Winning Best Retailer Under £250m, Retail Week says The Entertainer “has not only embraced its core values, it has used them to help develop the sector.”

The Entertainer has won the award for Best Retailer Under £250m at the Retail Week Awards. The retailer delivered a consecutive ninth year of top-line growth where others such as Toys R Us hit the wall.

The family-run retailer, founded by husband and wife team Gary and Catherine Grant, holds an impressive market share and continues to both innovate after 37 years in the business while also sticking to its core founding principles that enabled it to succeed in the first place.

Those principles include only trading six days a week; a rare thing in modern retail, The Entertainer has stuck to this even when Christmas Eve fell on a Sunday. The Entertainer has also seized opportunities for international expansion, and has plans to trade in more overseas locations. It now has over 150 shops, including more than 20 in Europe and Asia, and has garnered accolades such as joining The Sunday Times’ Best Employers To Work For ranking, sticking to principles such as tithing profits to good causes.

One of the judges said: “The Entertainer has never lost sight of what the business is and where it’s going. The retailer has done it year in, year out. In terms of operating in what’s been a tough market, it has been on its game and is really clear about what it wants to do. It is winning in the market. The retailer really is one for others to look at, and it’s got its own culture.”

“There’s been a lot of new entrants in the toy market,” added another judge. “Some had a really bad Christmas in toys. There were reasons why the people who did well managed that – it wasn’t just a question of mopping up market share. Considering how tough the toy market is, The Entertainer seems to be thriving and growing, and that says a lot about its model.”