IKEA launches pop-up furniture shop in Roblox game

IKEA is set to open a pop-up shop in the metaverse in collaboration with game platform Roblox, allowing players to add classic IKEA designs to their virtual homes.

For a limited time, players of the platform's life-simulation game Welcome to Bloxburg will be able to visit the Bloxburg Fancy Furniture Store and pick up recognisable IKEA items such as the Brännboll inflatable gaming chair and stuffed toy shark Blåhaj.

These products can then be used to furnish spaces within the game, so users can play with how they look in different virtual homes and environments.

The limited-edition pop-up will be available to Bloxburg players in Australia and Sweden between 22 January and 5 February as part of a pilot programme to help IKEA gauge whether there is an appetite for its products on digital platforms.

"We're delighted to bring some of our most loved IKEA products into this digital space," said Sara Vestberg, home furnishing direction leader at IKEA Retail.

"With curiosity, we're looking forward to seeing the home furnishing ideas people create, and how our products feel at home in their digital lives."

The pilot was launched in response to the longstanding trend among Gen Z and Gen Alpha of using digital spaces to design homes and express their interior design preferences.

Roblox currently has around 111 million daily active users, with more than half of them under 16 years old.

IKEA aims to learn how this demographic is digitally interacting with products, recognising the importance of engaging them on the platforms they are already using.

Throughout the pilot, the company will monitor engagement metrics, focusing on design translation, usability and interaction.

"This pilot is very much about learning and exploring," said chief digital officer at IKEA Retail, Parag Parekh. "We're using it to better understand how digital environments can enrich the IKEA experience, while continuing to stay true to our values and what customers expect from us."

The pilot also extends into the physical world, with users in Australia invited to participate in a store-based treasure hunt where they can find hidden QR codes and unlock additional products within Welcome to Bloxburg.

Previously, IKEA also launched a game on Roblox named The Co-Worker in 2024, where players could work in a virtual IKEA store to experience how the brand supports careers.

The idea of the metaverse – a digital universe where people can experience a parallel life to their real-world existence – experienced a boom in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, with brands from Gucci to Balenciaga jumping on the trend.

But in a recent opinion piece for Dezeen, design researcher Sarah Housley argued that "the idea of designing for virtual worlds is just getting started".

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