The Sharper Image is dead, it seems. That's too bad. For all the bad press they have gotten, I rather liked them.
An example is worth recalling. A few years ago, I received as a gift a little iPod speaker dock that performed a light show to the music. Shortly thereafter, I misplaced the AC adapter and after months of searching, gave up and wrote the Sharper Image's customer service, asking if they sold replacement parts. They informed me that they could not sell the AC adapter to me -- but they'd send me one for free. And they did; rather quickly even, as I recall. They even apologized that I had lost my adapter!
The Sharper Image always had some interesting gadget for sale. I'll miss that. Alas, poor Sharper Image, I did not know thee well enough.
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It all makes sense now.
Alas, Sharper Image — I could never afford thee.
Maybe if they hadn’t given away AC adapters to just every Tim, Dick and Harry who write them they wouldn’t have had to file for bankruptcy.
The moral of the story: be stingy with your companies customer service.
Or simply decide some things are more important than keeping the company alive.
Mark: Me? Make sense? In any way? Nah.
Ed: I typically couldn't either. Often their ideas were great, but a bit too expensive. Like I said, that particular speaker dock was a gift. I did like their stuff, though.
Jason: Hmm, indeed.
I think retail is both tricky and risky. High end and high dollar sometimes don’t add up. Apple has seemed to be able to sell enough expensive things in a storefront, but they also have a marketing image behind them.
Sharper Image never had much more than stores and ads in those free magazines you find in the airline seat pocket. The gadgets seemed to be “nichy” - If I absolutely needed it (and my company would let me expense it), I’d buy it. But, Fry’s often had a much cheaper (although less stylish) equivalent.
Retail is funny. I am often surprised to be in a store at rush hour, and still find unstaffed registers. Culturally, first generation immigrant retail managers won’t man a register; they haven’t been in America long enough to un-learn British Colonial Paternalism. But, when I enter a store with long lines, and see the manager (named Smith, Doyle, Jackson, Colucci, Kowalski …) sitting at a desk, shuffling papers, I know he doesn’t get it.
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