Sharper Image

Like a spirit from beyond the grave, bankrupt Sharper Image Corp. is back and searching for its former gift card holders. But this is a benevolent ghost: Its mission is to start the process of finding and reimbursing them.

In the last two years, dozens of top retailers have liquidated merchandise, shuttered stores and filed for bankruptcy. But thanks to customer loyalty and management smarts, brands once given up for dead are now alive and kicking.

Sales of gift cards fell last year, and they're expected to fall again this year. They're still one of the most popular gifts items, but as unemployment and inflation have transformed everyday indulgences into unjustifiable luxuries, gift cards have changed, too. Once an invitation to impulse...

Spending on private label store gift cards is projected to fall by 7% this year, as consumers tighten budgets in reaction to a weakened economy. Gift givers are also getting nervous about what retailers will have on the shelves after the holidays, as stores move to reduce inventory. General purpose...

In February 2008, as pundits and analysts were arguing about whether our economy was really headed into a recession, Sharper Image filed for bankruptcy. The high-end gadget stores, which had come of age in the gleefully self-indulgent eighties, suddenly found themselves unable to convince...

There are products that are clunkers, and then there are products that destroy otherwise healthy companies. The Ionic Breeze falls into the latter category.The Ionic Breeze was initially a major success, propelling shares of The Sharper Image to all-time highs, but the trouble began in 2002 when...

It's been a roller coaster ride for consumers trying to figure out what to do with their Sharper Image gift cards.When the overpriced gadget chain filed for bankruptcy, it declared that it would no longer accept its own gift cards. Then it sort of relented, agreeing to accept gift cards, provided...

After receiving a well-deserved trashing from just about everyone -- myself included -- for its decision to stop accepting gift cards in the wake of its bankruptcy filing, The Sharper Image has decided it will start accepting them again. With some restriction.In a press release issued early this...

Sure, Sharper Image might not have any qualms about screwing over its customers who were unlucky enough to have gift cards [update: after outcry from customers, Sharper Image decided to resume the acceptance of gift cards on March 7] but if you're in the market for luxury-techy home products, it...

I first got interested in the issue of companies deciding not to honor gift cards following bankruptcy filings when Bradlees tried to pull that nonsense back in 2000. The company reversed that decision after universal consumer outrage but at the time a spokesman for Eliot Spitzer's office said the...