Have you been to MINISO?  Newly launched in SM Bacolod North wing (beside the Cybercenter), this Japanese store offers low-price but high quality products to its customers.  It’s one of the most popular stores in SM – it is crowded with customers from the time it opens to closing time!

MINISO was founded by Miyake Junya and Ye Guofu in Japan. Together they established MINISO as a brand that is affordable, fashionable and environmental-friendly.  MINISO SM Bacolod is among the four planned stores in the Philippines by this company.  Bacolod city is certainly lucky to be chosen!

Here’s a little guide to the awesome things you can find inside MINISO.

Gifts

MINISO has LOTS of stuffed toys and animals that are a huge hit with everyone!  Each of these plush animals are very soft and huggable.  There’s several shelves containing these cute critters.

Scrapbooking fans and those who love art will enjoy MINISO’S selection of journals, colored pens, stickers and notebooks.  These notebooks are cute –  we loved the ones that had intricate paper cut-outs on them.  There are also beautiful sets of crayons, wrapping and art papers.

Feel the need to hydrate?  These cute water bottles will brighten anyone’s day.  These are made of high-quality plastic so you won’t have to worry about them breaking.

 

Fashion

MINISO’S founder Miyake Junya graduated from the prestigious Bunka Fashion College in Japan.  One of his beliefs is fashion doesn’t have to be showy.  You can see this philosophy in action in the fashion items that MINISO carries.  Each piece has a beautiful simplicity to it and the designs are simple and without clutter.

People loosely throw the term “kawaii” or cute to describe MINISO’s goods. They are sadly misinformed.  MINISO doesn’t believe in “kawaii” – which prioritizes cuteness over practicality.  Items in MINISO are simple, cute BUT practical.  Each item has a purpose keeping in touch with the Japanese sense of minimalism and practicality.

MINISO has slippers, jewelry, perfume and hats on display.  The most popular part of the store is right at the entrance where the perfumes and checkout counters are so it gets a little bit crowded.

The Jewelry section is centrally located. They stock many items among which are simply designed necklaces and earrings.

 

Perfumes along with tester bottles are available to try.

 

MINISO also stocks various moisturizing soaps and lotions. Upon checking the ingredients of the soaps I  discovered that some of the soaps were made with HORSE fat.  Yup, fat from horses – It is 100% true -Soap made from horses.

It feels odd to see these soaps.  If you’re a vegetarian, a horse lover or a lover of Anna Sewell’s Black beauty or George Orwell’s Animal Farm; Well, these certainly are not soaps for you.

 

Tech

For the techie/audiophile there’s quite a lot of tech and cheap gadgets in MINISO.  An extremely popular section is the headphones section.  You can get good, high quality headphones that are stylish and practical – they are padded for maximum comfort.  Audio is crisp and clear. You can test out the headphones for yourself.

Fancy something a little less showy? There are also earphones made of metal. These look sturdy and they have different colors to choose from. Pick your favorite color or accessorize and match your outfit with your earphones.

 

For the PC enthusiast, there’s also cool PC gear that will interest you.

MINISO has cute wireless mice to use for your computer.  These come in pastel colors so it is mostly geared towards females but if you are in a pinch and need a mouse, these ones will do.

There’s a section devoted to ladies and men’s watches. Each one is below 500 pesos and they look simple and elegant.  Some watches look a little too toy-like but feel free to pick out the designs that suit you best.

Now you won’t ever have to worry about your gadgets running out of juice.  MINISO has batteries – a whole ton of them in every size and color of the rainbow.

Flash disks are also available! These particular kind of flash disk has a little “hook” on the end so you can clip it to your keyring or anything to avoid it getting lost.

 

Are you struggling with integrating various cables, wires and whatnot to work with your Television or audio system? Miniso has DP to HDMI adapters, Mini DP to HDMI, DP to VGA, etc.  This is pretty convenient and you don’t have to go to the SHOPPING area or downtown in Bacolod anymore to hunt down adapters that they may or may not have in stock.  These adapters allow older gadgets to work with newer tech and vice versa.

Running out of cellphone juice can now be avoided with these cheap, colorful power banks that MINISO sells. There’s a lot of them in every shape and size.

 

When buying a power bank, pick the one that has a large capacity.  MINISO has power banks ranging up to 10,000 mAh in capacity.  These power banks can charge your phone to a full charge 1-2 times before needing to be recharged.  MINISO power banks are colorful, flat and portable and have indicator lights showing how much charge the battery pack has left.

Of course, with any power bank you need charging cables.  MINISO has 100 cm or 1 metre long charge cables.

Would you believe that these thin things are weighing scales? Stick to your diet with these scales at an incredibly cheap price.

 

 

Toys

I find the toys in MINISO to be quite interesting and stimulating to a child’s mind and imagination.

There are toy cars and planes ranging from intricate scale models to goofy, funny cars and helicopters.

 

We love these small scale models of instruments, animals and insects!  Build these beautiful toys out of small bricks.  These are so cool! Kids (and Adults) will love making these items especially as they are not common like Lego pieces.  These are small masterpieces waiting to be assembled. They are very collectible. I even want to collect them all to make a miniature band display.

 

Kids can make their own zoo out of these beautiful 3D puzzles.

I forgot to take a picture of it – one of the most popular puzzle toys is MINISO’s wooden puzzle robots that transforms into a cube.  Here is a video from a young Filipino who enthusiastically talks about the toy.

Apparently it is difficult to get it to transform but keep trying and you will persevere!

I am happy to see these solar powered toy cars in MINISO! Previously I had to order them from ebay.  These solar cars are very good teaching aids for kids for lessons on renewable energy.  Nothing drives the point home than showing them what the power of the sun can do!

 

You can feel like McGyver with your very own pocket knife! These come with a lot of features.  Time to save the world with a spoon!

 

More McGyver…

Food

Miniso has some Japanese snacks available. These range from juices to snacks made out of real fruits, nuts and vegetables.

We love these wasabi coated green peas and assorted nuts. The wasabi is not that strong but it still gives a nice bite and flavor.  These are very addicting and I downed the whole bottle in one sitting.

There’s a lot more to see in MINISO SM Bacolod.  I only listed the items that I’m interested in but there are a whole lot of items that I didn’t mention.  Drop by to check them out!

MINISO is open from 10am – 9pm daily at SM Bacolod North Wing second floor (across from the cyber center).