Sharper Image Bankruptcy Renews My Faith in Basic Consumer Intelligence
Author: Nick
Category: Money
Topics: business, economy, technology
It’s likely old news to everyone by now that electronic oddity store The Sharper Image is going bankrupt. You may have heard about it on the news or from a friend. Or perhaps you found out the hard way when you tried to use a Sharper Image gift card in the store only to have it refused. That’s right, as it flaps around like a fish out of sound fiscal waters, The Sharper Image will no longer take its own gift cards.
While I could easily talk at length about how wrong it is for a store to stop accepting its own gift cards, I have to say I’m quite amused by this situation. You see, The Sharper Image is the most perfect example of a store that needed to go bankrupt. I can think of no store, not even my arch-nemesis Wal-Mart, for which financial collapse is a more fitting fate. My anti-Sharper Image stance can be traced to the three characteristics of The Sharper Image that led to its demise:
- The Sharper Image sells nothing but crap that nobody needs.
- That crap is overpriced.
- Despite the fact that Americans like to buy useless, overpriced crap, The Sharper Image couldn’t figure out how to sell their own useless, overpriced crap.
The fact that The Sharper Image is going under has slightly renewed my faith in the American shopping public. I’m shocked they were around for as long as they were selling dinosaur robots and other technological amusements that are about as fun as stabbing oneself in the face with the broken shards of a Chia Pet. Even I, someone who is easily amused by every latest shiny blinking contraption (fortunately I possess just enough financial restraint to keep myself from buying them… usually), have no problem passing by The Sharper Image every time I encounter one of their stores.
I think the best indication of just how worthless The Sharper Image is (was?) is the fact that some credit card issuers have reward programs that let you trade in one dollar worth of reward points for roughly $8,000 in The Sharper Image gift cards which is roughly enough value to get you one pack of used Sharper Image-brand AA batteries (batteries not included).
Now that I think about it, there is the possibility that The Sharper Image will emerge from its bankruptcy somewhat intact, still taking up shopping mall units that would otherwise turn into emergency backup Starbucks in case the mall’s primary or secondary Starbucks location ever had an espresso machine failure. If The Sharper Image does manage to return from the abyss, please… I implore you, don’t fall for its shiny blinking subterfuge. Stay far away from those robotic dinosaurs and roll-up piano keyboards like in that one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and hopefully The Sharper Image won’t make it very long into Round Two.
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16 Responses »
1.
Frugal Dad
February 29th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Sharper Image always reminded me of one of those luggage stores in the mall that sold overpriced, under-used junk to people who really saw value in a 24k golf ball paper weight. Yeah, they had a couple cool gadgets and such, but not much that fit this frugal guy’s taste.
2.
rocketc
February 29th, 2008 at 10:17 am
C’mon on! I need my massage chair with built-in headset and 300,000 settings the comes with an optional footbath! What am I going to do!
Ah! I know - I can get it from the magazine in the back of the seat on my next flight.
3.
heather
February 29th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Number 3 can be looked at from two perspectives…corporate marketing AND worthless salespeople. Worthless salespeople who not only don’t know what they are selling, don’t know anything about it, and don’t know how to turn on and demo said crap. They also never seemed to figure out how to kick out the chubby guy who spends hours in the massage chair while his wife shops at Kirklands across the way.
4.
Mrs. Micah
February 29th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
So you gave them your money for a gift card and they won’t let you have it back? Ouch. Another reason I don’t like gift cards.
I’ve never even had the kind of money to shop there…no point in looking.
5.
Connie
March 3rd, 2008 at 2:15 pm
I’m surprised it took this long to go belly up! It was a store for people with more money than brains….something I aspire to be!; )
6.
Jonathan
March 6th, 2008 at 3:03 am
I just have to say that I am loving all the stick-figure drawings a la MS Paint. You should collect them in an online album or something.
7.
Nick
March 6th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
Jonathan, thanks! The stick figures are actually part of another plan I’ve had brewing in my head for a while. We’ll see where it goes from here…
8.
Tony
March 7th, 2008 at 8:10 pm
Fifty-eight different vibrators, pens that can record my melodious voice in an emergency, folding hammers, tiny digital cameras that can store 4 million of my precious photos, anything that emits little blue lights…I’m consumed with nostalgia.
9.
Michael
March 9th, 2008 at 11:28 am
I am moderately proud to say that I never spent so much as Dime One at Sharper Image.
At some point, maybe after junior high, it became a pretty easy place to avoid.
10.
SMB
March 9th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Oh, I loathe that store. Thanks for sharing the good news.
11.
Llama Money
March 12th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
This is one of those stores where I always thought “who would ever buy this crap? And if they did, why would they pay this much for it?”. Apparently I wasn’t the only one, or they wouldn’t be going under.
12.
vicky
March 22nd, 2008 at 9:36 pm
went there today, had $75 on my giftcard - they said i had to spend at least $150 in order to use the giftcard. we walked out.
13.
pedro
March 25th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I felt the same way about the Gift Card welshing, until I complained to the Federal Bankruptcy Court, and they told me that it is THEIR regulation that enforces the refusal to honor these Cards, until the Reorganization phase is completed.
14.
Austin
April 8th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Hi, I’m with a company called Leverage. I’m responding for several reasons. 1) I want to inform the consumers that we have a new bankruptcy policy that allows customers holding gift cards purchased via its LeverageCard.com destination from Sharper Image and other merchants filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to transfer remaining, unredeemable balances to gift cards from other retailers available on the Leverage site. 2) also to get the word out there so that people know there’s a free service available to help them.
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