2008 gia Global Honorees Lead Industry in Retailing Innovation Best-in-Class Retailers from Around the World Set the Standard for Housewares Merchandising Excellence
By Derek Miller, Vice President, International – International Housewares Association
Contact:
Noelle Kull: +1.312.332.4650 x 21, nkull@h-a-intl.com
Beate Halligan: +1.312.332.4650 x 23, bhalligan@h-a-intl.com
Note to Editor: A selection of supporting visuals is available for immediate download, upon request via e-mail to: nkull@h-a-intl.com
Chicago, 9 April 2008 – In today's challenging retail environment, where retailers increasingly compete for the same price-conscious customers, finding successful selling propositions to not only sustain but also grow sales is no easy task. This year's gia (Global Innovator Award) Global Honorees have risen to the challenges facing the industry, and demonstrate that taking an innovative approach to retail operations is not only powerful – but can set you apart from your competition in even the toughest economic environments.
"Now more than ever, succeeding in retail requires effectively engaging customers, correctly anticipating their needs, and maintaining their interest," says gia expert juror and president of Los Angelesbased The Retail Element, Scott Kohno. "Today's successful retailer is one that captures customer interest and keeps them wanting more."
Voted on by a prestigious global jury consisting of three retail experts representing the Americas, Europe and Asia, and seven editors and publishers of co-sponsoring housewares trade publications from around the world during the recent International Home + Housewares Show (16-18 March) in Chicago, the following five retailers were honored as the gia Global Honorees of 2008. These retailers serve as best-in-class examples for other retailers to aspire to, and represent the very best in retailing around the world today.
Engaging Retail Theater -- Taste - Bowen Hills, Queensland, Australia
Taste of Bowen Hills, Australia, has mastered the art of capturing customer interest. An incredible housewares store for at-home entertainers, restaurateurs, cooking schools, television and film companies alike – this retailer is well known for its popular events that draw up to 900 people at a time.
Major, all-day events are held quarterly at Taste, and take the shape of ‘Retail Theater.' Created around seasonal themes and the most popular food trends, the events are designed to encourage customer learning and purchases through a hands-on approach. Generous tastings in cooperation with vendors, demonstrations from chefs and restaurateurs, door prizes and sample bags are all part of the mix.
A recent example of this retailer's crowd-pleasing, sales-driving events is ‘Taste of Spice,' where breakfast and tea were served to hundreds of shoppers amidst live cooking demonstrations, with Taste-branded recipes and instructional product handouts distributed to all guests to ensure optimum usage, care and product satisfaction.
"This retailer has managed to transcend its own store name," says Kohno. "They've done an incredible job of branding their store 360 degrees. From design and marketing to merchandising and customer service, you really feel the ‘taste' in every single product category."
Where Taste's in-store events get customers in the door, its expert visual merchandising entices them to buy products and keeps them returning. Synonymous with story telling, displays at Taste generate inspiration and excitement, and consumer desire for entire product offerings. Themed displays include Scandinavian Christmas, Moroccan, whimsical "Weigh & Bake & Mix" and the "Great Wall of China" featuring an extensive selection of open stock china pieces. Table presentations with varying seasonal themes featuring multi category integration draw from all departments and lead customers in to multiple purchases.
Boasting the widest selection of upscale culinary products in the region, Taste's artfully displayed wares include unique antiques ranging from Mediterranean wood fired pizza ovens and Mauviel copper cookware ranges to gourmet foods and household and kitchen electrics.
Vibrant Fun for the Masses -- Pepper - São Paulo, Brazil
Effectively provoking potential customers to enter its front door is a talent that Pepper of Sao Paulo in Brazil clearly has. With an understatedly vibrant store personality that differentiates it from its competition, Pepper transforms even no-brand products into objects of desire. Named after the seasoning that adds a distinctive flavor to a recipe, this retailer's mission is to offer everything needed for the kitchen and "always add an extra touch."
Pepper's ever-changing store signage is bright and eye catching, featuring a myriad of themes from masked superheroes holding rolling pins and wearing kitchen aprons, to holiday scenes showcasing penguins at play in the snow. Permanent signage at the top of the store's facade features its branded bright red chili pepper with whimsical cartoon renderings of housewares goods.
