For a company focused on equipping consumers for adventures in the world of virtual and augmented reality, setting up shop in the real world might seem counterintuitive. However, recent reports based on internal communications reveal that this is the course Meta plans to take to increase sales of its Quest VR headsets and other high-tech devices.
According to a Meta memo obtained by Business Insider, the company is involved in an ongoing project that will involve hiring retail employees and expanding its footprint beyond the one physical retail space it now maintains on its corporate campus in Burlingame, California. The memo didn’t provide a timeline for the project.
Jared Navarre, founder of Keyni Consulting, recently told The Street that the move is less about expanding Meta’s retail footprint and more about expanding consumers’ understanding of the metaverse. Rather than seeing it as a retail strategy, Navarre suggests that opening brick-and-mortar stores is an effort to create an entry point for potential VR users.
“They aren’t opening stores because they want to — they’re doing it because they have to,” Navarre said. “Because the technology they’re building can’t be sold through a screen. It has to be experienced. It’s like trying to describe childbirth to someone who’s never felt it — words will never be enough.”
Navarre is a multidisciplinary founder and creative strategist with a proven track record in launching, scaling, and exiting ventures across IT, logistics, entertainment, and service industries. He has consulted with over 250 businesses, specializing in building operational systems, designing resilient technology infrastructures, and developing multi-platform brand ecosystems that resonate with both niche and mainstream audiences. Navarre is also the creator of ZILLION — an immersive music project that blends narrative, multimedia, and live performance into a cohesive storytelling experience.
“AR and VR represent a seismic shift in how we interact with the world, but the irony is you can’t fully understand the shift until you step into it,” says Navarre. “No video, ad, or clever copy can replicate what it feels like to be immersed in a spatial environment. That’s the problem Meta is solving. It’s creating an initiation point for the metaverse.”
The Apple Store provides a model for orchestrating VR experiences
Media reports have compared the anticipated Meta stores to the Apple Store, which provides a space for consumers to experience Apple products. When Apple introduced its Vision Pro, a VR headset designed to bring digital content into the user’s visual space, the Apple Store provided a place for potential buyers to put it on and dive in. Navarre believes such venues allow brands to convert marketing hype into reality.
“When Apple launched the Vision Pro, I took some of my staff to the Apple Store on the first day to experience it,” Navarre shares. “The associate giving the demos was so excited that he was almost in tears. He told me 50 percent of the people he gave the demo to that day had their hair stand up on their neck, saying it was like nothing they’d ever experienced. The other 50 percent cried, he said.”
The ad for the Vision Pro on Apple’s website describes it as the tool ushering in the “era of spatial computing.” But the way it illustrates that concept is by showing users wearing the headset while walking around in rooms dominated by giant video screens.
The video displayed on the Meta Quest page of Meta’s website is similar, showing users working in rooms where apps or movies are displayed on large screens and gaming, while elements of the game appear in the air around them. The promotional efforts from both Apple and Meta show, as Navarre states, that it is difficult to fully understand from actors in a video what you’ll experience when you step into the world of virtual reality.
Providing an experience isn’t the only factor needed for success
If Meta is looking to Apple as an example of how its stores might function, it will need to note that providing an experience isn’t the only factor required to drive sales. While Apple initially anticipated selling 800,000 headsets in the first year, that number was later cut to less than 450,000 due to early sales trends.
One of the key factors cited by analysts for the lackluster sales of the Vision Pro is its price, which is more than 10 times that of the Meta Quest 3S. If Meta can provide the same experience at a fraction of the price, it may find customers lining up in its stores to obtain their personal gateway to the metaverse.
“The race for dominance in the VR and AR fields will be won, at least initially, by providing ease of access to the highest end of the experience,” Navarre says. “But making that experience accessible at scale, which is something Apple hasn’t been able to do, is transformative for wide-scale adoption.”