Inspiration Magazine: Innovation

Useful tips and resources prepared by business, industry and design experts to help retailers grow their businesses!

Global Retail Stars of 2015

The IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia) is the brainchild of the International Housewares Association, and having launched in 2000, it is now in its 15th year. The annual awards are considered the Oscars® of the retail world, attracting entries from across the globe. This year, 25 national 2015 gia winners from 24 countries were chosen to represent their countries in Chicago,…

Introducing the 2015 gia Global Honorees

In Chicago last March, five stores from around the world were voted as the most innovative, outstanding retailers on the planet and mentioned as 2015 gia Global Honorees. We check out what makes them so unique and outstanding. The top five stores declared gia Global Honorees in 2015 were: Koskela from Australia, Presentes Rodriquez from Brazil, Hudson’s Bay from Canada,…

Oasis of Style

Not many people could set up a homewares and lifestyle store in a barn, in a field “in the middle of nowhere,” and make an ongoing success of it. But inside the welcoming, stone facade of a 110-year old barn in Rusko, Finland, there is a retail store to which people from far and wide are drawn. Loviisan Aitta has been so successful that the owner Helena Aho recently opened a…

A PICTURE WORTH A FEW HUNDRED WORDS

Have you thought about adding some drama and excitement to your shop? Some surprises? How about some showmanship? Well, how about creating one focal wall in your shop—preferably one visible through your windows or illuminated so that it steps out when a shopper steps in to the store? What would make that focal feature wall so unique and provide that sense of theater that is so…

The P.O.S.H. Approach

Is it an antique shop? No, it isn’t. Is it a tabletop shop? No, it’s not really that either. Is it a gift shop? Perish the thought (even though you’ll find a thousand and more gift ideas here). So what is P.O.S.H.? P.O.S.H. is a remarkable retail store that was born from a marriage of wanderlust and an idea that the shopping experience could be something different than it…

THE C GENERATION

Have you heard of the X and Y Generations? Have you figured out yet who they are, what they are and if they are who your customers are—and if they are, how do you treat them? Well, forget the X and the Y and any other letter in the alphabet except for the letter C. According to some of the retail sages and solons, today’s shoppers are all part of the great new C Generation, and…

gia Global Innovation Awards 2014 – Retailers on Top of the World

Every year, the International Housewares Association (IHA) welcomes retailers deemed the best in their home country to Chicago, where they compete on a global stage in the IHA Global Innovation Awards 2014 (gia) program. This year, there were 23 national gia winners from 22 countries, all representing the very top of home and housewares retailing. The gia Global Innovation…

Introducing the 2014 gia Global Honorees

This year’s IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia) awards had such a wonderful group of winners and the panel of editor judges and expert jurors found it so difficult to choose just five top retail stores from the 23 regional 2014 gia global honorees that they had to choose six instead. The six top stores declared 2014 gia Global Honorees were: TheSuperCool from Australia, K…

Casa Palacio – A Palatial Approach

Casa Palacio Santa Fe has a seriously impressive lineage, to its seriously great sense of style. The store’s parent company, department store El Palacio de Hierro, opened its doors in 1888 and has expanded to now operate 13 stores. Casa Palacio is the high-end spin-off store, stocking everything from furniture to designer objects, linen, tableware and fashion. They also offer…