Variety stores are a guilty pleasure. While great prices do ease the guilt of unnecessary spending, we’re still trying to find a good enough reason to buy a multi-purpose grabber. But when you enter Mumbai’s first Daiso outlet, a Japanese value store, at Phoenix Marketcity in Kurla, it’s hard to not fill up your shopping basket with unique finds where a storage bag at Rs 1,169 seemed to be the highest-priced item.

The store has a mishmash of home products similar to a 99-dollar store. As you enter, to the right are racks of beauty products that don’t disappoint, from scrunchies, combs for different types of hair and heat-less hair styling tools to bathroom mirrors and clip-on nails. The middle aisle stocks socks, lounge bras, yoga mats and gym equipment. We wish that the stationery aisle would offer more than just markers and a few notebooks. The desk organisers look dull but are functional; so are the rest of the craft products. We were impressed with the variety of folders.