E-commerce / RetailJapan
← Sticker Wall
JOURNEY · DETAIL
Daiso Industries: Hirotake Yano's Journey from Fishery Bankruptcy and 'Night Flight' to Nearly 7,000 Stores Worldwide
Founded: Hirotake Yano (original name Koro Kurihara, 1943–2024) · Daiso Industries Co., Ltd.
JOURNEY
Key Fields
FIELD STAMPSIndustryE-commerce / Retail
RegionJapan
ScaleGiant
ChannelOther
Origin
Hirotake Yano, originally named Koro Kurihara, was born in Beijing in 1943 to a doctor's family. Following the end of the War of Resistance, his family returned to his father's hometown of Higashihiroshima, Hiroshima Prefecture. Passionate about boxing in high school, he was selected for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics training camp. When his father refused to fund a non-STEM education, he failed entrance exams for 16 universities before finally studying civil engineering part-time in the night division of Chuo University, graduating in 1967 just as the job market downturn hit. After marriage, he took his wife's surname, Yano, believing it sounded better than Kurihara for business. He took over his father-in-law's yellowtail aquaculture business, but within three years it failed due to poor management, forcing him to flee Hiroshima by night with his wife and child to escape debts in Tokyo. In Tokyo, he sold encyclopedias for three months before quitting when he realized he wasn't suited for it, worked at a bowling alley, and later took a job at a waste paper recycling company to slowly pay off his debts. Pushed to the brink, he returned to Hiroshima and worked with a mobile vendor. It was this street-vending experience that led him to the pricing inspiration that would change his life.
Milestones
1967
Fishery Bankruptcy and Night Flight Failure
After graduating from Chuo University's civil engineering department and failing to find work in his field, Hirotake Yano took over his father-in-law's yellowtail fish farm. In less than three years, it went bankrupt due to poor management, saddling him with debt and forcing him to flee Hiroshima by night with his wife and child to escape creditors in Tokyo, earning him the stigma of a 'night escape.' Selling encyclopedias in Tokyo lasted only three months before he quit due to poor performance, relying on part-time jobs at a bowling alley and a waste paper recycling company to save money and repay debts. This was the lowest point of his life, which cemented his realist creed: 'Survive no matter how difficult, secure survival before seeking opportunity.' This phase lasted from 1967 to 1970.
1972
Mobile Vendor Turning Point
In 1972, at age 29, Hirotake Yano founded his first store, 'Yano Shoten,' in Hiroshima. Using a delivery truck driven by his wife while he carried a wooden display stand, he sold general merchandise in front of supermarkets while tending to his child. Because he had to juggle opening the store and childcare all by himself, attaching price tags to every single item was too time-consuming. The couple decided to uniformly price all items at 100 yen to eliminate the labeling process—not a strategic decision, but a practical compromise born from childcare pressures, which unexpectedly struck a chord with the declining consumer purchasing power in Japan following the 1973 oil crisis.
1977
Establishing the Single-Price Model PMF
Yano reorganized Yano Shoten into Daiso Industries Co., Ltd., choosing a name meaning 'though small in scale, it can create big opportunities,' and officially established the all-store 100-yen flat-price model. Early on, a customer snapped 'cheap goods are no good' and led all the shoppers out of the store. Stung by this, Yano's fighting spirit was ignited; he decided to sell high-cost quality goods for 100 yen anyway, willing to make low-margin concessions to build a reputation. He set a procurement cost ceiling of 70 yen, but later discovered that raising it to 80 yen allowed him to source significantly better goods, which actually boosted sales even further. This shifted Daiso from 'low price and low quality' to a differentiated positioning of 'low price with adequate quality.'
1991
First Direct Store Transition
In April 1991, Daiso opened its first permanent direct-managed Daiso 100-yen store in Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture, translating the mobile vendor model into a replicable physical retail format and initiating a phase of continuous store openings. In 1995, company capital was increased from 340 million to 496.6 million yen. In 1997, it won the Trade Contribution Enterprise Award from the Minister of International Trade and Industry, officially transforming from a local street vendor into a nationally recognized retail brand endorsed by the Ministry of International Trade, tapping into the consumption-downgrading dividend window following the burst of Japan's bubble economy in the 1990s.
