Sharper Image

Long story short, we got the deal.

I'd worked for the Sharper Image catalog, so I knew catalogs, and I knew direct response marketing.

I worked for Texas Instruments, so I knew the technology.

So it wasn't like I just happened into this, but I happened to have the perfect trifecta of background that could help him.

It's like having a roadmap, but the roadmap isn't quite the plan yet.

The roadmap is the roadmap, and you've got the data for it, but then you think, "Okay, well how would, how, what decisions do I need to make?" And that's what's important.

You've got this roadmap, enables you to make decisions as you go along, and not be distracted by bright, shiny objects, which I had a job at The Sharper Image as the electronics buyer.

My job was to source bright, shiny objects [laughs] for the catalog.

But to understand what actually happens when you press that button, we have to rewind to a courtroom in Miami, Florida, back in 2007.

A buyer named Manuel Figueroa brought this massive class-action lawsuit against the retailer Sharper Image over a really popular device at the time called the Ionic Breeze.

Yeah, and the court allegation in that lawsuit was simple but completely foundational to the industry.

The air purifier he had paid several hundred dollars for simply didn't work as advertised.

And critically, it still added ozone to the air.

Right, which is a major issue.

Now, Sharper Image denied all the allegations we should note, but they ultimately agreed to a proposed settlement offering merchandise credits to over 3 million buyers.

And crucially, that settlement required independent laboratory testing for ozone emissions on those specific units.

So last week, the first winner of American Idol, yes, Miss Kelly Clarkson, she went on a little shopping trip to Brooklyn to a store called Art of Play, and the store is...

From what I've already said, it's like a hipster Brooklyn version of The Sharper Image.

And if anyone recalls that place, The Sharper Image, used to love to go in there.

Millennials, you remember.

So Kelly goes into this store, and she has a rather unfortunate experience with the shop owner or employee that works there, but I think it was the shop owner, and their interaction was so bad and Kelly was so put off that she was compelled to tweet this: "Just drove all the way to Brooklyn to check out this store I thought looked really rad and had a few things in mind to buy and literally was looked at as if I couldn't afford it and was told he could find something comparable for me.

Go, go gadgets.

Did you get that from the Sharper Image catalog?

On the airplane?

The internet.

I would say that we've been involved in practically every major liquidation or store closing project in North America.

We did Linens n' Things, Sharper Image, Lord & Taylor, Nordstrom Canada, Sears Canada, on and on and on.

For a going-out-of-business sale, a liquidator will sometimes buy all of a retailer's inventory up front and sell it on their own.

But it's more common for them to work out a consulting agreement.

Yeah, it's-

It's like they go to the Sharper Image.

Yeah.

[laughs]