"Pepper is all about fun," says Kohno. "With carefully crafted branding and intriguing visual
merchandising, it effectively differentiates itself from other stores. It's vibrant, charming, stylish and bold – which engages potential customers at a single glance." Inside the store, the visual story is no less interesting. The building's structural columns have been transformed into life-size giraffes, and a welcome table greets visitors with a giant, hollowed-out beehive fixture. These visual display elements paired with brightly colored product groupings that complement the décor make touching and trying the merchandise impossible to resist.
Offering its customers everything from kitchen utensils, cutlery and pans, to outdoor grills, glassware and small electrics – all products are cross-merchandised in every price point to illustrate use and offer costeffective alternatives. The store's window displays communicate fun and affordability with moderately priced, impulse products that tempt passers-by into the store.
The fun doesn't end with the visual story at Pepper. All first-time visitors to the store are given pepper plant seedlings in a store-branded vase, which serves as a daily reminder in many shoppers' kitchens to return for a visit – and each of the store's sales associates place courtesy calls to at least 20 customers per week, to tell them about upcoming in-store events and new products.
Seducing Shoppers Around the World -- Lafayette Maison – Paris, France
The second most visited destination in Paris after the Louvre, Lafayette Maison pledges to seduce shoppers on every floor of its multi-level store, while masterfully leveraging fashion influences to offer its shoppers the most elegant and sophisticated shopping experience available. Boasting the largest shop in Europe dedicated exclusively to home decoration at 10,000 square meters, Lafayette Maison products are organized according to rooms in a house, with two rooms on each store floor separated by a central atrium scene. Each "room" features elaborate visual stories featuring related product categories that invite shoppers to dream, and buy. "Le Petit Patissier" features a myriad of cooking accessories for children, while "Le Brunch" houses high-end tableware, electrical appliances and fine gourmet foods and teas. "L'Oenologie" showcases nearly every imaginable oenology accessory from corkscrews to books for wine connoisseurs.
"This store employs outstanding decoration, done by highly skilled visual merchandisers," says Wolfgang Gruschwitz, gia expert juror and president of Munich-based retail consultancy Gruschwitz GmbH.
"Through a combination of cross merchandising, leveraging color and lighting and mixed materials – they've made it very easy for customers to notice and choose products. They make a strong argument for product sales in a very original way," he adds.
Housewares take on a whole new character in the merchandise displays at Lafayette Maison. Organized around highly creative "worlds" that showcase products in a unique and dramatic way, such as "the jungle of Eden," where the store's floor and windows are covered with a pervasive jungle pattern, and "Dream" featuring thousands of tiny lights to reveal the magic of Christmas – shoppers are constantly inspired and invited to dream. Five daily cooking classes held in the chef's kitchen in the store's lower level also regularly tempt customers, with both visual and aromatic cues.
Featuring products in virtually every housewares category, from the most prestigious to the most affordable, displays are constantly changing to maintain an element of surprise among store guests. Island displays showcase special designers, and full, highly decorative table settings welcome store guests, who visit in consistently high volumes in search of the retailer's cook and bakeware, electrical appliances, kitchen accessories, tableware, linens and crystal.
Sensory Splendor -- Casa Palacio – Mexico City, Mexico
Housed in an architecturally renowned circular building that leads visitors through large, naturally lit open spaces, Casa Palacio delights its guests with sensory indulgence. Flanked by luxuriously attractive materials – the store's focal points capture interest and provoke constant surprise among this retailer's aspirational shoppers.
Flowing fountains, curtains that move with the wind and lush green plants mix with the glow from spectacular chandeliers, while ambient music changes from display area to display area from Buddhist chants to the latest in instrumental jazz, and aromas that transport the imagination to a forest, a beach or a carmel factory are indulgently paired with tempting food sampling stations.
Casa Palacio visitors are logically led through beautiful displays modeled after rooms in a house, while their faces are warmed by natural light that descends down from the enormous atrium at the store's center point and they listen to running water that travels down the central wall adjacent to the store's escalators. From traditional décor to the very contemporary – each "room" is a true depiction of a totally furnished residence where customers are invited to stop at different points to sit on the furniture, admire space and glance through books on sale that are strategically placed throughout the store.
