Excellence in Housewares Awards Ceremony Tonight

It is the Excellence in Housewares 2009 Awards tonight. Pots and Pans have been nominated in two categories, Excellence in Direct Retailing and Excellence in Retail Display – Independent. These awards have been described as being the ‘Oscars’ of our industry. Last year Pots and Pans won the Excellence in Online Retailing award, the award still takes pride of place in our office. We have sent a ‘small delegation’ down to London for tonight’s ceremony, we are all keeping our fingers crossed that they will have two good reasons for celebrating later tonight. We realise though that we face some very stiff competition in both categories.

We have updated the free gift for anybody who spends £100 or over on the Pots and Pans website. Now when you spend £100 or over you can choose to receive a free Premier Natural Origins Pizza Cutting Board and Pizza Cutter. This normally retails at £15. You can get more details about this free gift on our website.

Other news is the Pots and Pans lottery syndicate had a win in the Euro Millions lottery last week. Between 10 of us we scooped just over £12, this works out at just over £1.20 per person, this almost covers the £1.50 cost that each of us put in to enter the lottery. Debate is raging over what we should do with our winnings, the general consensus is that we will be using it to buy tickets for this weeks lottery.

Pots and Pans are finalists in two categories at the Excellence in Houseware Awards

We found out this week that Pots and Pans are finalists in two categories at this years Excellence in Housewares Awards. The two categories are Excellence in Direct Retailing and Excellence in Retail Display – Independent. The second of the categories is for the window displays in the St Andrews shop. In case you have you have not had the opportunity to see the shop’s window displays we decided to add pictures of some of the recent displays to our FlickR pages so you can see why they are finalists in this category. Being nominated and subsequently discovering that they are finalists in this category is some recognition for the amount of effort and creativity that goes into creating each individual window display.

The Excellence in Houseware Awards are a joint collaboration between Progressive Housewares magazine and The Cookshop and Housewares Association. They were set up with the explicit goal of recognising ‘innovation, integrity and commitment on both the retailing and supply sides of the housewares industry’. They are the only dedicated awards for the housewares industry. In this industry they are viewed as being the equivalent of the Oscars.

This year the awards are being held on Wednesday the 7th of October at The Royal Lancaster Hotel London, in the words of the invitation they are a “Black tie / Posh frocks” occasion. The funds raised from the raffle on the night will be divided between two charities, Shelter and The Rainy Day Trust.

At the 2008 Excellence in Housewares Awards Pots and Pans won the Excellence in Online Retailing Award. It would be nice to add to that award this year, but we will have to wait and see how we do on the night.

The St Andrews shop window displays nominated for award.

The colourful window displays of the Pots and Pans shop in St Andrews have been nominated for an award in this years Excellence in Housewares Awards. They have been nominated in the Excellence in Retail Display - Independent category.

Anybody who has seen the window displays in the St Andrews shop will realise that the staff there always put a great deal of time and effort into creating their window displays, always ensuring that they entertain the local shoppers.

Recent displays have included themes based on National Honey Week and National Vegetarian Week. You can see from the picture of the display for National Honey week just how much work goes into each of the window displays.

This display was a promotion for the for the Le Creuset cookware range.

It would appear that shoppers have as much fun with the window displays as the staff have creating them. The feedback that the staff receives concerning the window displays is always positive, some shoppers even suggest themes for future window displays. The displays definitely help brighten up Church Street.

Being nominated for The Excellence in Housewares Awards is excellent recognition for the work that goes into each display. These awards are the most prestigious awards in the housewares industry. This year the award ceremony is being held on October 7th at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in London. Good luck to the St Andrews shop staff that night, we will all be keeping our fingers crossed for them.