At number 36, Carrer Ferran, where Custo Dalmau’s signature T-shirts used to shine, a new business has opened that is a sign of the change of cycle in the neighborhood and, in general, in business models.
From the outside, one sees how mountains of mysterious boxes of all sizes are stacked on the walls of Surprise Box, a store as surreal as it is addictive: blind shopping without being able to see what you’re buying.
The concept? Simple and risky: you choose a package, you weigh it, you pay… and you have no idea what’s inside until you get home. The products come from Amazon, Shein, AliExpress, Temu and other ecommerce giants, and are misplaced items that never reached their final recipient.
What it’s like to shop blind
The rule is clear: no opening before paying. So the only recourse you have left is to shake, lift, look at the packaging… and trust your intuition. Or luck.
New batches arrive every week, coming in from half of Europe: France, Holland, Italy, Poland… and there’s everything. “I’ve seen as many as three mobiles leave since we opened,” he says. He also believes that some customers come to resell what they find.
The experience is not cheap, but chance has a price: €24 per kilo for any package, that is, €4.95 for 200g. After that, some discounts: 22.95 €/kg if you buy more than 2 kilos, 19.95 €/kg if you buy more than 4 kilos.
The place is full of scales, messy shelves, black boxes and padded envelopes. And people, lots of people, some to buy, others just to browse. When you open the door, luck decides for you: a fan, an airfryier, a wig or a screwdriver. It will be
The craze for return stores
Every activity produces its waste, and the worldwide boom in online shopping is no different: not all of the millions of packages that are purchased every day reach their destination, and it was only to be expected that a business would emerge out of it. The outlets for returning lost packages are multiplying and have been in Barcelona for some time now. Gangazon was one of the first.
But blind shopping would soon arrive with My Mystery Package, which also opened in Barcelona. Soon Prime Deals would also arrive, another Amazon outlet that joins the emerging business of lost packages looking for a second life.