Housewares Business-to-business magazine for housewares retailers and their suppliers
Housewares chain Lakeland has been announced as the winner of the 2013/2014 national Global Innovation Award (GIA) for the UK.
The GIA programme, which honours housewares retailers from over 20 countries from around the world, is sponsored and organised by Chicago’s International Home + Housewares Show, held in Chicago from March 15 – 18 2014. Lakeland will be honoured at the gia gala event there next year.
The GIA competition is structured on a two-tier level: national and global. Each national GIA winner is invited to the International Home + Housewares Show held from March 15-18 in Chicago, where the jury then selects up to five GIA Global honorees. These will be announced at a special awards dinner at the show, to which all winners are invited.
Retailers are judged on 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; and innovation.
Lakeland impressed the gia UK jury with its excellent retail display, particularly its recently opened Milton Keynes store, as well as its innovative iPad magazine, launched earlier this year.
Matthew Canwell, director of buying for the 67-strong chain, told www.HousewaresLive.net: “We are delighted to have won the gia award.” Lakeland also held the title of natonal gia winner for the UK in 2004/2005.
Dinghams, with cookshops in Salisbury and Winchester was the national gia winner for the UK in 2012-2013. This is a family-run cookshop business, established in 1982, which places particular emphasis on customer service.
