Mystery Box Warehouse offers shoppers in Fairmont all they can take out in one trip with $20 admission

FAIRMONT — The Robeson County town of Fairmont will soon be home to a unique shopping experience.

The grand opening of the Mystery Box Warehouse on West Main Street is scheduled for 9 a.m. on Dec. 2.

“We’re going to have a crowd around (on that upcoming) Saturday,” business founder Bill Guyther predicted Friday. “We’re excited about Dec. 2nd.”

The $20 admission into the warehouse covers everything that can be carried out by one person in one trip. Boxes or bags are both OK for toting the merchandise.

According to Guyther, “It’s like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. Imagine going to a flea market and being able to take anything you want without having to worry about what it costs or how much money you have. That’s what we’ve developed, and we’re bringing it to Robeson County (in Fairmont).”

The 8,000-square-foot Fairmont facility is behind the dialysis center and will be open only on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., beginning Dec. 2.

It’s located at 805 S. Main St. in the town’s rejuvenated downtown district.

Shoppers are asked to be sensible, and the operative word from the owners is “carry.”

“Not push, drag, pull, roll, etc.,” states a news release promoting the opening of the second Mystery Box Warehouse in the state. “Carry. We want you to get a great deal but don’t be greedy! Greed will cause this concept to go away.”

If you need help carrying out larger items, like furniture,” the release states, “that’s fine, but that’s the one item you get for your admission fee.”

Shoppers must be able to pick up their items from a warehouse carry-out line and take them to their vehicles.

Most merchandise is second-hand, Guyther said: “We get quite a bit of stuff. If it’s trash, we throw it away.”

Fairmont’s Lori Chavis will run the show as general manager. She has taught for 31 years at Orrum Middle School, Guyther said.

As for Guyther, he described himself as a serial entrepreneur who grew up in Maryland before relocating with his family to North Carolina at the age of 13.

“This is home,” he said.

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The original Mystery Box Warehouse store opened in Gastonia in August 2022.

That took place after Guyther and his wife, Michelle, cleaned out his mother-in-law’s estate of more than 40 years. They had to take 1,300 pounds of “perfectly good stuff to the dump because no one would take it,” said a news release.

Bill Guyther’s father died in April 2022, and the couple found itself again facing the same fate for the belongings.

Guyther and his wife came up with a plan.

“ ‘Let’s rent a warehouse to put the stuff in and, instead of trying to sell it by the piece, let’s charge $20 per person at the door and then everything they can personally carry out in one trip is theirs,’ “ the release states.

“So that’s what they did and just like that, the concept of what they have since coined as ‘admission shopping’ was born in Gastonia …”

The concept started with 1,000 square feet of warehouse space that the couple named The Mystery Box Warehouse. That’s because shoppers don’t know what’s inside the warehouse until they pay admission.

“It’s called the Mystery Box Warehouse for a reason,” he said. “If you leave our warehouse empty-handed, that’s by choice.”

The idea was overwhelmingly received by the public, he says.

“It has been fantastic. It has meant so much for people,” Guyther said in a separate phone interview. “People are genuinely happy leaving there. It has such a draw, and it’s fun for people. The shop is so different. It’s just a very different experience.”

They never know from week to week what will be made available from the store. But Guyther said, “You can guarantee furniture, household items, some antiques, clothes, toys, sporting equipment, electronics. It’s anything you can think of is going to come through that warehouse.”

The items, he said, are 100% donated.

Additionally, inside the warehouse will be a free section which is available to take. A premium section — which will initially feature a Harley-Davidson clock, an Abbott and Costello automated piece, a mongoose bicycle and what Guyther calls “a ton of NASCAR collectible” — offers select items for outright sale. This is separate from other warehouse merchandise.

Visitors are not charged to shop those sections, he noted.

Within three weeks of opening that initial location in Gastonia, it was obvious to the owners that 1,000 square feet of space was not going to cut it for their start-up retail enterprise.

The establishment was expanded to 2,000 square feet, and the donations and patrons just kept coming, they say.

So the original location of the Mystery Box Warehouse underwent expansion to 7,000 square feet of space, said Guyther, “housing everything you could possibly imagine, and the people just keep coming so it just made sense to expand.”

Now, they’ve expanded to another location — a store in Robeson County.

And Guyther says, “It looks like there’s going to be a third one right around the corner.” That, he added, would likely be in Hoke County. The owners have a potential spot in mind in Raeford.

“I am an entrepreneur,” he said, “and I understood the need once we opened up. How the people welcomed it and loved it. It keeps our objective alive, which is really to keep stuff from going to the landfill.”