skymall

The publisher of in-flight catalog SkyMall has filed for bankruptcy.

("Ireland - sky mall" by kelly taylor is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.)

SkyMall LLC, the in-flight catalog company whose offerings include pedal laptop desks and automated ball- launchers for dogs, filed for bankruptcy citing a retail marketplace transformed by online merchants.

The marketer of more than 30,000 products distributed its catalog in airplane seat pockets, putting it in the hands of 650 million air travelers a year, according to the company website.

Idle air travelers could browse for novelty items such as an Ultrasonic Barking Dog Deterrent that looks like a birdhouse, for $49.95, or a replica of a 16th-century Italian globe based on nautical maps that doubles as a bar, for $189.

All the beard without all the work. Find the Beard Hat on SkyMall.com #Beard #InstantLumberJack #SkyMall A photo posted by SkyMall (@skymall) on Nov 23, 2014 at 6:22pm PST

The company and its affiliates listed as much as $50 million in liabilities and as much as $10 million in assets in Chapter 11 filings in Phoenix Thursday.

"The direct marketing retail industry is crowded, rapidly evolving and intensely competitive," Chief Financial Officer Scott Wiley said in a court filing. He listed Amazon.com Inc. and EBay Inc. as among competitors with greater resources and more customers.

Basic toast got you down? Put a dog on it! 13 breeds to choose from. Find the Dog Breed Toaster on SkyMall.com #Dogs #Toaster #SkyMall A photo posted by SkyMall (@skymall) on Nov 1, 2014 at 11:54am PDT

"With the increased use of electronic devices on planes, fewer people browsed the SkyMall in-flight catalog," Wiley said. New technology and the cost of getting the magazine on planes "made the traditional in-flight SkyMall catalog increasingly unattractive to the airlines," he said.

The business, which works as a distributor without maintaining its own inventories, generated $33.7 million of revenue in 2013, according to court filings.

The case is In re SkyMall LLC, 15-00679, U.S. bankruptcy Court, District of Arizona (Phoenix).

-- The Associated Press

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