CHICAGO, IL (March 11, 2026) – The Inspired Home Show® and the International Housewares Association (IHA), the global sponsors and organizers of the IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia) program, today announced the 2026 gia Global Honorees for Retail Excellence.
The Global Honorees are:
- Kabinett, Australia
- Kitchen Center, Chile
- Casa Cuesta, Dominican Republic
- SCHÄFFER, Germany
- The Culinary Institute of America – Marketplace at Copia, USA
The global gia jury, consisting of four retail/visual merchandising experts and seven editors and publishers of co-sponsoring housewares trade publications from around the world, selected the gia Global Honorees from a pool of 31 national winners that were announced earlier this year.
They also selected winners of two other special awards: The Martin M. Pegler Award for Excellence in Visual Merchandising was awarded to Kabinett of Australia and Casa Cuesta of Dominican Republic. The gia Digital Commerce Award for Excellence in Online Retailing was awarded to Home Centre of Saudi Arabia.
In addition to the 2026 Global Honorees, the 2025 gia Top Window award winners were honored at the gia Awards dinner that took place at the Palmer House Hotel in Chicago.
The gia program was created by IHA and The Inspired Home Show to foster innovation and excellence in home and housewares retailing throughout the world. Since the launch of gia in 2000, there have been over 600 gia retail award winners, from 60 countries on six continents.
The competition is structured on a two-tier level, national and global, evaluating retailers within the following categories:
- Overall mission statement, vision and strategy
- Store design and layout
- Visual merchandising, displays and window displays
- Marketing, advertising and promotions
- Customer service and staff training
- Innovation
Co-sponsoring the country-specific gia award programs with IHA are housewares trade publications worldwide, which sponsor national gia programs in their respective countries. This year, 31 national gia winners from 30 countries were selected by the co-sponsoring trade publications with targeted distribution in over 50 countries on five continents. All winners were automatically entered in the global competition at The Inspired Home Show in Chicago.
The 2025-2026 gia winners are recognized and prominently featured at The Inspired Home Show. A festive gia awards dinner was held at the Palmer House Hotel on March 10. In addition, there is a special display at The Inspired Home Show in the Grand Concourse Lobby introducing the national winners to visitors and exhibitors.
Both gia national winners and Global Honorees are also recognized in a gallery on TheInspiredHomeShow.com/Awards/gia-Retailing.
Editor’s note: Images of the 2025-2026 national gia winner stores are available for download at https://ihagia.smugmug.com/Gia/2026-gia-Press-Photos. Photos of the gia Global Honorees, Martin M. Pegler Award winner and gia Digital Commerce Award winner from the gia awards dinner will be added soon.
For more information about the IHA Global Innovation Awards (gia) program, the co-sponsors, or participating in 2026-2027, contact Piritta Törrö at piritta.torro@inspiredconnection.fi. Additional information on the gia program is also available online at TheInspiredHomeShow.com/Awards/gia-Retailing.
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The International Housewares Association (IHA) is the 87-year-old voice of the home and housewares industry, dedicated to bringing buyers and sellers together. IHA hosts its premier exposition of products for the home, The Inspired Home Show, in Chicago every March. Each year, the Show brings together more than 2,000 unique brands and hundreds of thousands of products with both global and domestic buyers; U.S.-based attendees alone represent more than 100,000 retail locations and over $64 billion in buying power. The not-for-profit, full-service Association also offers member companies a wide range of services including industry and government advocacy; export assistance; trend reports; executive management peer groups; group buying discounts; and an independent news and information platform, HomePageNews.com.
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