We can't say the writing was exactly on the wall or anything, but when Sharper Image attempted to sell
self-branded cellphones and got dinged for pushing grossly overpriced air purifiers that actually
made things worse -- well, you could tell things weren't all peaches and cream. Regardless, the company made famous for selling trinkets and massage chairs in malls everywhere has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after "declining sales and three straight years of losses led to a shortage of liquidity." Comically enough, the retailer actually went so far as to "partly blame" the negative publicity surrounding the aforementioned Ionic Breeze air purifiers for its falling revenues, and court papers also show that it's currently seeking a $60 million loan to keep operating. Oh, how the
mighty mediocre have fallen.
[Thanks, Steve]
posted Feb 20th 2008 9:58AM
The Shaper Image is the low-budget B movie of electronics retailers.
And yet they feel their items are worth twice as much... odd how that is.
You're right, but back in the day they sold high quality, hard to find items. Their downfall was continuing to move to cheap products year after year that you could get elsewhere for less money. 15 years ago I was excited to get a Sharper Image catalog in the mail. Now it just goes in the trash.
Maybe if it didn't cost ya know, 5 "easy" payments of $50, I might be inclined to get one.
Ahh Sharper Image... a name that invokes paying handsomely for half-baked products.
Well, "Half-baked Image" didn't have the same ring to it.
Maybe they should have named them 'Ironic Breeze' to cover themselves better.
Another dopey Dinosaur of a company with lack of vision and no fleet of foot’ness succumbs to the tech ice age and is destined for extinction! If I was running the Sharper Image show I would have turned it into the “Dynamism” of brick n mortars. http://www.dynamism.com/
Good bye Sharper Image. I never cared much for you anyway.
a company that slangs 500 dollar nose hair trimmers. am i missing something here?
I'm surprised it took this long. It's just like FAO Schwartz, selling the same crap you can get elsewhere for half as much. That's a really effective buisness model.
Not exactly the same. FAO Schwarz actually has a lot of items that you can't get anywhere else, and they don't carry a lot of common stuff that you'd find at other toy stores. Can't say I'm too sad about Sharper Image though...
Well, and Sharper Image *used* to be the FAO Schwartz of gadget stores. They used to have a lot of exclusives, and not just exclusive products, but whole *categories* of exclusive products. There was a time when you really couldn't even *buy* an air purifier anywhere but Sharper Image, going back 15-20 years ago. Everything they carried were specialty items that you never even realized you wanted until you saw them in their catalog.
As our lifestyles have changed, SI has stuck to pretty much the same products even as they've become commoditized. And the new products they've added to their lineup are things that everybody else carries already. They've become followers rather than leaders, which made their price premiums seem pretty ridiculous.
It wasn't always that way, though. There was a time when they really did sell high-end stuff that you couldn't get elsewhere.
I think Sharper Image's downfall is the Internet. They used to sell stuff you couldn't find anywhere else (like FAO, to some extent) but now all those hard to find, rebranded items are available elsewhere &, as you mention, for half the price.
I actually bought stuff from them pretty recently. They're the place I bought my Scooba because I knew if it broke (which it did) they'd take it back no questions asked. Most places don't accept returns after just a handful of days. They took it back nearly a year later.
I like some of the stuff they sell :(
then wait for the blowout sale!
Aw, I'll miss the name.
I was always more of a Hammacher Schlemmer man myself.
I liked Sharper image. I never bought anything retail, but I got several things from their auction site. My Luminox watch was from there and it still works just fine. I'm kinda sad. When I went to big malls with my wife I always snuck away to the Sharper Image store to sit on a massaging chair and to make fun of how much they charged for some electronics.
Internet sales have been the death knell of brick and mortar retail specialty stores for a few years now. I worked in a mall for seventeen years, and towards the end you could see them drop like flies.
In a sales meeting for the last company I worked for, I told them they needed to focus on the website and close some of the locations. They condescendingly told me that they were certain that online sales were not the way to go...(they went out of business a year and a half later.)
One could argue that the internet is a great help in determing what people are searching for in products. About 70% of the people that end up at brick and mortar stores shop online firt. People still want to see and touch a product, unless is just a commodity that does not need a seller.
Specialty store founders see gaps in the marketplace and new businessesa are borne.
I hope they don't go out of business. I loved looking through their magazines as a kid.
Same here, their catalogs make great free toilet reading material...keeps you entertained just long enough to get the job done...if I bring my DS in there I'm on the throne for an hour...
