IMAGES RetailME Awards 2023 – Celebrating Retail Excellence
The annual IMAGES RetailME Awards, held alongside the Middle East Retail Forum (MRF), serves as a prestigious platform to acknowledge and honour the outstanding achievements of top retail organisations and brands within the Middle East region.
Setting industry standards, these honours specifically recognize retailers who have demonstrated outstanding innovation and pioneering initiatives across all channels, via best practices in business and technology through the retail value chain. The IMAGES RetailME Awards inspire the entire retail community to strive for excellence and continuous improvement. This recognition not only honours the efforts of individual retailers but also encourages the industry as a whole to explore new possibilities and push boundaries in the pursuit of delivering exceptional retail experiences to customers in the Middle East.
Eligibility: Successful entries will demonstrate how the retail brand campaign has met the demands of consistent messaging across different media channels. The award will recognize marketing or advertising campaigns undertaken by retailers employing a highly creative and innovative approach across multiple channels that have resulted in commercial success.
Eligibility: This award will recognise eCommerce Company across all categories that have been able to enhance physical channels by integrating digital technology and information, and online retailers who have been successful in reproducing human, personalised experiences normally offered by in-store shopping.
Eligibility: This category is open to a retailer who has implemented futuristic initiatives to increase customer loyalty and satisfaction. Focus will be both on the use technology as well as personnel-led services to enhance customer experience, either online, in-store or both. The entries will demonstrate how this initiative has made the shopping experience more convenient, rewarding, and inspiring. Judges will be looking for evidence of how the shopping experience was improved due to the initiative, as well as the level of innovation that makes the initiative stand out.
Eligibility: This award will recognise those retailers who have successfully focussed on the transformation of the business model, rethought their leadership styles and corporate culture, embraced partnerships and collaboration, and dynamically changed the business for the better.
Eligibility: Nominations under this category will demonstrate a solution implemented by a retailer that has implemented omnichannel strategies in the holistic sense of the term. A solution that helped the retailer to execute a truly omnichannel approach, in terms of seamless customer experience, easy deployment of back-end systems across all operations and the ability to gather and analyse data from all areas of the business will be considered by the judges.
Eligibility: This category will recognize outstanding new store design concepts across all retail formats, operating in the Middle East. Open to all retail sectors and store sizes that have opened in the last 12 months, successful entries will demonstrate how the design is delivering an interesting and exciting shopping journey, enhancing the retail brand.
Eligibility: This award will recognize an outstanding home-grown or international retail chain in the Middle East dealing in children’s wear that has shown remarkable success in the profitable expansion of its retail operations and winning customer confidence.
Eligibility: This award will recognize an outstanding home-grown or international restaurant/chain in Middle East that has shown remarkable success in not only profitable expansion of its operations and winning customer confidence but also by developing strategies to stay relevant in the future. Successful entries would have taken new initiatives to transform operations in an impactful manner that has drawn the attention of customers and the industry alike.
Eligibility: This award will recognize an outstanding home-grown or international retail chain in the Middle East dealing in beauty & personal care products and wellness products, solutions & services that have shown remarkable success in the profitable expansion of its retail operations and winning customer confidence.
Eligibility: This award will recognize an outstanding homegrown leisure & entertainment company operating in the Middle East that has shown remarkable success in the expansion of its popularity, number of outlets, increasing profitability, building loyalty, attracting more customers by means of attractive campaigns and promotions and winning customer confidence by undertaking strict health and safety measures.
Eligibility: Retailers demonstrating examples of excellence on a wide range of ‘conscious’ matters can nominate for their outstanding achievements. Nominees will be judged on ‘going beyond regulatory compliances’ – from ethical sourcing and product safety to environmental initiatives as well as workforce care, community support projects and regeneration.
Eligibility: This award will recognize an outstanding home-grown or international chain in the Middle East offering pharmacy and healthcare services and has shown remarkable success in the profitable expansion of its retail operations and winning customer confidence.
Eligibility: This award will recognise an outstanding home-grown or international cinema operator in the Middle East that have shown remarkable success in the profitable expansion or partnerships and collaborations that have resulted in attracting new customers and enhancing the overall cinema-going experience for the audiences in the region.
Eligibility: This award will recognize an outstanding home-grown or international retail chain in the Middle East dealing in fashion and accessories that has successfully worked on fashion merchandise and pushed customers to shop contemporary fashion more frequently. The chain would have also shown remarkable success in the profitable expansion of its retail operations and winning customer confidence.
*Winner of this category will directly qualify for GIA awards
Eligibility: This award will recognize an outstanding home-grown or international retail chain in the Middle East dealing in home & housewares that has shown remarkable success in the profitable expansion of its retail operations and winning customer confidence. Winner of this category will directly qualify for GIA awards
*Winner of this category will directly qualify for GIA awards
Eligibility: This award will recognize an outstanding home-grown or international retail chain in the KSA dealing in home & housewares that has shown remarkable success in the profitable expansion of its retail operations and winning customer confidence. winner of this category will directly qualify for GIA awards
Eligibility: This award will recognize an outstanding home-grown or international retail chain in the Middle East dealing in footwear & accessories that has shown remarkable success in the profitable expansion of its retail operations and winning customer confidence.
Eligibility: This award will recognize an outstanding home-grown or international retail chain in the Middle East dealing in food and grocery that has shown remarkable success in the profitable expansion of its retail operations and winning customer.
Eligibility: This award will recognize a retailer who has implemented an innovative piece of in-store technology within its retail estate. This could range from a new EPoS system, self-checkout service, kiosk, touchscreen or mobile till point, to virtual fitting room technology or in-store customer ordering. The winning entry will be able to demonstrate how such technology has improved the company’s business.
Eligibility: This award will recognize retailers that are redefining rules of customer experience and engagement, leading the process of the evolving purpose of the store, and are offering extraordinary shopping journeys that are leaving both customers as well as the rest of the ecosystem awestruck. Some other key considerations would include implementation of innovations and emerging tech in-store, store design, convergence of content and commerce, and other brand activations.
Eligibility: Metaverse, NFT, AI/AR/VR/XR adopters that have gone the extra mile to bring emerging tech driven innovation to MENA’s retail environment will get recognized for this award.
Eligibility: This award will recognize a new retail concept, store, and organisation that has made its mark in the region in the last 5 years. Key considerations include brand visibility, customer affinity, expansion and growth, innovation in concept, and experiential offerings.
Eligibility: This category celebrates an exceptional collection and approach put forward by retailers who want to woo customers with value. The category is analysed through the product range, brand proposition, price tag, USP, convenience for the customer, and going that extra mile to offer value to the customer from store to online and much more.
The Most Coveted Awards For Retail Innovation In The Middle East For Outstanding Innovation And Pioneering Initiatives Across All Channels.