From Friday November 15 to Tuesday November 19, 2024, Jeannot Pontier and his son Jayson put nearly 2,500 packages on sale, in a room located between the tobacco bar and the village bakery. The success was immense. The small company Colis en Folie plans to return very soon to Mende.
It's a national phenomenon that Lozériens have not yet tasted: buying one or more lost packages without knowing what is hidden inside. Thanks to Jeannot Pontier and his son Jayson, it is now done. From Friday 15 to Tuesday 19 November 2024, their small business Colis en Folie set up in vacant premises, in Badaroux, between the tobacco bar and the village bakery. The success was enormous. “We arrived with 2,500 Amazon packages (American online sales giant). We leave with 300″, confides Jeannot Pontier.
From €5 to €200
The latter launched into this business a year and a half ago. Since then, he has regularly taken to the road to set up his pop-up shop here and there. “Before the anti-waste law of 2022, lost packages were destroyed. Now, it is prohibited, reveals the man who lives in Biterrois. We buy them by the pallet. Then, we give them a price based on weight, from €5 to €5. It can go up to €200. Where does he buy all these packages. “Near sorting centers”, replies the shopkeeper with a little grin which betrays his wish not to dwell on the subject.
In the lottery
The customer, to know what all these boxes contain, is authorized to handle them, shake them, feel them, but obviously not to open them. Everyone's wish is of course to come across a valuable product. “It's not because it's small and light that it's worthless and vice versa, recalls Jayson. In Badaroux, we had someone who had a tablet or even a lady who had three pairs of wireless headphones in her package.”
Objects for adults
Some rules apply to sellers, such as the prohibition on giving a package to a minor unaccompanied by an adult. “You never know what you might come across, warns Jeannot Pontier. We can have sex toys or even daggers. We happened to have a lady who left with a silicone vagina.”
Beware of excess
According to our colleagues from the M6 television news, who devoted a report to the sale of lost packages, 2.6 billion packages are sent each year in France. 6% of them do not reach their recipient. This represents a deposit of 156 million packages. The craze is enormous, but as with games of chance, beware of excess. “We have a client, in Alès, who came twice, explains the business manager. She spent €1,600 each time.”
Back soon
The next destination for Colis en Folie, which has just invested in ten new pallets, could be Saint-Affrique. For Lozériens who did not have time to try their luck, they will have to wait “a month or a month and a half” before Jeannot and Jayson Pontier returned, probably to Mende.
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