Interesting - I always liked them, even bought a Breathilizer from them once (great party fun, oh yeah). BUT, seems like the catalog became more of an Air-Purifier catalog for old people than a company selling cool electronics. No shock here.
I swear, it's about damn time! The Sharper Image was nothing more than a ploy to sell overpriced, futuristically-hyped up gizmos and doo-dads that NO ONE would use after the 10 minute novelty wore off!
I, for one, welcome our legally declared financial overlords
Finally some good news! Maybe some good will come from our economic problems after all. Hey allergy sufferers: The Ionic Breeze will not help you. Thanks, Sharper Image, for not just ripping off regular people, but for ripping off regular people who counted on your products to make their lives better. Awesome! Totally made my day!
I met Thalheymer(sp?) back in the early 90s whenthey were selling custom made Harley's. He struck me as more than just a shade bit arrogant claiming, "My company is recession proof my clients always will have the income to shop with me" Well I guess not afterall.
SharperImage (and Brookstone): Solutions for problems that do not exist.
I'm shocked! I used to LOVE going in there to stare at the life size replica of the predator alien while sitting in a massage chair. Seems like lots of people did. How can a hang-out with expensive statues and comfy seating go under?
Hmm, I'm going to miss killing time in unfamiliar malls in that place. Of course, I never bought anything, maybe that has something to do with why they're going under.
Next time I need a break at the mall I have to settle with sharing the mall's wooden bench with the ice cream puddle some kid left for me instead of getting the royal treatment on one of their pseudo-working massage chairs.
The market has spoken - good riddance to mediocre quality at inflated prices.
Is Brookstone next?
>I've gone through 3 Roombas now and paid nowhere near the full price of actually buying 3 of them.
Maybe that's one of the reasons why they went under.
The only thing I really loved Sharper Image for was for their No Questions Asked Return / Exchange Warranty Policy. All you had to do was pay $50 and you could return the product you bought for a brand new one within 3 years (or 2 years if you buy that one), no questions asked, even the new model if there is one. I have done this 3 times now on Roombas as they get pretty beat up in my house because I have 2 dogs and use it just about every day. I've gone through 3 Roombas now and paid nowhere near the full price of actually buying 3 of them.
But they were my only local supplier of Trump Steaks (http://www.trumpsteaks.com/)! Where can I turn now to buy ridiculously overpriced beef, model cars, and furniture in one stop?
Isn't Chapter 11 protection against creditors while they get their company back in order and chapter 13 is when the company folds? There are numerous companies that have filed for Chapter 11 in the past and recovered. Chapter 7 is the bad one.
Everytime I walk past a SI store, I think that it looks just like an Apple store. Everytime I walk past an Apple store, I think that it looks like a SI store.
Maybe Apple should buy out SI and use those stores to push their products.
My father bought a couple of the rodent deterrent devices way back when Sharper Image was still cool. They worked for awhile but quickly broke down. I'd still buy a suit of armor if I could get it for 85% off retail.
My heart bleeds for them. Selling overpriced garbage and expecting to stick around? S.I. - dont come back from bankruptcy... please.
I'm gonna miss that store when it goes. Although, the location near me never had any fem employees....odd isn't it.
Sharper Image is still trying to stay in business. They have a cash flow problem but still have more in assets than debt. Chapter 11 is filed to keep creditors from stripping you of all your operating capital while you restructure to regain profitability.
The problem with Sharper image is that thier own products have taken a nosedive in quality and by bringing in iPods they have to compete with other stores. There are not enough compelling volume selling products in a Sharper Image store to be profitable. If they actually made good looking quality steroe systems then maybe they would have something, instead they sell a cheesy system for $129 that looks exactly like the $35 Emerson at Wal-Mart.
Brookstone centered thier business around massagers and fluffy pillows. They are a bitch of a company to deal with though because you cannot sell a product in thier store as your brand. It needs to have Brookstone splattered all over it. So rather than build a following for your brand you just build up Brookstone.
Sharper Image also hasn't updated thier store design in a long time and no longer seem relevant. Crappy MDF bins and glass cases that look like they came from a 1982 Macy's doesn't help. Sharper Image is either going to close its retial business and focus on catalogs or retool thier entire brand. Sharper Image could do well by taking a page from B&O and create high design, then follow the IKEA model and release a decent quality item for a good price. Hire me I'll make a Sharper Image to be proud of.
I predicted (and blogged about) this during the holiday season of 2006. Don't expect Brookstone to fill-in the spot of chief gadget haven. Until someone starts selling truly innovative products (rather than stuff you can find in any electronics store), we'll all have to buy our air purifiers online!
