For years, CHOICE magazine has named and shamed retailers and manufacturers with their notorious Shonkys awards.  But last month they offered bouquets to 2009’s top-performing companies and products with their inaugural CHOICE Awards.

The award shortlists were drawn from hundreds of product tests and research projects conducted by CHOICE during 2009. The winner in each category was determined by a panel of CHOICE experts in that specialist field - with the exception of the People’s CHOICE Award for Best Retailer, which was opened up to their 180,000 members to be determined by popular vote.

To celebrate their 50th anniversary, they presented the CHOICE Heritage Award to the company that has delivered consistently good products and services over the past half-century.

The CHOICE Award categories

People’s Choice Award – best Retailer
According to CHOICE members, The Good Guys are indeed really good guys. Many voters said that staff are knowledgeable about the products they sell, as well as willing to match or beat competitors’ price offers. 

‘They are product knowledgeable, friendly, polite, honest and very professional,’ enthused one CHOICE member. Another said: ‘[They] have plenty of staff, make good on their promises and provide very good prices on products. I continue to purchase goods and recommend them to friends’.

Harvey Norman and JB Hi-Fi were the runners up.

Best Baby Brand
winner was Love N Care, which makes a wide range of baby products. Among their products that have been recommended by CHOICE are high chairs, strollers and cots.

Best Technology Innovator
winner was Google, with CHOICE saying that Google continues to release innovative products that are often completely free for consumers to use and praising its new smartphone system and Google Chrome web browser, which won CHOICE’s recent browser test, competing with browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Best Food Endorsement Program
winner was Australian Certified Organic (ACO). When CHOICE assessed Australian Certified Organic, it was one of only two programs that met all their criteria and they felt it had the best logo.

‘ACO conducts annual, onsite third-party verification of producers or companies endorsed by its program. It’s transparent about standards, governance and how it’s funded, and it ticked all the boxes for consumer friendliness, which we consider vital given it’s consumers who are using the logos to buy products and ultimately support the programs. ACO has mechanisms in place to avoid and manage conflict of interest; standards are open to broad public and industry consultation; and the program is accessible to producers and companies of all sizes.’

Best Low-fee Bank Account
winner was NAB Classic Banking. ‘NAB Classic Banking has no penalty fees, monthly fee or fees for most everyday transactions. Unlike (runner-up) ING Direct, it doesn’t require ATM withdrawals of at least $200 to avoid fees. Its low fees are open to all, not just those depositing their salary each month. NAB recently dropped the $5 monthly account fee that applied to its standard transaction account.

The Big Four bank also showed genuine leadership by abolishing overdrawn account fees on personal transaction and savings accounts, the most common source of customer complaints.’

The CHOICE Heritage Award
winner was Panasonic. ‘Panasonic has the highest number of recommended models across a wide range of products over the past 40 years, and was among the top three brands in the 1960s and early 1970s when trading as National.’

The runners-up in this category were Sony and Philips.