The bright lights shine on the customers filled with excitement after waiting in line to enter the new Daiso Japanese store at The Sunset Valley 5400 Brodie Ln Ste 990, Austin, TX 78745. It’s 10,000 square feet filled with Japanese-inspired home decor, stationery, food, household goods, beauty, and more.
Daiso began in the capital city of Kagematsu, Kagawa, Japan in 1972. The founder, Hirotake Yano, started as a mobile vendor store called Yato Shonen, the store was officially called Daiso in 2001 when it first expanded into Taiwan, China. Meaning “to create” in Japanese, the story spread to Australia, Dubai, and then the U.S. in Seattle in 2005. The company is worth around 550 billion Yen, which translates to $3.3 billion in U.S. dollars. There are over 6,000 stores globally and 100 in the U.S., according to Daiso’s U.S. website. There are 22 stores in Texas as of March 2024.
When walking into Daiso you notice right away how organized everything is. It was very easy to navigate. Each aisle is labeled by the signs on the ceiling. Prices are marked in Japanese Yen and there are conversions to American dollars posted all around the store, in every section and row. The best way I would describe this store is like a Japanese version of 5 Below or the Dollar Tree but with better quality items.
I loved this store but one of the main problems is that everyone likes it. The shopping center is often very crowded and busy. I am sure if I went at a more standard time it would be a lot more crowded but from my personal experience, there were just the right amount of people in the store.
The store hours are 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. except on Saturdays, when it’s open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. I went around 8 p.m. and it was open and busy. There have been multiple complaints about the store closing early, but this wasn’t my personal observation.
I love how there’s almost everything in this store. One of the first things you notice when you walk is a fun selection of stickers and crafts and plenty of Disney merchandise, mostly Mickey Mouse.
I was in shock at how cheap almost every item was priced. The slides would easily be twice the price at other stores for the same quality. I felt like more than half the store had items that were just tiny versions of them. It was actually really cute but random stuff just in a tiny form. If I had a doll house this store would be the first place I would go to get decorations for it.
They had two aisles of toys that I wanted to buy stuff, like a mini ping pong set. Behind those aisles is the pet section which was pretty selective and about seventy percent of the pet items were for cats or very small dogs and animals.
In front of those selections are school supplies like pens, pencils, binders, paper, and more. I will be shopping here for school supplies next year purely based on just looking at how cheap they are.
Towards the arts and crafts aisles there is even workout gear. I was astonished at how many items they could have in not that big of a store. There is not any selection in this store where I even had close to the thought that these things looked cheap. Something I did not expect to see was the huge number of jars and containers. It was like I was in a mega Walmart looking at their aisles of containers and jars.
I walked to the end of the store to find the snacks, candy, and drinks. I bought seven items, five candies, one strawberry soda, and a cute duck keychain. The total was $25, which I thought was a good deal. The key chain was good quality and very delightful. The strangest candies I got were these gummies that were sparkling soda flavor and cola flavor. Sadly, they did not taste that good but I am glad I went and tried something unique. Another different candy I tried was this chocolate-covered thing that almost had a boba-like texture that was strawberry flavored. It was good but I did not expect it to be that texture. I would eat it again, but it was not my top pick for a candy.
The strawberry soda I liked. I thought it was cool how you could open the bottle by popping a marble down into a little glass section of the bottle. I would love to try all the cool and ethnic drinks, especially all the teas they had. I do wish they had a bigger display of more Japanese drinks.
Overall, it was a really fun experience to try new things with friends and family.
I went to self-checkout so I did not have any experience with the staff but based on reviews they seem to be very friendly people. Regarding the Daiso website and some Yelp reviews, they seem to restock a fairly fast amount so I will be heading back when the restock happens and trying many more snacks and drinks. I might even buy the mini ping pong set and pick up some arts and crafts.
Daiso sells a wide variety of amazing items for exploration. Everything here was so cute and appealing. I had a great and memorable experience at Daiso. I would recommend people try something new and take a trip to Daiso.
