This week the yearly ING Retail Awards were presented. Deen Supermarkets won the Professional Jury Award in the category “chains”, Maggy’s Mode from Bunschoten-Spakenburg won the Awards of both the Professional Jury as well as of the consumers in the category “independent stores” and Intratuin was chosen as the best chain by the consumers. The consumer awards are certainly interesting but heavily influenced by campaigns of the competing stores. More interesting are the Professional Awards granted by a jury of retail specialists. Once again no optical stores were nominated or involved in the competition. In recent history City Bril won the Professional Jury Innovation Award, Saton Optiek went home with the Professional Jury Service Award and Linneweever was elected Overall Best Store of the Country by the Professional Jury. I was seriously involved in the battle for last two Awards and I can tell you, it was quite a job to convince the jury and beat other great stores from other branches. Nevertheless we did it a few times. Time to repeat the success and enter the competition once again. Some interesting store projects are on their way, so maybe next year or one year later we can do it again!
