Daiso

Patch spoke with Daiso California’s senior vice president, Yoshihide Murata, about Daiso’s new Alameda store.

How many stores does Daiso have in the Bay Area? We have 11 stores, including Alameda. Worldwide, we have about 3,200 stores.

What sort of products does Daiso carry? Most items cost $1.50. Right now, though, we are selling Christmas items for $1.

There are many useful items such as dishes, kitchenware and household products. Gift items are very popular and cute. They are very reasonably priced for Christmas gifts, especially if you need to buy several gifts for co-workers, for example. Most of our products -- 98 percent -- are Daiso brand. We test our products many times to ensure their quality.

How is Daiso different than the dollar stores? We offer a lot more variety. When you go to a dollar store, you don’t see quite as many choices as we carry.

What drew Daiso to Alameda? The broker from the shopping mall contacted us. We could see that Alameda is very unique and draws people from outside Alameda. South Shore is a very nice shopping mall. So we decided to try with a smaller location first. If we see people like our store, we will stay long-term and move into a bigger location in the mall.

Daiso is located at South Shore Center. The store is open 10 a.m. – 7 p.m. seven days a week. Sales are cash only.