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TheBuzz
Erika Engle
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Local shops vying for honors in magazine competition
SIX HAWAII stores and a local museum shop are among nearly 700 nominees in Niche magazine's Retailer of the Year awards competition.
These are not the kinds of stores that sell crocheted Primo- or Olympia-beer can hats like tutu used to make. Not that there's anything wrong with those oft-day-glo wonders of yarn and aluminum. Niche is a quarterly magazine for galleries and retailers of fine crafts from jewelry to furniture.
Honolulu's Jeff Chang Pottery & Fine Crafts and Reflections of the Heart Inc.; Kauai's Kebanu LLC; Dolphin Galleries Inc. and Ki'i Gallery Inc. of Maui; and Kailua-Kona's Showcase Gallery are all nominees for Retailer of the Year, or could win a "Top Retailer" designation.
The Museum Shop at the Contemporary Museum in Makiki Heights is nominated in the museum store category.
"There are 25 awards for top retailer, but there will be one retailer of the year that is the top of the top," said Daniel Waldman, public relations manager for Rosen Group. The Maryland-based group publishes Niche.
Categories in which there are no Hawaii-based nominees this year include Advertising; Arts, Non-profit; Customer Newsletter; Guild Store; In-Store Event; Local Community; Merchandising; New Store; and Online Marketing. The winners will be announced July 21 during the Buyers Market of American Craft, staged by the Rosen Group at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.
Erika Engle is a reporter with the Star-Bulletin. Call 529-4747, fax 529-4750 or write to Erika Engle, Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 500 Ala Moana Blvd., No. 7-210, Honolulu, HI 96813. She can also be reached at:
eengle@starbulletin.com