Meta is expanding its efforts to sell even more of its Ray Ban smart glasses during the Christmas shopping season, with a dedicated "Meta Lab" pop-up store now open in Los Angeles.
Meta's 'style-driven' retail experience is aimed at showing off the advanced capability of its device, and hinting at the future look and design of Meta's hardware products
According to Meta:

Here, it's experiential retail, the reinvention of the more traditional shopping experience. This whole endeavour is, in fact, driver by a learning agenda to find out what works, and what doesn't, to inform our future efforts, but also to benefit EssilorLuxottica and our third-party retail partners.

And it will have retail space with try-ons, and VR elements, and a personalization shop. It will also have live entertainment, to get more people to visit.

"Meta Lab will feature regular programming, inviting in guests from the community, from stand-up comedy with Desi Banks and a live podcast with Madeline Argy to a paint and sip night with Tinashe, a Ray-Ban Meta-focused workshop with Director Drex Lee, and a cooking class with Cassie Yeung."

The store is based on Meta's retail showcase which it first held at its Connect conference back in September, and the company says the event was a success. Indeed, Meta says that over 90% of Connect attendees went through Meta Lab, and one in four made a purchase.

It is my question that the same trend of conversion will be witnessed in other retail stores of Meta, but at least it tells that Meta is on the correct way to depict the potential of each one of its varied tools and their future.

And it's just the start of Meta's retail experiments. Meta also has an in-store activation, which will open at the end of January in Phoenix. That will then give Meta a complete perspective on different retail sales options, which will help guide its approach on such moving forward.

Which, in 2024, will be even more important when it begins selling its AR-enabled glasses. Those are not scheduled to hit retail shelves until 2027, but Meta's current retail experiments are about laying the groundwork for how to best showcase its next-level products, which also will include its developing VR headsets.

As such, this is just the beginning, and you may expect to see more of Meta's retail stores and experiences in the near future.

Meta's Los Angeles pop-up store is open now till 31st December.