Sharper Image stores and customers on the East Coast are now getting its cutting-edge gadgets from a distribution center in Chesterfield County. San Francisco-based Sharper Image opened a 113,000-square-foot warehouse in early November and began shipping products from there 10 days later. This is the chain’s first East Coast distribution center. The others are in Little Rock, Ark., and Ontario, Calif.
The center distributes products to more than 60 Sharper Image stores from Miami to Boston and to customers who order from the catalog or on the Internet. The chain recently opened its first Richmond area store in the Stony Point Fashion Park.
Merchandise eventually will be shipped from the local distribution center to other retailers selling Sharper Image products, including Circuit City.
Sharper Image had been looking for about a year for a warehouse site to serve the East Coast, said Aimee Cooper, the retailer’s senior vice president of public relations and human resources.
“Richmond is a nice central location for us,” she said.
The economics of a deal putting the center on Ruffin Mill Road worked for the company, she said. The Greater Richmond Partnership, a regional economic development group, helped lure Sharper Image here.
The company also found the local work-force to be good, Cooper said. About 15 people work at the distribution center.
About two dozen more workers should be hired next year when Sharper Image adds a call center to take orders and answer questions.