-powered metaverse still became a memeified laughing stock .



Given that Walmart Realm has been out for a little more than a week, it remains to be seen whether the platform will prove successful. The company does plan to expand the site with several more worlds this year, and the company says that Walmart Realm could merge with the company’s flagship website and app at some point.



But customers might have to wait at least another few years (or, let’s face it, maybe a decade) before feeling like they’re actually swimming with the guppies in “So Jelly” or kicking back with the cowboys in “Y’allternative” plaza.