What makes the Neighbourhood Retailer Awards unique?
The Neighbourhood Retailer Awards reward excellence, recognise achievement, raise industry standards, and reward entrepreneurial spirit and are Northern Ireland’s most prestigious retail awards.
Independently judged by Spotcheck, the awards are judged to exacting standards over a three-month period.
Spotcheck NI was established in 2001 to provide specialist mystery shopping services to a broad range of customer-facing businesses.
The business is run by Jill Beasant and Patricia Shepherd and has been based in Belfast since 2007 providing consultancy and business improvement planning/support for organisations on the island of Ireland.
Spotcheck has an established role in judging standards of customer service and business practices for business awards and once again working with Neighbourhood Retailer on the 2024 Awards.
The association with Neighbourhood Retailer goes back many years and the Spotcheck remit is to provide the independent judging system for the awards, making sure that all aspects of the judging process are fair, consistent, and completely unbiased.
A variety of appropriate judging methods are used including mystery shopping, judging panels, store visits and interviews to assess the entries using best practice standards as the basis for the criteria used for each award.
Winning a Neighbourhood Retailer Award is a benchmark of success and is a highly coveted prize within the industry, as well as being highly motivational for your entire retail team.
As the definitive awards for Northern Ireland’s independent retail sector, the NR Awards gala night will be an evening full of fun, excitement and entertainment, with the chance to recognise the contributions of retailers underpinning the occasion.
Last year’s gala awards night was a huge success, with over 500 guests coming together, celebrating and networking with their colleagues from across the industry, it was truly a night to remember.
Indeed, history was made at the 2023 NR Awards, with County Down retailer Tom McAvoy awarded the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award and his store, Milestone Rathfriland taking home the overall Retailer of the Year award for a record fourth time.
Entries for this year have been coming in thick and fast, and there is still time to get your all-important entry in, but be quick – the deadline for entering is 26th June – so don’t miss out on your chance to be a part of something special!
