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IHA’s blog features informative posts written to keep the housewares industry educated and informed about key strategic issues and IHA member services.

Global Retail News: Costco, Sainsbury, Walmart, Auchan, Carrefour

Costco hits the spot in Seville Last month, US-based Costco opened its first unit on continental Europe in Seville, Spain. The warehouse club retailer has proven sufficiently adventurous to venture into the country at a time when Spain is experiencing the nascent twitches of recovery following six years of the worst economic crisis in decades. Source: Planet…

CE Mark Workshop for Illinois Companies

The Illinois SBDC International Trade Center at the Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago (ICNC) is pleased to partner with the Center for International Regulatory Assistance (CITRA) at Duquesne University to present a day-long workshop at ICNC. Facilitated by CITRA experts and the Illinois SBDC International Trade Center at ICNC, the workshop will cover information on the…

IHA’s New Inspired Home Website Announces Editorial Calendar

Features on Halloween and fall-themed entertaining, food preparation and storage; personal care and grooming; home organization; closet and clothes care; garage organization and pet care will launch the new Inspired Home website created by the International Housewares Association. The website, www.IHAInspiredHome.org, is part of IHA’s consumer-focused initiative that will…

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…

Design Stars – Winners of the 2014 gia Design Awards

Discover Design, the premier design destination at the International Home + Housewares Show, offers a collection of more than 100 companies showcasing the latest designs found in housewares. Exhibitors are based on recommendations from and approval by the retail and design community. Since 2011, exhibitors in Discover Design have been in contention for 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…

International Housewares Association Connects Directly with Consumers

New “Inspired Home” Initiative Targets Consumers, Aims to Motivate Their Housewares Purchasing Decisions The International Housewares Association (IHA) announced today that this fall it will launch a new consumer engagement initiative, called Inspired Home, designed to directly market its members’ housewares products to consumers. Since its beginnings in 1938, IHA has…

Surviving Tourist Season Travel

Chris McGinnis, Editor of TravelSkills.com comments on how to manage business travel in the thick of tourist season travel in this CNN Video. http://travelskills.com/2014/05/21/surviving-tourist-season-airport-chris-cnn/ Source: TravelSkills.com…

European Retail: Schwarz Group – Implications with Carrefour & Tesco

In the UK, the Guardian is quoting a new Planet Retail report as saying "the company behind the Lidl supermarket chain is set to become western Europe's biggest grocery retailer by 2018 as discounters become mainstream across the continent.": According to the story, the report predicts "that the privately owned Schwarz Group, which is controlled by a German multibillionaire…