Best Blooms, a florist and gift shop in Henderson, West Auckland, and only just over 1 year old, has come up tops, beating over 27 other entrants to take out the Auckland TOP SHOP® award in the Gift and Homeware category. This sector includes: gift shops, jewellery, florists, galleries, homeware etc, and the winner was announced on Tuesday 30 October at the New Zealand Retailers Association TOP SHOP® awards 2007, held at Sky City convention centre.
With over 300 entrants, these retail excellence awards encourage the development of retail standards, professionalism and customer service and are judged using a very strict process that provides recognition and a benchmark for the achievement of excellence. To determine Auckland’s top shops, each store goes through a stringent judging process, including mystery shoppers and a panel of expert judges. The judges’ decision is based on the total shopping experience including store layout and merchandise, window displays, service experience, product knowledge, customer relationship building and atmosphere and overall impression.
The Retailers Association states that a top class store should provide the customer with a complete shopping experience. You want your customers to come away from the store feeling very positive about their experience - that they have been valued as long term customers. Best Blooms certainly fitted the bill with some of the judges’ comments being: Colourful and inviting… Superb presentation and attention to detail. Great customer service.
Best Blooms Directors Jo-Ann Moss and Philip Selwyn are thrilled to be bringing this prestigious award to Henderson, and Jo-Ann comments that: “It’s wonderful to see that a small independent store can win, particularly when you are measured against the big stores with much larger budgets. We think the success of the store comes from the passion we feel for what we are doing, the exciting range of gifts we stock, the hard-work that our talented team put in, our strong customer service ethic and of course the stimulation and feedback we get from our valued customers and other Henderson Business Association members”. Best Blooms are also members of Teleflora and the NZ Professional Florists Association. Philip and Jo-Ann invite you to come into the store for a browse, and see exactly why we were voted Auckland’s Best Gift Shop.
