Stationery Quest: Daiso on Flinders Street

Image Description: A banner-image of a sword, presented in a diagonal fashion, with the hilt of the blade in the lower-left corner and the tip of the blade in the upper-right corner. In the upper-left corner is pink text reading “Stationery” and in the lower-right corner is pink text reading “Quest”.

Previous Blog-posts in this series:
~Stationery Quest: Miniso at Highpoint
~Stationery Quest: Daiso at Highpoint
~Stationery Quest: Miniso at Docklands
~Stationery Quest: Daiso on Swanston Street

Image Description: a grey-background with a large pink sign with white writing on it in block text – “Daiso Japan”. There’s also another pink sign with white text at the far end that says “Daiso”.

Image Description: an image of a storefront with pink hanging lights, it’s mostly white and pink with display shelves near the door.

With regards to stock items, Daiso on Flinders Street (Melbourne CBD) has pretty much all the same items as all the other Daiso stores, however, like Daiso on Swanston Street, it does have particular areas of focus. I suspect that Daiso on Flinders has a more homewares and office support type of theme.

There are lots of kitchen items and gardening items as well. There’s also a fairly large Health and Beauty section there too (if that’s what you’re into). I can’t use the liquid eyeliner I bought from Daiso, my skin is too sensitive to it, but I haven’t had any problems with the mascara.

Image Description: a large wall display of various coloured storage baskets, storage containers, storage shelves, and objects that look like vases or waste-paper bins.

Currently, in Australia, we’re progressing into Winter, which means there is a wide selection warm and fuzzy accessories. Hats, gloves, scarves, and fuzzy socks are all on display. There are also these super soft and fuzzy tote-bags, it took me a lot of self-restraint not to purchase one. Daiso-Swanston Street has clothing accessories too, but Daiso-Flinders Street has them there right at the counter/door area.

Daiso-Flinders Street also has a wide selection of bags and I’ve also discovered that they also have the draw-string shoe-bags (I like to use these as gift bags).

Image Description: from right to left, there’s a large collection of draw-string bags in various sizes and colours. On the left is a collection of different coloured tote bags with animal faces on them (bunny-rabbit, penguin, lion, llama, cat). There’s also back-packs down the bottom, there’s a panda-themed one, a monkey themed one, and a plain black with white outline backpack.

In my view, Daiso-Swanston Street has the better range, however, it’s a lot easier to find things at Daiso-Flinder’s Street. Unlike at the other stores, Daisos-Flinders Street has a clear layout and aisle headings.

Image Description:  an image of the Stationery aisle, there are two hanging displays on both sides of the image, both sides displaying various stationery items, with floral design waste-paper baskets at the end of the aisle.

Unfortunately, there’s also a drawback to Daiso-Flinders Street, and that’s the fact that some items don’t cost the standard $2.80 price. There is a wide selection of items that can range from $3.00 – $5.80. It’s a little frustrating because one of the reasons why I like going to Daiso is that, because every item is the same price, it’s easy to work out how much it’s going to cost.

There’s also the problem of Confectionery flavours. For example: at Daiso-Swanston Street, I can obtain a specific type of boiled sweets, Peach flavour to be precise, but I can’t find the same type of boiled sweets in Apple flavour. At Daiso-Flinders Street, I can find the Apple flavour boiled sweets, but I can’t find the Peach flavour.

Image Description: two packets of apple flavoured round boiled sweets sitting upright on a black couch. The package has images of pink and yellow apples, as well as the hiragana symbols for “ringo” written on them (ringo meaning apple) in black text.

Another problem is that, thus far, I’ve only been able to find this chewable confectionery at Daiso-Flinders Street

Image Description: two pastel pink/peach-pink rectangle-tubes of Hi-Chew (peach flavour) on a black couch.

They’re not chewing gum, just hard chewable sweets, not as hard as a mintie, but oddly satisfying to chew on. Unfortunately, I have terrible impulse control and I usually end up eating the whole packet pretty quickly. You can find these at the register, they come in a couple of different flavours.

So, I’ve only got two more stores to go, the Miniso – DFO South Wharf and Daiso – Victoria Gardens Shopping Centre (the same shopping centre as IKEA), and then I’ll be finished.  I also was contemplating doing a Stationery Quest to Costco. The thing is that I would have to get someone from my social circle to take me in as a guest (as I don’t have a membership card myself), and that might be a bit of a hassle. Let me know what you think in the comments section below.