b8ta Named Store of the Year at Shop! Design Awards in Chicago

Last night the retail design industry came together to honor 59 winners at the 47th annual Shop! Awards Celebration, the industry’s top store design competition celebrating outstanding retail environments. The coveted Store of the Year award went to b8ta in Santa Monica, Calif.; Galeries Lafayette in Paris received the Visual Presentation of the Year, and Coty Fume Scent Lounge won Store Fixture of the Year.

Store of the Year winner: b8ta, Santa Monica

The hardline specialty store was named Store of the Year for embodying the future in a retail world that is being redefined. Designed by Gensler, the store brings products directly from start-up consumer electronics makers to the consumer, capturing data from shopper interactions and feeding it back to makers to aid their R&D and marketing efforts. The retailer also won two element awards: Use of Technology and In-Store Communications.

Visual Presentation of the Year winner: Galeries Lafayette, Paris

Galeries Lafayette received the Visual Presentation of the Year-Window Display Award for its engaging window display that integrated animation/technology with remarkable traditional graphics. Kendu In-Store Visual Solutions built the display and contributed to the design.

Fixture of the Year winner: Coty Fume Scent Lounge

The Curved Display Bar at Hudson’s Bay, Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto, is an elegantly shaped fixture that engages consumers to explore scent preferences without having to spray onto their body. Eventscape built the display.

An independent panel of judges reviewed a total of 219 entries and selected winning projects from across the globe, including the Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, South Africa, and South Korea. In addition to the top 3 awards, they identified 19 Gold, 19 Silver and 18 Element Awards.

The panel of judges included:

• Jennifer Acevedo, Editor-in-Chief, VMSD magazine
• Danny Boddy, Sr. Vice President, Retail, Soft Surroundings
• Jessie Dowd, Executive Editor, design:retail magazine
• Jose Padron, Sr. Manager, Global Retail Design, The Hershey Company
• Diana Revkin, Managing Director, Retail, TPG Architecture, LLP
• Jo Rossman, Publisher/Editor, LEED AP ID+C, Retail Environments magazine
• Dee Spiro, Director of Sustainability / Associate, Bergmeyer

“For 47 years, we’ve been recognizing the amazing talent inherent in the retail environments industry with the Design Awards program,” said Shop! CEO Steven A. Weiss, CAE. “Shop! is proud to produce this long-standing competition, which honors the business skills of retail professionals to fashion brick and mortar stores that are relevant and thriving.”

For full coverage of the 2018 award-winning projects, including photos, visit shopawards.org. Copies of the Retail Environments Winners Book are available in the Shop! booth (#5201) at GlobalShop! Digital copies are available online at shopassociation.org/retail-environments-magazine-2/.

During the fete, Shop! also honored winners from three additional Shop! competitions: Global Awards, OMA Awards and the Merriman Above & Beyond Award. Information is available at shopawards.org.

This year’s award sponsors included: GlobalShop, WestRock, VMSD, Menasha, GH&A, Madden Rapid Displays, Essentra, Tarkett, Leddconn, and Data Display.