The Sharper Image, the 31-year-old purveyor of futuristic adult gadgetry like $5,000 massage chairs and $300 robotic vacuum cleaners, has filed for bankruptcy protection after years of slipping sales, stiffening competition and image problems over its Ionic Breeze air purifiers.

The retailer will still operate at least some of its 184 stores as it tries to pay off debts to a long list of creditors, like U.P.S. (owed $6 million) and Garmin, the maker of G.P.S. navigation systems (owed $2 million).

Sharper Image, which began in 1977 as a catalog retailer selling jogging watches, quickly became a staple of the American mall, attracting crowds of curious customers who wanted to test  and occasionally buy  the exotic products in its stores.

Another catalog retailer, the housewares and trinkets seller Lillian Vernon, also filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, citing a decade of slumping business. Catalog orders now account for less than 10 percent of the Sharper Image’s sales, but taken together the two company’s travails highlight the challenges of mail-order shopping in an era of big-box and online retailing.