Right, and it appears to be a completely different model than that presented in the article. What’s interesting is that a significant fraction of the products

Right, and it appears to be a completely different model than that presented in the article. What’s interesting is that a significant fraction of the products at Daiso are made in Japan. Not by any means the majority, but a lot of the simple injection modeled products (containers), some of the ceramic plates and bowls, some of the chopsticks. It’s pretty shocking to me that they can make these products domestically and sell them for ~$1. But I suspect for simple products the economics of making these items locally still makes sense, when compared with shipping a bulky object which is largely air.