Meta to open its first physical retail store

Image credit: meta.com

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta has revealed that the first physical retail store, the Meta Store, will be opening near the company’s headquarters in Burlingame, California.

The Meta Store will open on May 9, 2022, and will provide users a hands-on experience with all of Meta’s hardware products including the Meta Quest 2, Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses, and the Portal online communication devices. The store will also feature a wall-size screen that will be showing whatever the person inside virtual reality is seeing or doing. The company’s website Meta.com will also feature an online shop to make purchasing their products easier.

Zuckerberg said in a statement that the best way to understand virtual reality is to experience it and anyone can try out popular apps on Quest 2 at the new Meta Store. He added that customers will also be able to try out various other products there as well such as Ray-Ban Stores and Portal.

Opening this kind of store is nothing new, as the company is simply doing what many other tech companies have done. Apple, Microsoft, Sony, and even Amazon have opened such stores in the past.

Martin Gilliard, head of Meta Store informed that having a store in Burlingame will give the company more opportunities to experiment and keep the customer experience core to the company’s development. He added that whatever the company learns here will help define its future retail strategy.

He concluded by saying that the metaverse is not what the company is selling at the store but hopefully people will come in and walk out of it knowing a little bit more about how the company’s products will help connect them to it.

From May 9, 2022, the store will be open Monday through Friday from 11 am to 6 pm Pacific time. The store is located at 322 Airport Blvd in Burlingame, California. Customers will be able to purchase the Quest 2, Quest 2 accessories and Portal devices on the spot, however, if you are looking to purchase Ray-Ban Stories, one of the retail associates will help you order them directly from Ray-Ban.com.