Daiso

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Daiso's first North American store, at Aberdeen Centre in Richmond, British Columbia.

Daisō or The Daisō [sic] (ザ・ダイソー) is the largest franchise of 100-yen shops in Japan. Its parent company is Daiso Industry Corp. (株式会社大創産業, kabushika gaisha daisō sangyō). Daiso has a range of over 90,000 goods, of which over 40 percent are imported goods, many of them from China. [1] Many of these are own-brand goods.

Daiso sets itself apart from other 100 yen shops by choosing not to sell closeout or factory second merchandise. Instead they keep prices low by purchasing directly from manufacturers in very high volume, a strategy often compared to Wal-mart. While the prices are low, and in many cases identical items are sold for more elsewhere, in some cases the quality reflects the low price.

Daiso often uses such locations as previous pachinko parlours for its retail outlets. They spend a lot of money on shelving and fixtures to help the stores compete with more high-end retailers. The stock of items retailed at each shop is varied frequently in order to increase repeat customers.

Daiso categorizes all its own-brand items on sale using the morpheme za (ザ), the Japanese representation of the English word "the", plus a category. For example, za hanabi (ザ・花火) is the category for fireworks, and za purasuchikku (ザ・プラスチック) is the category for plastic items such as plastic buckets or trays.

In 2004 Daiso also started selling items priced at multiples of 100 yen, such as 200, 300, 400 or 500 yen. Examples of such items would be children's clothing or large toys. This may be the start of a change to competing with other-than-100 yen outlets such as Don Quijote.

[edit] Locations

Daiso has 2,500 stores in Japan, and 450 stores overseas, in Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Canada, U.A.E, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Macau, New Zealand and the United States of America.

In December 2003, Daiso opened a 2,400 square metre (approx. 25,000 square feet) store in Aberdeen Centre, in Richmond, British Columbia, Canada. Most items sold in the store (Daiso products plus a small selection of Japanese foods and beverages) are CAD$2 each. "This store is to be our springboard to launch Daiso's operations across North America," said Roy Fujita, director of the company's international division. [2]

On October 2, 2005, the first store in the US opened for business in Alderwood Mall located in Lynnwood, Washington near Seattle, WA. This store is much smaller at only 442 square meters (Approx. 4,750 square feet), and items were originally one of three prices, $1, $1.50, & $2 (all USD). The current inventory now includes packaged food and items are now priced up to $8, though most items are at the $1.50 price point. Daiso officials have said they plan to open as many as twenty stores or more in the United States.

There are now ten stores in the United States: five are in Washington, and five in California. The largest Daiso to open in the United States is located in Union City, California. The 17,760 square foot (1,650 square meters) store opened on August 8, 2007. A total of 15 to 20 locations are planned for the entire San Francisco Bay Area in the future.^[1] Daiso has since opened stores in several other California cities: Newark, San Jose, Mountain View, San Diego, and Daly City.