Daiso 大創産業

Daiso's founder Hirotake Yano began selling household goods from the back of a truck in the early 1970s, pricing everything at a uniform 100 yen because tagging countless individual items with different prices was too time-consuming for him and his wife to manage. He incorporated the business as Daiso Sangyo in 1977, and the uniform 100-yen pricing model — paired with a huge variety of household, stationery, and novelty items — became the company's defining format as it expanded into standalone stores through the 1980s and 1990s.

Daiso grew into the world's largest '100-yen shop' chain, with thousands of stores across Japan and international operations spanning the United States, Australia, Singapore, and other markets (overseas prices are often set above the 100-yen equivalent to cover import costs, taxes, and rent). Hirotake Yano led the company until his death in February 2024, by which point Daiso operated several thousand stores across more than 25 countries and regions.