How Daiso Became Japan’s Dollar Tree
By Kelli Luu | 23 Mar, 2026

Hirotake Yano was selling household goods from his truck before creating Daiso, Japan’s largest discount retail chain.

In the United States, there’s discount stores like Dollar Tree and Dollar General, but in Japan, Daiso dominates the discount retail space and is bringing their 100-yen concept to cities around the world. 

Daiso was founded by Japanese entrepreneur Hirotake Yano. He was born in Beijing to a Japanese family and moved back to Japan after World War II with his parents, five brothers, and three sisters. Yano began boxing while in high school and was chosen for an Olympic athletes preparation camp, but his father refused to send him to university unless Yano agreed to study science or engineering, rather than trying to earn a sports scholarship. 

Yano failed the entrance exams for sixteen different schools before finally being accepted into Chuo University where he earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. Unfortunately after graduating, Yano struggled to find work and went through a series of different jobs like working in a bowling alley, selling encyclopedias, and eventually, running his father-in-law’s fish business. However, the fish business ended up being unsuccessful and made Yano bankrupt within three years, forcing him and his wife and son to leave Hiroshima and head to Tokyo. 

There, Yano decided to start his own company called Yano Shoten, selling household goods from his truck at markets. While running this business, he realized how time consuming placing different prices on each item was, so he tried something new: pricing everything the same and this proved to be a hit. 

In 1977, Yano was able to found Daiso Industries introducing Japan to a retail model where nearly every product would cost 100 yen. The first permanent Daiso store was opened in Takamatsu City in 1991 and the brand quickly expanded throughout Japan, then internationally in 2001 with its first overseas store in Taiwan. 

Yano successfully ran the company for decades until his stressful schedule led him to have a stroke in 2018, which prompted him to transfer leadership to his son, Seiji, while he continued to serve as chairman. Yano passed away at the age of 80 in February 2024, but he left behind a business that transformed the way people shop for everyday products. 

Today Daiso operates over 6,000 stores across the globe with over 150 locations in the United States. Already exceeding $3.6 billion in annual sales, Daiso still has a goal of establishing 1,000 U.S. stores by 2030.