CHICAGO, IL (March 2, 2025) – The Inspired Home Show® and the International Housewares Association (IHA), the global sponsors and organizers of the IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia) program, today announced the 2025 gia Global Honorees for Retail Excellence.
The Global Honorees are:
- CUK – Argentina
- Mud Australia – Australia
- Album de Famille – France
- Balmuda Inc. – Japan
- Balthazar Kookwinkel – Netherlands
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 selected earlier this month.
They also selected winners of two other special awards: The Martin M. Pegler Award for Excellence in Visual Merchandising was awarded to Morandin regali of Italy. The gia Digital Commerce Award for Excellence in Online Retailing was awarded to IN8 Home of Brazil and Schafer of Turkey.
In addition to the 2025 Global Honorees, the 2024 gia Top Window award winners were honored at the gia Awards dinner that took place at Radisson Blu Aqua 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 close to 600 gia retail award winners, from 57 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.
The 2024-2025 gia winners are recognized and prominently featured at The Inspired Home Show. A festive gia awards dinner was held at the Radisson Blu Aqua Hotel on March 2. In addition, there is a special display at The Inspired Home Show in the Grand Concourse Lobby introducing the national winners to visitors and exhibitors.
Both gia national winners and Global Honorees are also recognized in a gallery on TheInspiredHomeShow.com/Awards/gia-Retailing.
For more information about the IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia) program, the co-sponsors, or participating in 2025-2026, contact Piritta Törrö at piritta.torro@inspiredconnection.fi. Additional information on the gia program is also available online at TheInspiredHomeShow.com/Awards/gia-Retailing.
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Editor’s note: Images of the 2024-2025 national gia winner stores are available for download at https://housewares.smugmug.com/Gia/2025-gia-Press-Photos. Photos of the gia Global Honorees, Martin M. Pegler Award winner and gia Digital Commerce Award winner from the gia awards dinner will be added soon.
