Meta Opens Retail Pop-up in Los Angeles to Showcase Its Smart Glasses

Meta’s making an expanded push to sell more of its Ray Ban smart glasses this Christmas, with a dedicated “Meta Lab” pop-up store now open in Los Angeles.

Meta’s stylistic retail experience is designed to showcase the advanced capacity of its device, while also providing a glimpse at the future of Meta’s hardware products.

As per Meta:

“The focus is on experiential retail - a reinvention of the traditional shopping experience […] The entire endeavor is driven by a learning agenda to find out what works, and what doesn’t, to help inform our future efforts, while also benefiting ​​EssilorLuxottica and our third-party retail partners.”

The retail space includes a range of try-on experiences, along with VR elements, and a customization shop. There’ll also be live entertainment to attract more visitors:

“Meta Lab will have 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, which the company says was a big success. Indeed, Meta says that over 90% of Connect attendees went through Meta Lab, and one in four made a purchase.

I doubt that Meta will see the same conversion rate in its other retail stores, but it suggests that Meta is on the right track in showcasing the capacity of its various tools, and their future potential.  

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

Which will be even more important in future, when it starts selling its AR-enabled glasses. Those are not set for retail sale until 2027, but Meta’s current retail experiments are about laying the foundation for how to best showcase its next-level products, which will also include its evolving VR headsets.  

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

Meta’s Los Angeles pop-up store is open from now until December 31st.