See inside Drake's collab with Shopify, a messy virtual mansion stocked with exclusive merch curated and designed by the rap star

Drake Related Shopify store — The Embassy is Drake's custom-built $100 million mansion in Toronto.
DrakeRelated.com

Drake is one of several celebrities using Shopify to expand their e-commerce offerings.
Fans can explore and buy exclusive products through a digital rendering of Drake's Toronto mansion.
Shopify's latest tool allows the rap star to partner with other brands for unique merch drops.

Hip-hop superstar Drake is of course most widely known for his chart-topping music, but the Canadian creator has also spent the past decade building up a veritable retail empire as a side hustle.

True to form, his approach has been a bit unconventional, with a flagship e-commerce site modeled off his $100 million Toronto mansion, The Embassy.

Rather than scroll through the same-old grid of product listings, fans can explore various virtual rooms strewn about with items to buy, all powered by Shopify's e-commerce platform.

The most recent addition was a collection of products that were selected and customized by Drake, but made and shipped by other Shopify merchants under a new feature called Collective.

"We can actually match incredible content creators that have massive audiences with incredible brands," Shopify President Harley Finkelstein said on the company's second-quarter earnings call.

Shopify Collective is one of several new business-to-business initiatives the company has announced recently, and on Wednesday's call Finkelstein highlighted the launch of dozens of new B2B features in the last year alone.

"We know that there's pent-up demand to use Shopify for B2B, and so you're seeing us announce new things like Collective," he said.

It should be noted, the interactive design of Drake's store is not a feature of Collective. Shopify's role here is more under-the-hood, connecting brands and manufacturers with customers online.

Take a look inside to see how it works.

Originally revealed in 2020, The Embassy was featured in the music video for "Toosie Slide."

Visitors to DrakeRelated.com arrive to one of several renderings of The Embassy, in this case the front entrance and parking area.

Entering El Chico Studios brings up a workshop styled as an e-commerce hub. A click on the clothing hanging on the rack brings up a product page...

... to purchase the Scorpion Hoodie and Sweatpants. Meanwhile, the Hotline Bling Pool Float is out back...

... floating in the pool, while towels, candles, and shoes are strewn about the patio.

Even though Drake sells the pool float, another Shopify merchant makes and ships the actual product – essentially it's drop-shipping 2.0.

From the pool area, visitors can click over into the bedroom, which is cluttered with tour T-shirts...

... plus, a copy of Drake's book on the nightstand.

Clicking a lamp turns off the lights and festoons the room with candles from Drake's Better World Fragrance House.

Clicking on the candle takes shoppers to that store.

Through the bedroom is the closet with still more shoes and clothing racks featuring Drake's brand partnership with Nike.

Of course, if visitors get lost – or simply want to take a shortcut – they can click on a menu at the bottom left of the screen.

The Studio was one of the first rooms to go live when Drake launched the site, and has gradually accumulated more shirts, hats, candles, and other items as merch drops are released.

Over in the lounge, a model plane on the bookshelf takes visitors aboard Air Drake...

... a similarly messy private jet featuring pure cashmere blankets, robes, and eye masks.

At $4,100 for a blanket and $995 for an eye mask, it's not likely that commercial airline travelers will be packing them in carry-on luggage anytime soon.

Drake is no stranger to comfort, so shoppers can reasonably bet he found the most comfortable robe money can buy, made and sold by The Elder Statesman.

Shopify says the new Collective tools should make it much faster and easier for creators like Drake to announce and release new product offerings. But until the next one drops, visitors can just keep wandering around the mansion.