Welcome back. Office furniture company Herman Miller is opening boutiques aimed at work-from-home employees instead of office managers making bulk orders. Ralph Lauren is calling its latest Snapchat integration “merchantainment.” And General Motors is offering drivers less-expensive car insurance if they don’t mind being monitored (and drive well).

Herman Miller, the office-furniture maker with a big business-to-business constituency, is opening new stores to sell more desk chairs directly to customers working at home.

The stores offer guided “test drives” designed to win over remote workers who wouldn’t order an expensive chair online without trying it first, Katie Deighton reports. Staff members will quiz customers on their needs, adjust floor models to match the customers’ physiques, and encourage shoppers to interact with items on a desk in front of them.

Because the new locations are small and can only stock a limited amount of product on-site, the company also introduced next-day delivery for store customers.

Stores that merge a tangible experience with online processes, like ordering for home delivery, are growing in popularity, said Joana de Quintanilha, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research.

“The pandemic of course has accelerated digital adoption, but we predict customers are now valuing immersive experiences that provide an alternative” to constantly being online, Ms. de Quintanilha said. “There’s only so much we can experience digitally.”

Ralph Lauren is introducing several new ways for consumers to shop its products this holiday season, including making its polo player and pony logo a scannable experience using Snapchat.

Consumers can scan the logo using Snapchat’s camera to trigger an augmented-reality feature in the app, including a lens depicting Ralph Lauren gift boxes with red ribbons, Ann-Marie Alcántara reports. They can then tap the virtual gift boxes to see an animated version of the logo and then take a photo with the ribbon to send to friends.

The new experiences are part of the company’s mission to operate as a digital-first company and help the brand stand out, said David Lauren, chief innovation and branding officer at Ralph Lauren. He called them “merchantainment.”

The question is whether such offerings can prove truly useful or entertaining, said Nicole Greene, senior director analyst at Gartner. What a technology does for consumers matters more than its novelty or “wow” factor, she said.

General Motors is launching a car-insurance business based on the idea its vehicles can remotely track drivers’ behavior and set insurance rates accordingly.

Customers who sign up for the new plans under GM’s OnStar brand agree to have their driving habits tracked, Mike Colias reports. Those who obey the speed limit, avoid sudden stops and practice other good-driving behavior will be rewarded with cheaper rates.

Automakers are increasingly branching into services capitalizing on the data their vehicles now generate—everything from flagging possible mechanical trouble to letting drivers order coffee from touch screens.

But the efforts have been slow to catch on, partly because some of those same services are already available on drivers’ smartphones.

Microsoft’s accessibility features for the new Xbox start with its packaging. [IGN]

Zoom introduced a feature to warn people if their meeting looks likely to get Zoombombed. [ZDNet]

Twitter joined the ephemeral-message bandwagon with self-destructing posts called Fleets. [WSJ]

Consumers continue to try new ways to get health care, buy vehicles, eat and work out during the pandemic. [WSJ]

A customer-service vendor called Arise Virtual Solutions handles calls for clients using independent contractors who must pay to use its platform. [ProPublica]

Some mall Santas will hear kids’ wishes from six feet away and behind plexiglass barriers. [NBC New York]