As the company pivots to the metaverse, Meta will launch its first real retail store next month, signaling the growing importance of its hardware business. The “Meta Store” will open on May 9th in Burlingame, California, near Meta’s Reality Labs offices. The store will feature interactive demos of the company’s VR headsets, Ray-Ban Stories glasses, and Portal gadgets, as well as virtual reality headsets.
Physical retail outlets are important to Meta because they allow the firm not only sell more hardware, but also expose more people to its VR and AR technology. Virtual reality demonstrations will be shown in-store on a giant “wall-to-wall” LED display, which will transmit content from participants’ headgear. In a recent post on his Facebook page, Mark Zuckerberg previewed the display.
Zuckerberg claimed the new store will allow consumers “get a feel of what’s coming as we develop towards the metaverse” in a post on Monday. Meta is developing augmented reality glasses, a high-end VR headset, and maybe a wristwatch, in addition to its existing goods.
Though the first store will be small — roughly 1,500 square feet near the company’s headquarters — Meta’s retail footprint may grow significantly in the future. Last autumn, the New York Times reported that the corporation was considering expanding globally. A large expansion of Meta’s physical storefronts, on the other hand, would almost certainly require the company to sell a lot more devices than it does now. In 2021, Meta’s metaverse lost $10 billion.