Community Highlights: Meet Jason Li of Z&Y Gifts

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jason Li

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Early 2018, when my family was shopping for Lunar New Year decoration, we realized that Arizona do not have much Asian culture related retail shops. It was very hard to find modern Asian items. We have to go to California to shop for those items. So we decided to open a store to sell items that we would want to buy.

In order to keep our price affordable and to control the quality of our products, we spent a year in China to visit factories one after another. By the end of 2019, we signed our lease with our landlord. The store opened during the summer 2020. As today, we still has full control of price and quality by order products directly from the factories in China. Z&Y Gifts only works with factories that care about their reputation.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
It was hard to start a business during COVID-19. COVID-19started one week after we signed our lease. There were a shortage for everything. We cannot even find display shelves for our store. Not even used ones. We ended up using kitchen tables as display fixture. Also, we cannot have a grand opening because of COVID-19.

As you know, we’re big fans of Z&Y Gifts. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Z&Y Gifts, an Asian theme gift shop in Mesa. Z&Y Gifts provides retail, wholesale, and special custom order services. Our goal is to bring the true Asian culture related products to the American market, and help our customers to understand the culture of those products.

Z&Y Gifts has full control of price and quality by order products directly from the factories in China. Z&Y Gifts only works with factories that care about their reputation. Our retail store`s current product includes: Incense, Ceramic, Stationery, Cup, Decoration, Ornament, Water Fountain, Buddhist Supply, and more.

How do you think about happiness?
I enjoy explaining Asian cultures to customers. I believe that we can bring people together by understand each other’s culture, the more we understand other’s culture, the less likely we are going to misunderstand them. It will help to solve the hate between communities.

Pricing:

• average customer spend around $20 at our shop for birthday gifts
• we have a lot good gifts around $5 to $10
• we also have good amount of gifts that above $50

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/z_and_y_gifts/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ZYGifts
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@zandygifts