📦How blind buying works and what King Colis teaches us about marketing🤔

Before Christmas, while wandering around a shopping centre looking for gifts, I noticed a crowd outside a pop-up store along the main walkway. I went over and discovered that they were selling parcels ‘blind’, priced by the kilo. I took a photo and, intrigued, promised myself I would look into it.

That sign was the gateway to a small world of curiosity, limited time and adrenaline. Its name is King Colis, a French company founded by Killian Denis that has turned a logistics problem into a business model: it recovers undelivered parcels from European online retailers and resells them through pop-up stores and online. The official website is king-colis.com/it.

What King Colis is and how selling by weight works

The mechanism is simple: you choose some parcels without opening them, take them to the checkout, weigh them and pay according to the number of grams. The key element is information asymmetry. You do not know what you are buying, and that is precisely what becomes the product.

Why people buy parcels without seeing inside

Seen through a marketing lens, King Colis mainly sells an experience. There is the game, the gamble and the entertainment. There is also a touch of nostalgia: it recalls the surprise packets many of us bought at newsagents as children.

The main trigger is the knowledge gap. When we know that information exists but cannot obtain it straight away, curiosity grows and becomes action. Two classic mechanisms add to this: variable rewards and time pressure.

Attention is the most valuable currency. Sometimes all it takes to capture it is to put something inside a box.

Reviews and expectations: when surprises disappoint

Looking at online feedback also reveals many dissatisfied people, especially when their parcel contains cheap objects with little perceived value. This is the natural risk of any ‘mystery box’: if expectations climb too high, disappointment is just around the corner.

Amazon has also entered the discussion, publicly stating that it does not work with King Colis and that its ‘liquidators’ must remove labels and packaging before resale. Whatever the individual cases, the lesson is clear: the further you push mystery, the more essential transparency about the limits of the offer becomes.

3 ideas for marketing

It reminds me a little of the surprise packets I used to buy at newsagents as a child; I do not know whether they still exist. Regardless of customer satisfaction, it is an interesting model that reminds me of the idea-generation techniques of lateral thinking.

But taking a step back, how can we apply this logic to our businesses? 🤔

Here are 3 ideas for your projects:

• 📦Repackaging content: you have old articles, videos or ebooks that nobody looks at any more. Instead of letting them fade away, create a surprise bundle or a time capsule of ‘vintage’ content. What is old to you may be extremely useful to a new user.
• 🤝Community mystery: instead of the usual scheduled webinar, launch a mystery event. Do not reveal the topic or guest until the live session begins. Curiosity, when handled well, increases registrations and retention.
• 🐛The bug that becomes a feature: sometimes your product's flaws are simply poorly positioned features. Change the narrative frame. What you sweep under the carpet today can become a distinctive quality if you describe it honestly and with a point of view.

How to use mystery without destroying trust

Mystery works as long as it does not undermine trust. In digital, you have an advantage: you can design the experience with more control and measurability than with a physical parcel.

We live in an age when attention comes at a cost. Sometimes, to earn it, you do not need to shout louder. You simply need to build a story and leave part of it closed, just enough to make people want to open the box.