Daiso - Japanese Household Goods — Attraction in Santa Fe

Update (May 25): They increased their base (100¥) price on their cheapest items from $1.75 to $2.25.

I love Daiso. Daiso is a super popular “dollar store” in Japan, because it has just about everything, at super affordable prices. Even with the less-than-favorable conversion, most items are around $2-4.

The selection here is just amazing. Walking around the aisles, I can always find something I didn’t know I needed, but will make my life easier. I can go to Daiso with random needs (“I need a way to keep my contact lens case out of the way”) and Daiso gives me a solution (a mini shelf for contact lens cases that sticks to the wall or a mirror).

I’ve bought so. many. things. from Daiso (seriously, I will list them below). The only reasons I’m not giving 5 stars are:

1. This particular location has a faulty sound system or something because they’ll repeatedly play the first ~15 seconds of a song on loop. I don’t know how the employees deal with that for an entire shift.
2. I went last week on a Wednesday afternoon and they were closed with no warning or explanation
3. It is still “dollar store” items, so maybe 1 out of every 20 things I buy there are unusably cheap or break quickly. (I should’ve known better than to buy a compression packing cube from them).

Things I’ve bought, love, and still use from Daiso: Home goods: folding laundry basket, soap dish, coin batteries, alarm clock Kitchen goods: organizing racks, drink carafe, magnetic timer, roll up over-sink drying rack, cutting board and knife stand, bottle brush, sponge stand, ice packs, lunch box, water bottle Office: Notebooks, highlighters, double-sided tape Food: candy, instant soup, tea bags (especially the barley tea that’s hard to find elsewhere) miscellaneous: beauty scissors, flip-flops, curtain for car window, 2-prong to 3-prong plug converter (for overseas travel)

Daiso is like a better version of the Target dollar spot and every other...

Came to the store to buy some stationary, got everything I wanted and went to the self checkout register and accidentally scanned twice one item, was not able to ask for help since apparently either the store is not well staffed or employees don’t have designated places to work in because the registers didn’t have an employee available to help, for a Sunday one would think that the store would have the number of proper employees needed it to stock and assist customers. Long story short had to pay for my items even the ones I accidentally scanned twice since the line was getting long at the registers. Soon after I went and looked for an associate and they immediately refused to refund me which would have been a problem avoided if someone was at the registers to assist! Upsetting to think this store is operating without wanting to reimburse the customer or the employees disorganization on a busy work day. Do...

I couldn't spend more than a few minutes because there are NO CARTS. It's baskets only. Also no public bathrooms, no EBT, no returns. They have really lovely things from what I got to see and TONS of departments. So many things are $1.75 but they're actually good quality not just plastic junk. Even the packaging looks better quality. It was perfectly tidy and organized. I look forward to going back with a stroller...