2001
Overseas Expansion Growth
In August 2001, Daiso established its first overseas store in Taiwan, opened a store in South Korea in September through a joint venture with Ascom, opened the IMM store in Singapore in 2002, and entered Thailand in 2003. Overseas expansion primarily relied on joint ventures and local agencies, with Hong Kong operated by the Aeon Group and South Korea establishing Daiso-Asung through a joint venture with Asung HMP. Each store replicated the domestic model using local uniform pricing equivalents (such as 100-yen equivalents in Taiwan and 5.90 Malaysian ringgit), exporting Japan's single-price retail philosophy to Asia and the Middle East. This phase lasted from 2001 to 2003.
2015
Taiwan Label Scandal Failure
In 2015, the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration discovered that Daiso's Taiwan branch had forged Chinese-language labels, concealing the true origin of imported food from five prefectures affected by the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Customs intercepted 13,000 items, and the Bureau of Foreign Trade fined the company 3 million New Taiwan dollars while suspending imports for six months. During the import suspension in 2018, investigations revealed that Daiso had tampered with trade document dates, using 694 forged import licenses to ship 319 containers totaling 2,067 tons of goods. The Bureau of Foreign Trade imposed an additional fine of 41.64 million New Taiwan dollars, revoked its import license, and banned import-export activities for two years. Compounded by incidents in 2011 and 2014 where the South Korean subsidiary twice announced its separation from the Japanese parent company over disputes concerning Dokdo landmark products, these events cast a shadow of compliance and reputational damage. This phase lasted from 2015 to 2018.
2018
Stroke and Succession Turning Point
In 2018, Hirotake Yano suffered a sudden cerebral infarction and was hospitalized. That same month, he handed over the presidency to his second son, Seiji Yano, publicly stating, 'I can no longer keep up with this era,' and admitting he did not understand the digital systems that retail businesses must rely on. Diamond magazine reported that he had originally tested several successor candidates but was dissatisfied with all of them, ultimately backtracking to appoint his son on the grounds that his son understood digital management in ways he did not. The same year, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission forced a recall of 165 Daiso products (including toys and cosmetics), pushing the final year of the founder's tenure into a high-pressure period of dual warfare across compliance and generational transition.
2021
Premium Sub-brand Transition
Daiso launched the Standard Products sub-brand in Tokyo, positioned as a minimalist lifestyle and home goods brand emphasizing sustainable materials with price points above 100 yen, benchmarking against Muji's route. To date, it has opened over 180 stores across Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. This marked the core single-price business's first active step to break out of low-end positioning and elevate the brand upward, viewed as Daiso's strategic bet to counter the squeeze of inflation and avoid head-to-head price wars with Chinese unbranded supply chains.
2023
Korean Partner Split Transition
In December 2023, Asung HMP bought back the 34.21% stake held by Daiso Japan for approximately 500 billion Korean won. South Korean Daiso officially became a wholly-owned Korean enterprise and adopted an independent logo, marking the dissolution of the original joint venture overseas model under the dual pressures of nationalist sentiment and commercial interests. During the same period, according to reports by the Korea Herald and Korea JoongAng Daily, diversified joint-venture structures generated substantial costs for brand output and profit distribution, leading Daiso Japan to focus more heavily on direct self-operation in Southeast Asia and North America thereafter.
2024
Passing of the Founder Failure
On February 12, 2024, Hirotake Yano passed away from heart failure in Higashihiroshima City at the age of 80. An obituary published by the Chugoku Shimbun on February 19 encapsulated his legacy with the title 'laying the foundation for 5,000 stores at home and abroad.' Forbes Japan's memorial article summarized the triple blows of 'night flight, fire, and cerebral infarction' as his lifelong initiation rites. The funeral was attended only by close relatives, with a separate farewell gathering scheduled for a later date. His departure fully ushered Daiso into the second-generation era of Seiji Yano, bringing genuine tests to the continuity of corporate governance and overseas strategy.
