Meta Platforms opening its first retail store to offer hands-on hardware shopping
Make room, Apple, Microsoft and Google - Meta Platforms (FB) is dipping its toes into physical retail stores.
On May 9 Meta will open the Meta Store, though the initial effort will live on its company campus in Burlingame, Calif. The store will offer visitors the chance to get hands on Meta hardware products, notably the company's Portal video chat devices, its Quest 2 virtual-reality headset and its Ray-Ban Stories smart sunglasses.
That follows naturally from Meta's (and peers') encroachment ever deeper into the consumer hardware space.
The first store isn't vast - it's just 1,550 square feet - but marks a trial balloon offering experimentation that could lead to more stores offering Meta products if the company saw fit.
âThe Meta Store is going to help people make that connection to how our products can be the gateway to the metaverse in the future," says Meta's Store head Martin Gilliard. "Weâre not selling the metaverse in our store, but hopefully people will come in and walk out knowing a little bit more about how our products will help connect them to it.â
Meta has also added a Shop tab to its company website, helping bring together the chance to shop Portal, Ray-Ban Stories and Quest online.
KeyBanc's preview of earnings season for Internet advertising names came out negative on Meta, where the bank expects macro headwinds to drag on revenue growth.