“I went from selling 20 boxes a week to zero last week,” he says. Yet although the recent rise of the mystery box was meteoritic, Chris feels popularity is already waning. “I always put ten items in the boxes I sell and the value will always be greater than the £5 purchase fee.” A prominent YouTuber, AmazingPhil, actually reviewed one of Chris’ boxes, giving it four out of five stars. Before this month, Chris had only sold two mystery boxes on eBay, but went on to sell 20 in one week after YouTubers began posting videos. He received one piece of negative feedback on eBay after shipping a box, but blames the buyer for not properly understanding the trend.Īnd trend it is. “I’ve been toying with the idea of doing car boot sales, but I hate early mornings,” he says.Ĭhris puts anything he doesn’t “want, need, or couldn’t sell” in his boxes, including clothes, mugs, CDs, DVDs, kitchen utensils, and stationery. Chris Williams is a 31-year-old from Rugby who started selling the boxes after he decided to move overseas and wanted to shift some of his possessions, as well as stock from his gift shop. Yet although buyers might not benefit from mystery boxes, sellers certainly do. The second mystery box I bought simply challenged me with the description: “ARE U BRAVE ENOUGH TO BUY THIS BOX?!! COULD HAVE ANYTHING?”Ī mystery box for a lady with questions, available on eBay eBay’s own rules state that mystery boxes must contain some hint to the contents of the box in the listing, although many do not. Jessica bids on specific mystery boxes that are labelled “for girls” or “for YouTubers” to ensure the items are more relevant to her. “I’m poor so the cheaper ones attract me,” she says, comparing the experience to a childhood party bag or game of pass the parcel. Although she is aware that she could get dud items – or things she doesn’t really want – Jessica feels the fun outweighs the risk. “It’s not within my comfort zone so I feel like it’s a fun experience,” says Jessica, a 21-year-old who has been bidding on mystery boxes since watching Buzzfeed’s video about the trend. This is the inherent risk – or, some might say, fun – of a mystery box. “There’s a few people who ruin the fun for everyone,” he says, “I think there’s a few people who are out there just to be greedy, to make as much money as possible.” Yet although the items Marc sent me have value, to me they’re worthless. Over the course of a month, Marc has sold “20 to 30” boxes for £10 each, always ensuring that the items within the box have a combined recommended retail value of more than a tenner. “Say for example, how I gave you a survival bracelet in your box,” he says – and I mumble assent, even though before that very moment I didn’t know what one of those was – “that’s a popular item but I couldn’t sell them because people weren’t able to see my auction due to a change in the eBay algorithm.” Mystery boxes, then, were a perfect solution. Marc has been buying items in bulk from China and selling them on eBay since 2002, but recently started making mystery boxes as a way of offloading his stock. “I think it’s an excellent way to engage with the community,” says Marc McGregor, a 27-year-old from Southampton who sold me my first mystery box for £10 (pictured below).
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