FACEBOOK'S META STORE
Facebook is entering the retail world for the first time
Opening its Meta Store to offer its VR headsets and glasses directly to potential buyers in an effort to spark interest in products essential to its metaverse ambitions.
The Meta Store, which opened May 9, is located in Burlingame, California, about 15 miles south of San Francisco. In addition to Quest VR headsets and Ray-Ban glasses that can record and post short videos or Stories, the store will also feature the Portal video-chat device. Last year the company changed its name to Meta to reflect its risky shift in focus toward building the "metaverse," imagined as an immersive, hyper-realistic digital world that requires VR hardware to participate in.
"The best way to understand virtual reality is to experience it," founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a statement. He emphasized that the new store focuses on "demoing" apps and products and creating "an idea of what's going to happen as we head into the metaverse."
An important part of the new Meta Store will be to offer potential customers the opportunity to test Facebook hardware in person and in an environment set up by the company. There is a large stage in the store where people can move freely while using the headset, enveloped by a full-height screen that shows viewers what the wearer is seeing.
In addition to the new store, Meta's website will also include a shopping tab to sell its products online. Currently, Facebook sells its headphones only through third-party retailers such as Best Buy, Target, and Amazon.
Martin Gillard is now head of Meta Store, the company said. "The Meta Store will help people understand how our products can be the gateway to the metaverse in the future," Gillard said. "We won't be selling the metaverse in our store, but we hope people will come in and out knowing more about how our products will help them connect to it".
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