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Manila Bulletin devider World devider Japanese founder of 100-yen store chain Daiso dies

Japanese founder of 100-yen store chain Daiso dies

Published Feb 20, 2024 02:52 pm
AFP__20240220__34JT8E4__v1__Preview__JapanRetailDaiso.jpg
A customer walks out from a Daiso shop at a shopping mall in Shinjuku district of Tokyo on February 20, 2024. Hirotake Yano, the Japanese 100-yen shop pioneer and the founder of the Daiso chain, has died, the company said. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)


TOKYO, Japan– Hirotake Yano, the Japanese 100-yen shop pioneer and founder of the Daiso chain, has died, the company said.

The billionaire "passed away due to heart failure at the age of 80 in Hiroshima" on February 12, Daiso said in a statement on Monday.

After unsuccessful stints at his father-in-law's fish business and peddling encyclopedias, Yano started selling goods from a street stall in 1972.

Five years later, tired of having to put different prices on different items, Yano launched Daiso where all goods cost 100 yen ($0.67 today).

Helped by stagnant wages and prices, Daiso outlets -- selling everything from the useful to the silly, and sometimes for more than 100 yen -- are now ubiquitous.

The firm began expanding across Asia and abroad, beginning in Taiwan in 2001, and 990 of its 5,350 stores are outside Japan, according to its website.

"I have failed many times... But I kept going because I thought there was nothing else I could do," local media quoted Yano as saying in 2001.

"It's the value and the fun that customers can find in 100 yen. They get mental satisfaction from their shopping experience," he said.

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