Sorry to bum you out on a Friday, but the SkyMall Catalog has filed for bankruptcy. This news suggests that despite the catalog's airline seat-pocket ubiquity, there simply wasn't a robust market for its odd array of gadgets, replica suits of armor, and truly bizarre garden statuary.
CNN reports that when the Phoenix-based company filed for Chapter 11, it had "assets of between $1 million and $10 million, and liabilities of between $10 million and $50 million."
To be fair, those Bigfoot Garden Yeti Statues and Tetris Lamps and Marshgate Castle Dragon Sconces and whatever else (seriously, every page of that thing was full of "WTF, who would buy that/why don't I own that?") weren't the sole reason behind SkyMall's failure.
CNN points at the dominance of Amazon as the killer of gadget purveyors across the board:
Sharper Image filed for bankruptcy in 2008, folding its brick and mortar locations, but still sells products online and through a catalog. Brookstone, home of the giant massage chair, went into backruptcy in 2014 and was then purchased by Chinese investors. Likewise, Fingerhut had been slated to close up shop back in 2002, but remains in business online.
The Wall Street Journal also points out that "evolving rules and technology that now lets airline passengers keep their smartphones and tablets powered up during flights," and quotes a SkyMall executive as saying "With the increased use of electronic devices on planes, fewer people browsed the SkyMall in-flight catalog."
Great White Shark garden sculpture image via (where else?) SkyMall.