The 100 Yen Store hits Pacific Shores

[Sean Rorison]

I just walked past this today.

http://www.htcricket.com/news/181_492941,00020002.htm

Japan’s 100 yen store tries to conquer the West
Agence France-Presse
Vancouver, December 12

Bigger Picture

“Daiso”, the Japanese version of a dollar store, opens its first Canadian outlet in a Vancouver suburb on Friday, before expanding throughout North America and Europe.

Daiso-Sangyo Co, which operates 2,500 dollar stores in Asia (or “100 yen stores” in Japan) with annual sales of $4.7 billion, is more popular at home than Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Sony, Toyota and Starbucks and second only to Disney, according to a recent survey by Japanese business magazine Diamond Weekly.

The stores sell almost 100,000 different products, including kitchenware, cosmetics, snack foods, stationary and toiletries at the uniform price of 100 yen (about 1.20 Canadian dollars or $0.90) and add 700 new products each month.

“You can buy anything there. I went to buy knickknacks to bring home. All the flight attendants (from Canada) would go there, it was number one on their shopping hit list,” said Vicki Ainley, a Canadian who lived in Japan and often returned as a flight attendant during the 1990s.

“The prices are very reasonable,” said Kayoko Miyajima, a Japanese student in Vancouver trying to explain its popularity. Although some products like lipstick or nail polish are not the best quality and plastic toys tend to break easily, she said she would definitely take the 25-minute bus ride from downtown Vancouver to the Richmond mall with her friends to visit the new store.

Daiso-Sangyo was founded 30 years ago by Japanese billionaire Hirotake Yano in Higashi-Hiroshima City selling household products door to door from a cart. The company now opens a new Hyaku Yen (100 Yen) shop every day in Japan, where it commands an 80 per cent share of the dollar store market, and has expanded into Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea and Thailand with 100 stores.

“People once felt embarrassed to be seen in 100 Yen stores, but now they’re more accepted. They’ve become trendy. Even the rich and famous in Japan now shop at Daiso,” said Thomas Fung, chief executive officer of Daiso-Sangyo’s Canadian joint-venture partner Fairchild Group.

Dollar stores first became popular both here and in Japan during the economic doldrums of the 1990s, but both markets quickly became saturated. A second wave of discount retailers is now appearing that is bigger, more stylish, better organized, offering better quality products for the same money and they are starting to worry big box stores like Wal-Mart, said retail analyst David Gray of Sixth Line Solutions.

Daiso is able to offer cheap products because it buys in huge volumes from suppliers, no less than 10 million units, approaching Wal-Mart’s buying clout, said Fairchild Group spokesperson David Lui.

“Our displays are like those in department stores instead of mass merchandise on peg boards or racks. We invest a lot on shelving and fixtures. The stores are very colourful because we want to create a fun atmosphere for shoppers. We try to create a wow factor,” he said.

Hirotake Yano told AFP through a translator that his company is moving away from the stiff price competition of the 20th century to offer better service to customers.

At Daiso’s flagship 2,500-square-metre, two-story North American store, which already employs 150 people, items will actually sell for $2 each.

The main challenge will be to see whether the chain, already a hit among Asians, will appeal to mainstream North American shoppers, said David Lui.

“We hope to change the perception that it’s only a store for Japanese or Asians,” he said.

The next stores to open in Canada and the United States in the coming year will likely be in downtown Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Nevada. Thereafter, Hirotake Yano said Daiso-Sangyo would open its first store in Europe.

[ROB]

These are great places when you forget your tie for work. I have a red number with elephants on it. I think my boss would prefer I just forgot my tie with dignity.

Also good for umbrellas when it rains.

[Author]

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