Book Hero has won the 2026 Spark People’s Choice Award

Book Hero has won the Spark People’s Choice Award at the 2026 Retail NZ Awards!

Book Hero is not even two years old, so hearing our name called as the winner was a pretty special moment. I don’t think any of us imagined we would be standing on that stage less than two years after shipping our first book!

The People’s Choice Award is a bit different from the other awards presented on the night. Retailers can’t enter themselves, we were nominated by our customers, selected as one of 41 finalists, and the winner was then decided entirely by public vote.

To every person who voted for us, shared our posts, told their friends and family, or encouraged someone else to support Book Hero... thank you.

We know many of you have deliberately chosen to back us as an independent New Zealand business. You’ve ordered books, visited our Hobsonville bookstore, left thousands of amazing reviews and recommended us to other readers. We never take that support for granted, and this award is a reminder of how lucky we are to have such an awesome community behind us.

More than anything, we think this result says something encouraging about New Zealanders and books. When we started Book Hero, plenty of people were confused about why we would launch a business selling physical books. Less than two years later, more than 100,000 customers have chosen to shop with Book Hero, and now a bookstore has won a public vote involving retailers from right across New Zealand.

It feels like the book community has got in behind not only Book Hero, but what we’re trying to achieve!

The awards evening was also a pretty extraordinary reminder of the company we now find ourselves in. On the same night, the remarkable contributions of Rod Duke, Anne and David Norman, and the late Sir Michael Hill were recognised. These are people who have shaped New Zealand retail and built iconic Kiwi businesses over many decades. To accept an award for Book Hero on the same stage was incredibly humbling.

We’re still at the very beginning of our journey, with plenty to learn and an enormous amount still to do. But it was one of those rare moments where we could step back and appreciate just how far Book Hero has come in such a short period of time.

While Book Hero’s name may be on the award, it belongs to our whole team! Every day, they receive thousands of books, help customers online and in-store, solve problems, pack orders and work together to deliver the level of service our customers have come to expect. Every one of us care deeply about Book Hero, the books we sell and the people we’re sending them to and we couldn’t be prouder of what they’ve achieved.

Thank you also to our families, friends, suppliers and partners who have supported us through the long days, warehouse moves, growing pains and occasional moments of chaos that come with building a new business.

Most importantly, thank you to our customers. Whether you’ve placed one order or many, visited our bookstore, attended an event, left us a review or simply told someone about Book Hero, you’ve played a part in getting us here.

In true Book Hero fashion, there isn’t much time to stop. We still have another warehouse to move, thousands more books to put on shelves and a very busy Christmas getting closer by the day.

But for now, we’re going to enjoy this one. Book Hero didn’t exist two years ago. Today, we’re the proud winner of the 2026 Spark People’s Choice Award.

We’re incredibly grateful, and we’ll keep working hard to deserve it.

Thank you ❤️