The Sharper Image Files for Bankruptcy

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed)
Feb 23rd 2008 at 9:03AM

The Sharper Image, home over the years of all kinds of iconic gadgets like Razor Scooters and the Ionic Breeze air purifier line, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. They've seen net losses for the last 3 years, and earlier this week their stock plummeted all the way down to $0.41 per share.

Their downfall seems tied to the fact that they've always been so focused and dependent on the success of very limited and focused products. They're hoping to make a comeback, though, borrowing $60 million dollars and closing 60 of 183 stores nationwide.

I've always loved shopping in their stores and browsing their catalogs -- I hope they get it together and recover from this!

Tags: bankrupt, bankruptcy, chapter 11, Chapter11, sharper image, SharperImage

Filed under: Gadgets

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Jonathansalembaskin Feb 25th 2008 8:27AM

I think you've got it absolutely right...Ionic Breeze alone accounted for 1/4 of its sales at its high-point! As a brand marketer, I'm fascinated by how an otherwise intelligent management team could have been distracted from the real drivers of their business (i.e. 'need' for devices, supported by real financial results), and embrace instead all of the useless gizmos that otherwise cluttered up their stores (i.e. 'want' purchases). I've written a bit about it at DIM BULB if you'd like to check it out: http://dimbulb.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/02/sharper-image-i.html