The biggest move in retail award
Winner: David Jones’ opening in Wellington
There were many important international openings this year, but David Jones taking over grand old dame Kirkcaldie & Stains’ space in the capital was an incredibly pivotal moment. It was also David Jones’ first overseas store to be opened in 100 years.
Runner up: H&M and Zara’s near-simultaneous Sylvia Park openings.
The biggest stoush award
Winner: Loyalty programmes battling it out
There were a number of huge shake-ups in the loyalty programme space this year, with Fly Buys losing Air New Zealand and Mitre 10 as partners, Countdown and AA Smartfuel combining their databases into one card and New World rolling out its Club Card nationwide. The Retail Collective founder Juanita Neville-Te Rito told The Register these moves came down to one thing: retailers wanting more customer data to extract information from.
Runner up: Briscoe Group’s attempted takeover of Kathmandu.
This story originally appeared in NZ Retail magazine issue 747 December 2016 / January 2017
