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Retail Awards
Published: 05 May, 2010
Retailer of the year awards will force you to have a good look at your business and reassess just how well you are doing things at your store
My colleague and I recently had the opportunity to judge Garden Retailer of the Year awards in New Zealand and Australia.
If any of you are considering entering your store into a local Garden Centre of the Year, or Retailer of the Year, award I strongly urge you to do so. I say this not just because of the kudos and on-going marketing and promotional opportunities the title will create for the winners, but because it will force you all to have a good look at your business and reassess just how well you are doing things at your store.
Awards like this are, in a way, just a snapshot of how we are on the day the judges call in. Sure, there are other criteria which contribute, but essentially if you look your best on the day, you’re in with a chance. And. I guess there’s nothing wrong with that!
Unfortunately, many entrants take this narrow, short focused view, and invest lots of money and time into looking perfect on the day. I say unfortunately not because looking good on the day is a bad thing, but because I believe it misses the point of what awards like this are really all about, and is thus a wasted opportunity.
What is the point of having a Garden Retailer of the Year award? Is it just to make us feel good about ourselves and have a nice time at the awards presentation? Hopefully not!
Such awards should have a more far reaching influence and effect than that. They are a tool for us as an industry to raise the bar, to grow and develop, to become better and the best at what we do. And surely in a market that keeps getting tougher, where the competition is fierce, isn’t that exactly what we should be trying to do?
We all know that retailing has been tough over the last couple of years. But like many clouds, this one has a silver lining. It has forced all of us to look at our businesses and see how we can manage them more efficiently, more productively, and more profitably. I know of several garden retailers whose sales have been relatively flat, but who have ended up with more money in the bank! And all because they were forced to identify and zero in on areas of their business where they had to do better if they were going to thrive.
Like a recession, Garden Retailer of the Year competitions give us a focus, a reason to start analysing our businesses—product range, product quality, merchandising, signage, branding, store presentation, customer service, expertise, training, stock control, profitability, premises, planning. It’s a line in the sand from which we can move forward and start doing better in all of these criteria. Not just for judging day, but for the future ongoing health and strength of our business.
There can only be one award winner. But if these competitions stimulate us all to be better than we are at present, then surely we and our industry are all winners!
- John Russell
