Two franchised retail chains have scooped the top awards in the 2012 Visa Australian Retail Awards. The Australian Retailers Association today announced jewellery chain Pandora as the 2012 Visa Australian Retailer of the Year and Lenard’s as The Realise Group 2012 Australian Retail Innovator of the Year.

ARA executive director Russell Zimmerman said Pandora and Lenard’s stood out as worthy winners of the two awards, despite tight competition from the many other submissions considered by an expert judging panel.

“Pandora is a well- established retailer and has used product innovation, concept stores and a watertight marketing strategy to expand its brand offering and stand out from competitors. The plethora of advancements across the board made Pandora the clear winner for this prestigious award,” Zimmerman said.

The award for 2012 Visa Australian Retailer of the Year was presented by Visa Australia country manager Vipin Kalra to Pandora at an awards breakfast.

Kalra said “Pandora represents a true success story, from its humble beginnings being launched in a garage eight years ago, to today where it has over 300 employees and its jewellery is in more than 600 retailers across Australia and New Zealand. At Visa we are passionate about supporting best-in-class performance and excellence in retailing and Pandora demonstrates just that.”

The Award for The Realise Group 2012 Australian Retail Innovator of the Year was presented to Lenard’s by The Realise Group’s business development manager, Kate Gorman.

“We are proud to present an award to a retailer whose innovation launched a system which delivered improvements across the entire business – including operations, profitability, franchisee and staff satisfaction, product range, franchise marketability and customer experience,” said Gorman.

“It’s this type of innovation that helps retail businesses make leaps forward, even in tough market conditions. It delivers efficiencies which obviously impact the bottom line, but perhaps more importantly helps improve the customers’ experience of the brand.

“Minimising costs, providing customers with what they want, when they want it and allowing staff to spend less time on administrative tasks and more time with customers are crucial ingredients in a successful retail operation, and this innovation delivered on all of these,” Gorman said.

• There was another franchise brand win: Deakin University Australian Retail Graduate of the Year was awarded to Jo-Anne Oakeshott from the franchised Sunglass Hut chain, part of the Luxottica group .