This pop-up store in Utrecht is selling mysterious lost packages  — and they’re super cheap

Christmas came early this year 🎅

Surprise, surprise! You don’t need to wait until Christmas to open packages this year. A pop-up store in Utrecht is selling very cheap, very mysterious lost packages — but only until Saturday!

The pop-up, King Colis, is at the Hoog Catharijne shopping centre and it is open from 10 AM to 8 PM until September 14. 

For as little as €1.99, you can buy a parcel that never reached its destination and finally give its mysterious contents a home. Anything could be in there — exciting, right?

How does it work?

If you’ve ever been to a thrift store, shopping at the King Colis pop-up will be quite a familiar experience for you.

The rules are simple: you wait in line for your turn, and then you have ten minutes to pick and weigh any package you want — only, you are not allowed to see what’s inside.

After taking your pick, you pay for your chosen parcels according to their weight and type: €1.99 per 100 grams for standard packages and €2.79 per 100 grams for Amazon packages.

That’s when you’re finally allowed to open your treasures, and find out whether you’ve struck gold — sometimes, literally.

People have found all sorts of stuff, including clothes, video games, sex toys… and an actual gold bar.

That is also why you must be an adult to shop at King Colis, or be accompanied by one. 

Who’s behind this?

Every year, thousands of parcels somehow miss their destination and remain unclaimed. Usually, they are destroyed — unless someone has an idea like the King Colis initiative.

King Colis was set up by two French men, Killian Denis (44) and Alexis Faure (44), who decided to buy lost parcels and re-sell them, putting them back into the economy. 

That way, not only do they not get wasted or contribute to polluting the planet, but they also have the chance to make someone happy.

Yes, that someone could be you 👀

What do you think of this initiative? Tell us in the comments below.

Beatrice Scali
Beatrice Scali
Five years after spreading her wings away from her beloved Genova, Bia has just landed at DutchReview as an editorial intern. She has lived in China, Slovenia, Taiwan, and — natuurlijk — the Netherlands, where she just completed her bachelor’s in International Studies. When she’s not reciting unsolicited facts about the countries she’s lived in, she is writing them down. Her biggest dreams include lobbying the Dutch government into forcing oliebollen stands to operate year-round, and becoming a journalist. In this order.

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