The Inspired Home Show® and the International Housewares Association (IHA), the global sponsors and organisers of the IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia) program, today (March 10 2026) announced the 2026 gia Global Honorees for Retail Excellence.
The Global Honourees were:
- Kabinett, Australia
- Kitchen Center, Chile
- Casa Cuesta, Dominican Republic
- SCHÄFFER, Germany
- The Culinary Institute of America – Marketplace at Copia, USA
The global gia jury, consisting of four retail/visual merchandising experts and seven Editors and Publishers of co-sponsoring housewares trade publications from around the world, selected the gia Global Honorees from a pool of 31 national winners that were announced earlier this year.
They also selected winners of two other special awards: The Martin M. Pegler Award for Excellence in Visual Merchandising was awarded to Kabinett of Australia and Casa Cuesta of Dominican Republic. The gia Digital Commerce Award for Excellence in Online Retailing was awarded to Home Centre of Saudi Arabia.
In addition to the 2026 Global Honorees, the 2025 gia Top Window award winners were honoured at the gia Awards dinner that took place at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago.
The gia program was created by IHA and The Inspired Home Show to foster innovation and excellence in home and housewares retailing throughout the world. Since the launch of gia in 2000, there have been over 600 gia retail award winners, from 60 countries on six continents.
The competition is structured on a two-tier level, national and global, evaluating retailers within the following categories:
- 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
Co-sponsoring the country-specific gia award programs with IHA are housewares trade publications worldwide, which sponsor national gia programs in their respective countries. This year, 31 national gia winners from 30 countries were selected by the co-sponsoring trade publications with targeted distribution in over 50 countries on five continents. All winners were automatically entered in the global competition at The Inspired Home Show in Chicago.
Both gia national winners and Global Honorees are also recognized in a gallery on TheInspiredHomeShow.com/Awards/gia-Retailing.
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