Introducing IGA’s Mid-Year Best Practice Awards

Submit your best practice now for a better chance to win at the IGA Global Rally! 

IGA’s Best Practice program launched in 2018 with the introduction of an online library of IGA retailers' turnkey solutions for solving some of the most challenging issues they face, from differentiating in the face of competition and driving shopper loyalty, to building sales, increasing your bottom line, and getting the most from vendor relationships.

Our first Best Practice Award nominees were honored at the 2019 IGA Global Rally, where people from all across the industry voted—more than 70,000 votes, in fact—to determine winners from 13 Best Practice finalists. In the end, three winners each took home a 2019 IGA Best Practice Award and a $1,000 cash prize. 

Turn Two Annual Events Plus Weekly Tastings into a 20% Increase in Annual Wine Sales

Rose and Kevin Schild | Schild’s IGA

Store-made Hoagies Become a Community’s Preferred Fundraising Tool

Randy and Doug Sprankle | Sprankle’s Neighborhood Market IGA

Compact Stores and At-Home Delivery Spark Daily Sales in Fresh Foods

Jiayuguan Western Horizon Commerce and Trade Co. Ltd

Today the IGA Best Practice library, with more than 70 published best practices and more coming in each week, is one of the most viewed sections of our corporate website, providing step-by-step, sales-building tactics that can be immediately put to use in IGA stores around the world. To that end, we once again want to highlight the savvy solutions our retailers create with the 2020 Best Practice Awards.  

2020 Best Practice Awards Process

In 2020, IGA will again feature Best Practice Award finalists at the IGA Global Rally, and IGA and the industry will vote on the top three winners. Winners will be announced at the 2020 Rally in Nashville, Tennessee, and each winner will take home a $1,000 cash prize.

How do you become a finalist, you ask? You must first submit a best practice, and new this year, IGA is offering two chances to become a finalist, beginning now with your mid-year best practice submission.

Why Two Groups of Finalists?

Last year IGA received more than 50 best practices just before the end of the year. By having two calls for submissions—the first in July and the last in December—we hope to space out the submissions, giving you more best practices to implement in your store throughout the year, and also narrow the playing field a bit to give you a better chance to win! 

Any retailer who submits a best practice in the first half of 2019 (January 1 through August 31, 2019) will be eligible to become a mid-year Best Practice Award finalist.

What Kinds of Best Practices Are We Looking For?

“Anything that turns a challenge into an opportunity,” Ross says. "If a retailer tells me sales are down, I want to be able to point to 20 things that can be implemented tomorrow that are driving sales for other IGA retailers,” Ross says. “The goal is to build our best practices library, and show the rest of the industry that IGA retailers are leaders in creative problem solving.”

Need Some Inspiration?

Visit the Best Practices page on iga.com (and take a closer look at last year's finalists) for ideas from other IGA retailers. Examples range from extremely simple tactics for increasing department sales---like hosting department demo-ramas to boost sales and maximizing space and profits with made-to-order meat bundles---to elaborate strategies for building a stronger business, like how a St. Lucia store took a risk with green technology that paid off.

Then ask yourself, "What am I doing to?" 

• make my store stand out from the competition
• drive my department sales
• keep my shoppers coming back
• solve the specific problems I face
• submit my Best Practice for a chance to win!

Ready to submit your best practice for a chance to win at the IGA Global Rally in Nashville? Here’s how it works:

1. Click here to let us know about your best practice idea.
2. An IGA team member will contact you to get more information about your best practice, and you’re officially in the running to become an IGA mid-year Best Practice Award finalist. The more best practices you submit, the greater your chances to becomes a mid-year finalist! 
3. Once you submit your first best practice, you will receive free registration to attend the IGA Global Rally in Nashville, Tennessee (limit one registration per store group; you will be contacted by IGA with a special registration code once Rally registration opens). 
4. Your best practice will be written up, submitted to you for approval, and published to the IGA Best Practice Library.
5. The IGA executive team will review all the best practices submitted in the first half of 2019, and choose a group of mid-year Best Practice Award finalists based on creativity, ability to increase sales, and adaptability by fellow retailers, and then ask the industry to vote for the best. Stay tuned to The IGA Minute for the finalist announcement coming later this summer.
6. All the best practices that make it into the finalists’ pool (including both mid-year and year-end finalists) will be presented at the IGA Global Rally, where they will be voted on to determine the top three winners.