Men’s fashion retailer 3 Wise Men was named 2016 Retailer of the Year at Auckland Airport’s annual retail awards.

The airport has run the awards for the past 6 years, in acknowledgment of retailer’s excellence in everything from customer experience to product development, sales performance, marketing and business innovation.

“The airport is committed to ensuring that passengers’ shopping experiences at the airport are world class and represent the very best of what New Zealand has to offer,” said Richard Barker, general manager – retail and commercial.

“For the past 12 months our focus has been to enhance customer choice by improving the range of commercial products on offer for passengers. This focus has resulted in a record breaking year in retail income and these awards are a celebration of what has been achieved by airport retailers,” Barker said.

According to Barker, 3 Wise Men has excelled in their efforts to understand customers, develop creative promotions and provide outstanding customer service.

“They’ve experienced some terrific sales growth in the past year as a result of that and we are delighted to award them the retailer of the year,” Barker said.

Yoon Song, owner and founder of TravelPharm, 2015 retailer of the year awardee, was the recipient of the general manager’s Retail Achievement Award.

Barker said Yoon has been inspirational in driving the growth of his business at the airport, tapping into the needs of many of our overseas visitors to provide health and wellbeing products throughout the TravelPharm stores.

In addition to the 2016 Retailer of the Year Award, the following retail excellence awards were also announced:

• Best Food and Beverage Retailer Award, International Terminal – Flight Bar
• Best Specialty Major Retailer Award, International Terminal – TravelPharm
• Best Specialty Boutique Retailer Award, International Terminal – Walker & Hall
• Best Food and Beverage Retailer Award, Domestic Terminal – Hayama
• Best Specialty Retailer Award, Domestic Terminal – 3 Wise Men
• Customer Service Excellence Award, International/Domestic Terminal – Aelia Duty Free
• Marketing Initiatives Award – Icebreaker
• General Manager’s Retail Achievement Award – Yoon Song, TravelPharm
• Most Valued Player Award – Angela Akai/The Loop and Darryl Church/Retro Espresso