Sharper Image Web Site Named as Forbes.com "Best of the Best" Online Store for Perfect Gifts

Business Wire, March 14, 2000

Business Editors

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 14, 2000

Sharper Image Corporation (NASDAQ-NMS: SHRP) today announced that its Web site, www.sharperimage.com, was selected as the "best of the best" online store for perfect gifts, in the Spring 2000 edition of the Forbes.com: Best of the Web Guide.

The Forbes.com recognition adds to The Sharper Image's tremendous online success. In fiscal 1999, The Sharper Image's online sales increased 479 percent to $28.5 million from last year's $4.9 million. In February 2000, Internet sales increased 522 percent to $2.7 million from last year's $400,000. Web sales account for about 10 percent of the Company's total sales, which also include its retail stores, catalog and business-to-business operations.

Forbes.com's Best of the Web staff surfed more than 1,500 Web sites and grouped them into 33 categories. The top Web site in each category is named "best of the best," a Forbes Favorite. Forbes.com applied five criteria in picking its favorite sites: design, navigation, content, speed and customization.

Bonus points were given for a Web site's bells and whistles that made shopping fun. In the review, the Forbes.com editors stated that the sharperimage.com's "products can be viewed in interactive 3D, which lets you `handle' and test them as you would in the store. The gift guide, certificates and complementary gift boxes take the headache out of getting your choice packaged and delivered."

"We've applied great focus, energy and our retail know-how to make sharperimage.com an exciting place to visit, shop and buy. It is a honor to be recognized as a Forbes Favorite Web site," said Richard Thalheimer, Sharper Image's founder, chairman and chief executive officer. "Our more than 20 years of direct marketing experience, strong brand and exclusive products have enabled us to deliver a Web site that exceeds online customers' expectations."

To that point, the editors of Forbes.com wrote, "In the crowded arena of gift retailing, our experience was that established real-world and catalog businesses, so far at least, have a leg up on the strictly online emporia..."

About The Sharper Image

The Sharper Image is a specialty retailer that is nationally and internationally renowned as a leading source of new, innovative, high-quality products that make life easier and more enjoyable. A significant and growing proportion of sales are of proprietary products created by the Company's product development group, Sharper Image Design. The Company operates 90 stores throughout the United States and mails millions of its award-winning catalogs each month. Additionally, the Company's products may be purchased on the World Wide Web via its online store at sharperimage.com. The Company has an online auction site, where consumers can place bids to win Sharper Image products at lower prices. The auction site is accessed from the home page of the Company's Web site, sharperimage.com.

This release contains certain forward-looking statements regarding the Company's expected performance for future periods, and actual results for such periods may materially differ. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, including risks of changing market conditions in the overall economy and the retail industry, consumer demand, the opening of new stores, actual advertising expenditures by the Company, the success of the Company's advertising and merchandising strategy, availability of products, and other factors detailed from time to time in the Company's annual and other reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.