2025
Global Expansion and Contraction Transition
In 2025, Daiso closed all 45 stores in mainland China, with the Korea JoongAng Daily summarizing the move as a consequence of 'Chinese market impacts.' Meanwhile, the South Korean operations completed their buyout by Korean capital, Brazil expanded to 176 stores to become the largest overseas market, North American stores surpassed 88 with four opened in Canada, and Standard Products entered mainstream Western commercial districts. By 2026, Daiso operated 3,620 stores domestically in Japan and about 2,300 overseas, totaling nearly 6,000 stores across 25 countries and regions. Following the founder's departure, the company is being continuously restructured like a non-listed family business under the leadership of his second son, Seiji Yano. This phase spans from 2025 to 2026.
Turning Points
- In 1977, because they were too busy with childcare to attach price tags to every item, the Yano couple uniformly priced all goods at 100 yen. This was the single-price empire's most crucial non-strategic turning point, inspired by childcare pressure rather than a commercial blueprint.
- In 1991, the opening of the permanent direct-store in Takamatsu translated the mobile vendor into a replicable physical store model, formally elevating Daiso from a street cart to a chain retail brand.
- In 2018, following the founder's cerebral infarction, management was handed over to his second son, Seiji Yano, with an open admission of insufficient digital capability, enabling the family business to complete the difficult governance transition from the first generation to the second.
- In 2025, closing all 45 stores in mainland China while expanding Brazil to 176 stores and North America past 100 stores marked a global rebalancing led by Seiji Yano, recalibrating the overseas footprint.
Failures & Pitfalls
- Going bankrupt in less than three years after taking over his father-in-law's yellowtail fish farm, forcing him to flee to Tokyo by night with his wife and child, bearing the name of 'night escape' and the deepest shame of early startup days.
- Failing entrance exams for 16 universities, and after graduating from Chuo University's night division civil engineering department, missing the economic boom and failing to find work even in his major—the earliest substantive denial in his career.
- Selling encyclopedias for three months before quitting due to poor performance; aspiring to be a salesperson but realizing he wasn't cut out for it, marking a self-deprecating retreat on the path of sales ambition.
- Two regulatory violations by the Taiwan branch between 2015 and 2018—forging Chinese labels for foods from five nuclear-affected prefectures and smuggling 2,067 tons of goods using 694 forged import licenses—resulting in fines equivalent to 44.64 million New Taiwan dollars and a two-year import-export ban, severely damaging its overseas compliance system.
- In 2022, Crocs suing Daiso for selling suspected imitation foam clogs, bringing the IP risks of low-margin, high-volume supply chains into the spotlight.
- In 2025, closing all 45 stores in mainland China, admitting after more than a decade of investment that the battle in the Chinese market could not be sustained—the largest strategic retreat under Seiji Yano's leadership.
- In 2024, the founder's passing placed simultaneous pressure on governance and the continuity of a spiritual leader, leaving the second generation without the street-level intuition and hardship experience of his father to draw upon.
关键成功要素
- Simplicity to the extreme in pricing: Uniform pricing across the store eliminates labeling and comparison costs, dropping the shopping decision barrier to near zero and transforming customer entry from 'price comparison' to 'treasure hunting,' making impulse buying Daiso's most vital growth engine.
- Meticulous control of cost ceilings: Yano raised the procurement cost ceiling from 70 yen to 80 yen. A mere 14% higher cost allowed sourcing of significantly better quality, exchanging small margin concessions for reputation and repeat purchases—a moat proving low price does not mean low quality.
- Deep rather than narrow product pools: A single store constantly stocks 40,000 to 70,000 SKUs, ranging from ceramic knives and hardware items to artificial flowers, fake eyelashes, and English-Japanese dictionaries, leveraging a broad product mix to raise average ticket sizes and turning uniform pricing into a lifestyle solution rather than a single promotional item.
- Direct sourcing and scale advantages driving down purchase costs: Order volumes are frequently 30 times those of Walmart suppliers, and manufacturing in Brazil and Indonesia allows direct negotiation of wholesale prices 30% below market averages, turning order volume into a price-leverage tool that feeds back into the 100-yen price point itself.
- Replicable transition from mobile vendor to permanent direct store: From truck wooden racks to the first Takamatsu direct store, Daiso's ongoing effort was upgrading the model from 'human-muscle-powered' to 'system-replicable,' a step far more important than the store count itself.
