The Ionic Breeze Quadra ™ Silent Air Purifier offers an array of compelling features that has made it a most popular product — with an attractive, discreet profile. air cleaner traps airborne particulates on a stainless steel collection grid, so there are no filters to replace, ever! is to occasionally slide out the collection grid and wipe it clean with a damp cloth or paper towel. Select the single payment option and get an Ionic Bathroom Air Purifier FREE ($69 value). "The 7 reasons why I think you’ll really like the Friends always ask me if our best-selling Ionic Breeze Quadra is as great as we say it is, and if I really use one in my own home. The answer to both questions is an emphatic "Yes!" and Original best-selling Quadra stands 27 inches tall and weighs just 5 1/2 lbs. Ideal for any average-size room. Uses only 15 watts. Comes with one collection grid. Select gray or black finish. Purchase the Ionic Breeze Quadra Air Purifier

today and SAVE 50% on a second unit. Only 5 Payments of $69.99 plus $21.95 shipping and handling 60 Day Money Back Guarantee! Order Ionic Breeze with our TOLL-FREE number, justFOR many—mostly male—Americans, the local Brookstone store is a guilty pleasure. Where else can you snooze in the OSIM uDivine App Massage Chair (“the most human-like massage possible” and a snip at $4,599), ponder how best to use a nine-foot, $249.99 solar-powered beach umbrella with USB ports, or play with a $369.99 Parrot AR.air purifier abu dhabiDrone Quadricopter, complete with on-board cameras so you can spy on the neighbours?air duct cleaning midland park njAnd that, in a solar-powered, USB-equipped nutshell, is Brookstone’s problem: it has become a place to hang out, not shell out. rabbit air purifier canada

Its woes are a microcosm of the curiosity-shop business. Time was when every mall in America seemed to have two or three stores selling “curated” selections of offbeat and futuristic products: they could usually be spotted by wireless-controlled toys getting under the feet of passers-by. Most are now gone, and mall-goers can go safely about their shopping sprees.Founded in 1965 as a source of “hard-to-find tools”, Brookstone has grown into a chain of 290 shops that sell gifts and gadgets many Americans think they want, but few want to buy—and if they do, they can get similar products on Amazon. The recession didn’t help either, and even before last year’s dismal holiday shopping season, Brookstone was ailing. During the first three quarters of 2013 its net loss rose by 11% to $46m, while its stock of unsold merchandise soared to $118 million, up 35% from a year before.Adding to these problems, Brookstone was taken private in 2005 by a trio of investment firms, one of them OSIM of massage-chair fame, which is based in Singapore.

The deal left Brookstone struggling with total debt that, by late last year, had reached $209m. In January it failed to make an interest payment on $125m of bonds, and at the last count had only $1.1m of cash on hand. The company has retained advisers to restructure its debt, and says it may “include the consideration of new investors in the company”. If none bites, Brookstone may have to file for bankruptcy.If it does, the firm could take a page from The Sharper Image, the poster child for modern-day curiosity shops. It shuttered its 180 or so stores after filing for bankruptcy in early 2008—a result of plummeting sales and bad publicity around its Ionic Breeze Quadra air purifier (which, it turned out, not only did little to purify the air, but also produced traces of ozone, a potential respiratory hazard).Since then, The Sharper Image has been reincarnated as an online brand, although some retailers carry a selection of its products. After passing through a tangle of owners, the company is now operated by Iconix Brand Group, which also manages consumer brands such as London Fog, Joe Boxer and Lee Cooper.

Visiting The Sharper Image website is a “déjà vu all over again” for anyone who remembers the stores: it features everything from an All-Terrain Electric Skateboard ($699.99) to the inevitable Zero Gravity Chair with Massaging Ottoman, which for $3,499.99 “soothes away soreness, tension and fatigue”. Surprisingly, the company still sells ionic air purifiers, although they now seem to work better (“92.9% would recommend this to a friend”).The snag is that you can only buy, not try: the company won’t accept returns of high-priced products unless they are faulty. It has a similar policy for a range of other items too, including shoes and fitness equipment, citing (among other things) “consumer protection and health codes”. No word from Iconix on how well that strategy is working out. Many competitors—online and off—accept returns of such products.One of those rivals, 166-year-old Hammacher Schlemmer, takes the concept of curiosity shop to an entirely different level.

Claiming to be the first store to sell pop-up toasters (in 1930), electric razors (1934) and steam irons (1948), its products now include a $299.95 vertical chess set, a two-person submarine shaped like a killer whale ($90,000), and what it says is the world’s fastest amphibious car—which for $135,000 means 44mph over water (pictured). Hammacher sells its wares via the web, an affiliate program, and a flagship New York store that seems straight out of the film “Mr Magorium’s Wonder Emporium”. The company makes much of its folksy history, but glosses over a few details. In the 1950s it changed hands twice after a New England machinery maker took control—in part by buying shares seized from Germans living in America during second world war. In 1975 Hammacher was sold to Gulf+Western, a now-defunct conglomerate that is an ancestor of today’s Viacom, a media company. Seven years later it was bought for about $3.5m by J. Roderick MacArthur, a wealthy scion whose heirs apparently still control the company.