"Casa Palacio combines the most sophisticated elements of home goods with expert merchandising and marketing know-how," says gia expert juror and renowned, New York-based retail author Martin Pegler. "With the help of amazing architecture and retail savvy, it effectively translates image and lifestyle in a stunning way to upscale shoppers."
The large, unenclosed areas of the store invite customers to freely wander through the store and discover each area. Elaborate settings that change every 15-20 days featuring cutlery, fine tableware, drinkware and other homegoods products are showcased in the store's "Receiving and Sharing" room, while high-end brands in the cookware, bakeware, kitchenware and small appliance categories are featured in the "Preparing and Tasting" area.
Larger displays, which change every three months, have included themes such as "Splendor" featuring glamorous time-travel to the past in search of idealized beauty, "Balance" featuring the tranquility that comes from a relaxed life inspired by the body and mind balance of the Zen philosophy and ""Urban Eden," a tribalcosmopolitan style of life with ethno-techno touches. Subtle, framed signage and photographs that display information about all featured products and designers not only help customers make informed buying decisions, but also position the store as a true homegoods market expert and leader.
Elegant Exploration -- Schafferer - Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
Offering shoppers in picturesque Freiburg a welcoming, multi-level shopping experience, Schafferer takes a modern, uncomplicated approach to merchandising and customer service that effectively encourages visitor interaction with staff and products to drive sales. "Schafferer silently communicates with customers ‘this is the place to be'," says Pegler.
"From the great view the store's 19 windows afford would-be shoppers on the street, to its spacious and welcoming interior – this retailer offers an exciting selling proposition." Featuring an intuitive, logical and clear store layout that is not based on brands,but on specific product "needs" groupings, Schafferer combines merchandising that allows customers to help themselves from more than 15,000 products among bakeware, cookware, tabletop and kitchen accessories, small electrics and gourmet foods with event marketing that underlines its product-offering strength. This approach has resulted in a strong national retail brand with a unique profile and faithful customer following.
Visually interesting displays featuring clean lines and expert product arrangement that never overwhelm customers are at the foundation of the store's success. Well-lit, orderly product displays are grouped according to practical use, and products within the displays simply cannot go unnoticed. With interior color that breaks up the store's interior space into easily navigable areas that encourage exploration – sometimes pairing white with black, and white walls with red products and bright green structural pillars - shoppers' eyes are invariably drawn directly to displayed products. In the housewares department, gondolas are used as permanent merchandising fixtures, and are often accompanied by table settings that change with seasonal themes such as Christmas – where special decorations, sweet treats and customer gifts adorned the table.
Regular product exhibitions and demonstration are also part of the recipe for Schafferer's success, with more than 45 events taking place in the store every year. One such exhibition, "Worlds of Enjoyment," occurs annually and is designed as a "show of expertise" where no less than five demonstrations take place throughout the store simultaneously. All demonstrations directly involve and cater to customers to encourage sales, including gourmet food tastings, hands-on lessons such as sushi making and serviette folding, custom glass engraving and tablecloth tailoring. Product give-aways are often paired with events, such as wine tasting and glassware testing staged with local German vineyards, and celebrity chef demonstrations and cookbook signings.
About The gia Program
The International Housewares Association (IHA) and International Home + Housewares Show created the gia program in 1999 to honor housewares retailing innovation and merchandising excellence at the international retail level. Available in more than 20 countries on five continents, the competition is structured both on a national and global level to honor independent and multiple location housewares retailers for excellence in several business categories:
- Successful operations
- Depth of product offerings
- Innovative business practices
- Innovative in-store merchandising displays/techniques
- In-store promotions
- External marketing/promotions
- Quality of customer service
- Breadth and depth of employee training
For more information about gia, the co-sponsors, or participating in 2008, e-mail
international2009@housewares.org. Visit www.housewares.org/gia for additional information about gia.
About the International Housewares Association (IHA)
The International Housewares Association – The Home Authority - is the 70-year-old voice of the housewares industry. The not-for-profit, full-service association owns and operates the world's largest housewares-exclusive exposition of products for the home, the International Home + Housewares Show. With more than 61.000 visitors and 2.000 exhibitors, the Show is the leading global homegoods marketplace. The next edition of the Show will take place 22-24 March at Chicago's McCormick Place.