- Ability to pivot during post-crisis adverse eras: Treating the post-1973 oil crisis consumption downgrade as a dividend window, the post-2011 Great East Japan Earthquake overseas flight-to-safety as an expansion opportunity, and the post-2020 inflation era as an upward window for the Standard Products sub-brand. Every major shock was leveraged by Daiso to smoothly shift gears.
Lessons
- A simple rule as seemingly foolish as uniform pricing, when executed repeatedly, becomes a deeper moat than any strategy. The Yano couple originally just wanted to save time on labeling, but ground the rule into a brand asset that others could not replicate.
- Failure is an entrepreneur's best early tuition: the triple blow of night flight, fire, and cerebral infarction made Yano live his whole life with the expectation that 'things can't get any worse than returning to square one,' an expectation that paradoxically gave him the courage to stay at the table in the red ocean of uniform pricing.
- Low price does not equal low quality is something that must first be proven with margins: he was willing to sell high-cost quality goods for 100 yen just to establish reputation first. A short-term loss rewrote the perception of 'cheap goods are no good' into 'coming here brings surprises' for the long term.
- Family business succession cannot wait until it has to happen: Yano hastily handed power to his second son only after suffering a stroke in 2018, admitting 'I can no longer keep up with the era.' Planning digital succession and external governance earlier could have lowered the cost of overseas compliance mishaps.
- Overseas expansion must distinguish boundaries between leveraging strength and losing control: the South Korean joint venture eventually evolved into a Korean buyout, the Taiwan joint venture unraveled into compliance scandals, and the Chinese self-operated business withdrew entirely. All three overseas models encountered setbacks, reminding companies that compliance and controlling stakes in joint-venture expansion must be written in advance.
- Uniform pricing in the inflation era is not rigid persistence but layered evolution: while maintaining the 100-yen core anchor, Daiso established Standard Products to capture quality-conscious customer segments upward, proving that old models can survive in a new era provided there is the courage to lift the brand up via a sub-brand.
Core Data
- Foundation Year：1977-12 (Public data baseline)
- Mobile Vendor Launch：1972-03 Yano Shoten (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- First Direct Store：1991-04 Takamatsu Store (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- Founder's Passing：2024-02-12 at age 80 (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- 2026 Japan Domestic Performance：3,620 stores (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- 2026 Overseas Performance：Approx. 2,330 stores across 25 countries and regions (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- 2026 Global Total Stores：Approx. 5,950 stores (3,620 in Japan plus approx. 2,330 overseas) (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- 2026 South Korea Performance：1,150 stores (now independent under Korean ownership) (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- 2025 US Performance：88 stores (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- 2025 Brazil Performance：176 stores (largest overseas market) (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- 2025 Mainland China Performance：45 stores, all closed (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- Standard Products Sub-brand 2025 Store Count：Over 180 stores (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- Capital Stock：2.7 billion yen (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- 2010 Revenue：341.4 billion yen (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
- 2025 Employee Count：Approx. 1,000 employees (Public data baseline, independent review unverified)
Competitors / Peers
Main domestic competitors in Japan include chain enterprises within the 100-yen store track such as Seria, Can Do, and Watts. Overseas competitors include discount retail brands competing with uniform pricing or low flat-rate models, such as Dollar Tree, Dollar General, and Five Below in the United States, Dollarama in Canada, Pepco and GiFi in Europe, and The Reject Shop in Australia. Following its buyback, South Korea's domestic Asung HMP serves as both Daiso's former joint venture partner and its largest competitor in low-priced retail. The Standard Products sub-brand directly benchmarks against Muji and Denmark's Flying Tiger Copenhagen for minimalist lifestyle home goods positioning.
Sources
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daiso
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirotake_Yano
- https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%A4%A7%E5%89%B5%E7%99%BE%E8%B2%A8
- https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2001/09/daiso-the-story-behind-the-%c2%a5100-phenomenon/
- https://www.chugoku-np.co.jp/articles/-/426937
- https://web.archive.org/web/20220108192411/https://www.gpc-gr.com/news/detail.php?seq=50