Elizabeth Center — Local services in New York

After coming to NYC for visiting/touring, I found this place online on where to look for cute Sanrio merchandise in Chinatown NYC. In my experience, this is ABSOLUTELY 100% RECOMMENDED to go at least try and visit to look around!!! ꨄ︎

Here's a bit of my experience: I was a bit unclear on what to expect at first as some reviews on this place weren't as recent or positive, so I had to go see for myself. I will say this place isn't as bad as of Summer 2025. I will say that I only went to most ground floor stores as I was in a bit of a hurry (unfortunately :'( ) so I can't speak for the entire center. But if you want to come for any cute Sanrio items or other asian general goods/merchandise on the ground floor, this is the place to check out!! From what I saw, since I was just looking for Sanrio stuff, the shops on the bottom floor do sell AUTHENTIC items from Japan! If you look at the tags (not store tags), if they have (Sanrio Smiles)/(Sanrio Original)/ (Sanrio.co) tags, which most of them do, they are authentic and not bootlegged. I am unsure if other anime or non-sanrio merchandise they sell are bootlegged or not. The shops on the top floor I believe do sell bootlegged keychains, so I would recommend that it's best to go visit the basement floor. ‪‪

Most of the shops reside down the escalator with the Sanrio merchandise found on your left and the right being other beauty, skin care, snacks, misc. items w/ some Sanrio too. The shop directly in front sells aesthetic minimalist clothing! I'm a huge plushie fan and found that the corner store directly to your left has the most diverse plushie arrangements. The store further down turning the left corner on the right side has some cute Sanrio stuff too; mostly stationary, baskets, shirts, towels, etc. instead of plush. I didn't end up checking out the left store, but I'm sure they sell Sanrio too. The cashiers are the absolute SWEETEST! ❤︎‬ If you buy over a certain amount in the corner store, you get a raffle to win a free gift at the counter!!

I will agree that the merchandise in the Elizabeth Center can be a bit on the pricier side, esp if you're going to buy in bulk. Some of the plushies I found online are about $10-15 cheaper than they are here. I found that most NYC stores in general are a bit pricier than where I live so I expected just as much when I came here. I'd say on average from what I remember, plush prices are about $30-40ish and keychains, mascots, notebooks, stationary, blind boxes, etc. are slightly cheaper than that. The big plushies on the top shelves will obvi be more expensive. (I wish I got one :'))

In terms of how the stores were arranged and the space, I agree that it was a bit cramped. Since I'm a bit on the smaller side it wasn't too much of a problem for me, but if you're someone who's going during a busier time and there's a lot of people, navigating through tighter spaces might be a little hard especially if you're carrying tons of stuff or you drop something and a bunch of people behind you can't get around. I went on a Wednesday during 4-5pm and was the only person inside so it wasn't much of a problem.

Overall, I would say this place is very fun and definitely if you are visiting a place near Chinatown, give this place a visit! The Sanrio stuff I got was sooo cute and looked good too. Some plushies look wonky sometimes, so these were pretty good and nicely picked. Great for windowshopping, buying, hanging out, relaxing, or going with friends/family!!! :)

Many blessings and great...

The Sanrio store is a bit annoying. I was shopping yesterday 5/17/21 from 2pm-5pm. The sales person was odd I brought several items for her to ring up. For some reason she was fiddling with the price sticker on one of the compact mirrors and took it out of my purchase. I didn’t notice it much at the store. But my husband said why didn’t she provide a free gift for anything over $35. Also our purchase is total of over $75. Total rip off. I was already annoy because this is not the first time the younger sales associate did this. Previous times they had offers of free items and etc next to the register. If you are not going to provide anything free why bother with the store sign . Is it to trick customers? Anyway I got home and notice 1 of the 3 mirrors are not in my bag. I really don’t know why she took out the item. If it wasn’t for sale then why don’t you not put it out for customers. What is the meaning ? I don’t like the sales person yesterday she didn’t say anything but just muttered and grunt. I am so angry that I don’t even feel like traveling out to mahattan to locate the same mirror. Don’t go there. Better if you purchase things online like the actual Sanrio site. P.s. to the store you don’t need to stick price sticker on the Sanrio merchandise there is an actual price on the packaging unless you are hiding the amount of the merchandise from customers. Totally...

This Is an amazing place to visit. There are not many shops to visit in NYC that have good Japanese and cute plush toys. But this is one of the best, nicest, and cutest shop if you give it a chance. It may seem like this store doesn’t have much in the lobby floor, but when you go to the escalator that leads to the basement floor, there you will find a bunch of cute stuff, like snacks, clothing, stickers, stationery, bags, toys, and any great Kawaii (cute) stuff you would encounter. I recommend coming here to buy cute stuff and gifts you enjoy and stuff you need, as well. XD Keep in mind that you need to carry a lot of money and wait for the shopping store to open if you want to visit this place, but overall it’s awesome! If you search carefully there, are good real rilakkuma, korilakkuma, chairoikoguma and kiitori and plush toys that cost $28 to $38. And I said thank you to the cashiers and they were really nice. I went to this place along with an Asian supermarket called “new kam man supermarket”, another place...