The process is simple: choose the box you want, pay for it, and take it home without knowing what's inside. The Surprise Box store on Carrer Ferran in Barcelona doesn't go unnoticed. It's a warehouse (or a pit) of lost packages from e-commerce giants like Amazon, Shein, AliExpress, or Temu: products that haven't reached their recipients. Pedestrians constantly come and go, intrigued by the items hidden on the shelves, packed in boxes of different sizes and origins. Many rummage and shake, trying to figure out the contents of a package, but few risk paying for a random surprise. The price is around 24 euros per kilo, calculated on the scales scattered throughout the store. Intrigue is the key to the business, and ARA has tried the experience.

Sixteen months and a pandemic later, the new rules of the game are about to be activated. From Thursday, 1st July, e-commerce businesses selling to other EU countries will be taxed according to new criteria. Brussels is thus approaching a twofold objective: to become a real single market and to shield itself against fraud and competition problems generated by large foreign platforms. But what does this change mean, in practice, for small entrepreneurs?

New historical milestone achieved by the pandemic and e-commerce. The impact that the two factors are having on trade in Barcelona has led to an understanding that until recently seemed impossible: an agreement so that stores can open every Sunday and bank holiday between May 1 and September 30. Two of the entities representing the sector, the foundations Barcelona Comerç and Barcelona Oberta - the second of which is a splinter of the first, precisely after disagreements around this issue - have explained on Monday that they have begun the process to make this happen in Barcelona starting next year, once they know that they have the support of the city council.