I agree. Nowdays I rarely see customers actually walk out with anything when they visit the Brookstone stores. Most of time I see bunch of guys (including myself) playing with various gadgets while waiting for their girlfriend/wife at the mall, or some tourists who are just browsing out of curiosity.
Frankly, I think a lot of us (daily readers of Engadget.com) can easily open our own gadget stores and beat Sharper Image, Bookstone, etc if we have the financial resources.
If they're looking to liquidate inventory I'll pay $100 for one of the Superman statues they have in their stores.
TSI lost it somewhere in the late 90s. It moved from the bizarre to the mundane and was never the same.
I've been with TSI for almost 4 years, and most of us at the store level have been screaming for change. Many of the views expressed here have been expressed a million times over by employees. If you could see some of the things that our "genius" buyers have passed over it would make you sick to your stomachs. Hell, at one point, Apple wanted to partner with us on iPods...we pretty much blew them off.
I really hope that Sharper Image can turn around and innovate once again...sadly, without drastic changes, I doubt that will happen.
Sharper Image used to sell especially selected top line products made by integrity-led manufacturers. Their original air cleaner was Austin Air's great indoor air purifier.
They saw what success the Austin Air unit became, and switched it with a several-time marked up piece of dangerous plastic that emitted ozone into its buyer's lungs, collapsing alviola sacs in asthmatic lungs-- truly criminal, they knew it, and they pursued it-- hammering andharming the entire burgeoning air cleaner movement.
Austin Air continues to be the top line air cleaner in America, all steel, all American made, and worth every penny and every breath of clean, healthy air.
There are other fakers out there still, following the line of Sharper Image, other pieces of over-priced plasic doing their smoke and mirrors shows, like IQ Air, and BlueAir.
Like with the fate of Sharper Image, a smarter buying public shares their notes on products more today than ever before, and the truth will send these over priced faker units asunder.
If your child has asthma or allergies, or if you just want hygenic pure air for a healthy indoor lifestyle, avoid the plastic pomp and sideshows of over priced but ill-effective units.
I've been studying and judging air cleaners for 20 years and will admit some manufactuers try their best to deliver a good product, and some try to copy Austin Air, yet none come close.
Austin Air has that rare American mix of scientific answers and earnest, honest manufacturing principals-- Austin Air had the merit to forge into a vast marketplace counting on referral power among consumers, and using every penny of an otherwise advertising budget to put in the very best of everything into their machines.
If Sharper Image had stayed with Austin Air, and not plagued a foul misrepresentation upon the public, they might be singing a sweeter tune today.
I agree with you there Bill! It was GREED and a whole lot of money that prompted them to dump Austin Air for that Ionic Breeze junker! It was because of their greed that they had the crappy Ionic Breeze built for them to push on people unaware about how poorly they operated while producing uncontrollable amounts of ozone. You can still find the Austin Air Healthmate HEPA air cleaners and other quality HEPA air cleaners and air purifiers at http://www.aircleaners.com
I have been predicting the fall of Sharper Image for years! You can go to the helpful reports section in http://www.aircleaners.com and scroll down to the helpful reports section and read the report titled The Truth About The Ionic Breeze BY Sharper Image. This report really says it like it is. Also There are a handful of quality HEPA air cleaners and air purifiers on the market that do a wonderful job of cleaning your indoor air quality of dust and allergens. You can find information about them in this website as well.
I'm aghast at the sheer cheek of these swindlers... Consumer Reports tested their air purifier and found it to be worse than useless and SI had the cheek to send its lawyers in. CR stuck to its guns and SI pumped all its money into trying to hide the truth.
NOW, their foolishness has caught up with them and they're going out of business and they have the CHEEK to blame it on CR for telling us the truth behind their trash. The world's a better place without them.
I have inside knowledge of the company and saw first hand how they developed and tested the ionic breeze products. This was nothing short of fraud. The testing was faked/altered to justify making broad claims of dust collection and germicidal benifits. Honest people succeed in business and those who are scam artists profit for a while but eventually go down - as in this case. Thalheimer was an egotistcal ahole in love with his own impractical ideas. He was the equivalent Larry Flint meets J. Peterman (Seinfeld) of the retail industry, i.e. put it in a glossy catalog, put a good spin on it and mindless consumers will buy one thinking the widget is acutally worth $39.95. The quality and reliability of anything that came out of Sharper Image Design was nothing short of junk as most everything was developed by Chinese manufacturers. Good ridance