Mystery boxes madness arrives in Barcelona with undelivered packages store

Have you ever wondered what happened to a package you ordered that never arrived? Odds are someone ends up getting it. Surprise Box, a recently opened store in Barcelona, sells mystery packages that never reached their final destination. These packages come from a range of retailers like Amazon, eBay or Temu and — in theory — could be anything from a phone to a random toy. 

Items at Surprise Box are weighed by kilograms and aren’t allowed to be opened before purchase. Another catch is that customers must keep their item, whether they like it or not. 

To get the full Surprise Box experience, I had to see the store for myself. Midday on a Thursday, I made my way over to Surprise Box’s new location in Barcelona’s city centre. In the store, there were three aisles that were filled with packages of various shapes, sizes and packaging styles, as well as a rack of clothes (the only items in the store not in mystery packaging) on the wall. 

One of the first things I noticed was that the store was pretty empty, but every once and a while, a group of tourists or parents entertaining their children would enter the store. I encountered tourists from the Middle East, America and Paris during my visit to the store, and only a few people from Barcelona. 

The customers that were in the store could be seen rummaging through packages on shelves, trying to feel what could be behind the plastic bags or cardboard. People were shaking boxes like a kid trying to figure out a birthday gift, observing the unique shapes of certain packages and looking for potential clues from packaging. But, that’s about it.

I noticed that customers at Surprise Box seemed hesitant to actually purchase anything they were looking at. Most people would walk around for a little, look at packages, weigh them, put the item back on the shelf and then leave the store. There seems to be more fun in just walking around and shaking packages than risking their money for a dud. I saw more people browsing the clothing on the walls than I saw considering purchasing a package. 

Josep and David, two Barcelona locals, were on the lookout for shoes or Pokémon cards, but did not purchase anything. They said that if items were cheaper, they might have had an “urge to buy something.” The risk of spending money on a mystery wasn’t worth the reward for them. 

When it finally came time to look for a package, I didn’t have a strategy. I walked around the store for a while, grabbing various boxes and bags. Most packages I would find felt too expensive for me to justify purchasing, much like Josep and David. Prices began at around €25 per kilogram, a fairly steep price for a gamble. 

I finally found a small, strangely shaped and uniquely taped package. I shook the package for a little, tried to feel what was inside and decided to buy it. After I checked out, I went to the station next to the counter to open my package, expecting some miscellaneous household item. It definitely was not that. 

Instead, my mystery package contained a very broken and very clunky ‘Dragon Ball Z’ figurine. Protecting the figurine was crudely taped plastic encasing, which led me to believe my package was a return or eBay purchase. Almost seconds after pulling it out of the plastic, it completely fell apart in my hands, which honestly made the experience very funny. As someone with little-to-no personal connection to ‘Dragon Ball Z,’ I don’t have much use for this figurine, but at least I have a story to tell. That’s just how Surprise Box works; You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.