Meta plans to open its own physical stores like the Apple Store

Meta has growing ambitions in the hardware space, and per a new report that growth will soon inspire an interesting new direction: opening physical stores with retail workers, just like the Apple Store.

Meta’s new stores will offer hands-ons with VR headsets and smart glasses

Jyoti Mann writes at Business Insider:

Meta has been working on plans to open physical stores and hire retail workers, Business Insider has learned.

The company has an ongoing project to expand its retail footprint, which is not broadly known internally yet, according to an internal communication seen by BI. The communication also said Meta plans to hire retail employees.

Meta has only one physical retail space, called Meta Store, which it opened on its campus in Burlingame, California, in 2022. The store lets shoppers test out some of its hardware products, including its Meta Quest VR headsets and Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses, much like its rival Apple, which has more than 500 retail stores globally.

It’s unclear how many stores Meta might open and on what timeline, but it experimented with the idea last year by opening a pop-up store, Meta Lab, to sell its smart glasses in Los Angeles.

Meta and Apple’s rivalry has certainly grown in the last few years, evidenced by clashes over advertising, user privacy, and government regulations.

Meta’s success with smart glasses and AI investments have set the two companies up for more direct hardware showdowns in the future too. So from that standpoint, physical retail stores make a lot of sense.

But Apple’s retail success has not exactly been easy for other tech players to replicate. Microsoft famously went big with its Microsoft Store initiative, only to later shut down nearly all locations while revamping the few that remained.

What do you think of Meta’s plans to open its own stores? Let us know in the comments.

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