Meta Opens First Ray-Ban Pop-up Retailer in Hopes of Making Smartglasses Modern

Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses are already fairly trendy, as they appear practically an identical to some of EssilorLuxottica’s best-selling sun shades, albeit with the inclusion of neatly built-in cameras, audio system, battery and onboard AI pushed by a positively tiny Qualcomm Snapdragon AR1 Gen1 processor. With the launch of a brand new pop-up retailer in Los Angeles immediately, Meta is hoping to check out whether or not it might transfer the needle with broader adoption.

Meta calls the LA pop-up retailer “experiential retail,” having modeled it after the Meta Lab pop-up at Join 2024 in October, which allowed event-goers to strive on a pair of Ray-Ban Meta smartglasses to seize images and movies and hold the resultant recordsdata, and even purchase a custom-made pair of the $300 glasses proper then and there.

In the end, the concept with its first publicly accessible pop-up in LA is to extend word-of-mouth advertising, which Artistic Director Matt Jacobson hopes will make its customers into the “greatest salesperson ever.”

Adorned with an enormous pair of Ray-Ban Meta glasses on the surface (with the glasses’ LED privateness mild), the flagship pop-up in LA is simply going to be round till December thirty first, though it received’t be the final.

The corporate’s subsequent pop-up is deliberate to hit Phoenix, Arizona in January, which the corporate calls a “actual shop-in-shop,” the precise location of which continues to be a thriller.

“Can we construct a retailer inside any individual else’s enterprise? Can we drive site visitors to it, and might we leverage their advertising in addition to ours? By the tip of January, we can have examined all three expressions of our experiential first-party retail.”

Besides, the Meta Lab location is doing extra than simply letting folks strive on and purchase Ray-Ban smartglasses. The corporate says it’s going to have “common programming,” which incorporates stand-up comedy with Desi Banks, a dwell podcast with Madeline Argy, a ‘paint and sip’ evening with Tinashe, a Ray-Ban Meta-focused workshop with Director Drex Lee, and a cooking class with Cassie Yeung.

From there, Meta hopes to share its findings with EssilorLuxottica, which operates over 17,000 shops worldwide, as effectively amongst third-party companions. Meta introduced in September it was increasing its smartglasses partnership with the eyewear conglomerate into 2030.

As pop-ups go, the LA and Phoenix areas could also be a restricted engagement, however it might additionally spark extra to return.

“We are able to’t scale 100 of those, however we are able to construct a couple of of them at areas across the nation, after which fill in if we determine we need to do extra first-party retail. That is aspirational, inspirational. They’re not simply scalable by way of what they seem like, however by way of expertise, they’re,” Jacobson says.

In case you’re within the LA space, yow will discover the Meta Lab pop-up over at 8600 Melrose Avenue, open from 10:00 am – 7:00 pm PT seven days every week starting November eighth via December thirty first.

Posted vacation hours are 10:00 am – 3:00 pm on Black Friday and Christmas Eve, with the placement closed on Thanksgiving, December third, and Christmas Day.