Daiso opens its first Georgia store, taking the 100-yen format to 28 countries

Daiso Industries, the Hiroshima-based operator of Japan's biggest 100-yen shop chain, said it will open its first store in Georgia on 26 November, inside Tbilisi's City Mall Gldani, according to a company announcement dated 7 October. A second Tbilisi store is set to follow in December, at TbilisiCentral, the commercial complex attached to the city's central railway station.

With Georgia added, Daiso said it now operates in 28 countries and regions — a count that makes the 100-yen format one of the most widely exported Japanese retail concepts, and one that keeps growing a market at a time.

For a chain built on a single, fixed price point, the real test is rarely the opening itself. Tbilisi's result will say less about shelf layout than about whether the pricing model travels cleanly into a new currency and a different income level.