Sharper Image DOWN! Can you say Brookstone Monopoly?

February 20, 2008

Not that Brookstone will have a monopoly on the gadget market, but with today’s announcement of Sharper Image’s bankruptcy filing, the NH-based gift and gadget store now has an opportunity to cement itself as THE place to go for great gifts.

It will be interesting to see if Sharper keeps operating ala any of the bankrupt airlines in the sky or if they shutter up their stores and fade away.

I remember my first Sharper Image purchase and my first Brookstone purchase. It was funny how pedestrian my Brookstone gift was in relation to the Sharper Image gadget. Let’s compare…

From Brookstone I got a perpetual calendar. No, not a tech gadget in any way. This was a piece of faux granite with a faux bronze disc in the middle that you manually turned to see the date in any year from 1992 to 2031. Here’s a photo…

From Sharper Image I got an Aiwa portable ‘walkman’-style cassette player. I don’t have that anymore, but I wore it in Boston while performing my duties as a bike messenger. Lucky I’m here today to blog with that type of Darwin-award decision.

Only time will tell what happens between these two competitors and if Brookstone has the ability to capture the market that could be left behind by Sharper. For some marketing perspective or some insight into this situation, visit Marketing Over Coffee or the great news, entertainment and all things fun podcast – the M show.

More to come…