Although the first mention of the metaverse is in Neal Stephenson’s “Snow Crash” (1992), it wasn’t until 2020 that the term became a ubiquitous buzzword in retail, technology, and finance. And it wasn’t until October 2021, when Facebook officially announced that it was changing its name to Meta, that it became a household buzzword. Like any buzzword, it is used with various definitions, mostly with similar attributes: virtual, blockchain, virtual reality interface, digital property, and of course avatars.

For retailers and brands, the introduction of the metaverse and its offshoot, metacommerce, signals another channel and opportunity to buy and win over the consumer. Yet for an overwhelming majority of retailers and brands, a meta store is…