The International Home + Housewares Show and International Housewares Association (IHA), the global sponsors and organisers of the IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia) programme, have announced the national gia winners of 2015-16 – including 25 outstanding home and housewares retailers from 23 countries around the globe. This year the Middle East entry is represented by UAE-based Landmark Group’s home and housewares concept Home Centre.
The gia programme was created by the IHA and International Home + Housewares Show to foster innovation and excellence in home and housewares retailing throughout the world. Since the launch of gia in 2000, there have been close to 350 gia retail award winners from over 40 countries on six continents.
The gia competition is structured on a two-tier level, national and global, to honour independent and multiple location home and housewares retailers for excellence in several business categories such as:
• Overall mission statement, vision and strategy
• Store design and layout
• Visual merchandising, displays and window displays
• Marketing, advertising and promotions
• Customer service and staff training
• Innovation
Each national gia winner is invited to the International Home + Housewares Show in Chicago where the global gia jury, consisting of four experts representing Asia, Europe and the Americas, plus a rotating group of co-sponsoring trade publication editors from around the world, will select up to five gia Global Honorees, the winners of the Martin M Pegler Award for excellence in visual merchandising and the gia Digital Commerce Award for excellence in online retailing.
During the 2016 International Home + Housewares Show in March, the winners will be honoured at a festive awards dinner, where the 2015-16 gia Global Honorees, the winners of the Martin M Pegler Award for excellence in visual merchandising and the gia Digital Commerce Award for excellence in online retailing will be announced.
Other gia highlights at the International Home + Housewares Show include a gia showcase in the Hall of Global Innovation in Lakeside Centre Lobby, where visuals of the national gia winners’ award-winning store design and branding ideas, examples of exquisite visual merchandising and innovative displays will be on display. Banners for the honoured retailers can be seen in the walkway that connects the Grand Concourse and the Lakeside Centre.
gia is more than an awards programme. Representing retailing excellence around the world, it is part of a larger education initiative that includes seminars by retail experts, columns in international housewares publications and educational sessions at events in sponsors’ home countries. As part of gia’s educational offering on March 7, the four gia expert jurors – Martin M Pegler, Wolfgang Gruschwitz, Scott Kohno and Henrik Peter Reisby Nielsen – will conduct a special session in the Innovation Theater of the 2016 International Home + Housewares Show with the topic being Top Ten Retail Trends for 2016.
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