Archive for June, 2008

Massage Chair Buyers Survey

Monday, June 30th, 2008

I conducted a 10 question survey over the last two weeks and the results were somewhat surprising. What I did was create a small, 10 question survey that covered some of the topics that I always wondered about that were going on in the minds of the visitors to my website. I sent out the survey to everyone who had subscribed to my special report “5 Things You Absolutely Must Know Before You Even Consider Investing In A High Quality, Robotic Massage Chair”. Here are a couple of insights that I gleaned from that survey:

1. 78.3% of massage chair buyers were male.
2. 67% of massage chair shoppers were looking for pain relief in a massage chair.
3. 56% of buyers fell within an income range below $100,000 (massage chairs are not just for the rich and famous!).
4. I also learned that only 11% of my subscribers cared about getting the bonus gifts with a purchase (hhmmm…may have to reconsider that one, eh?)
5. back massage intensity adjustment was the most important thing for shoppers of massage chairs (81.1% of folks were looking for this feature in a chair).
6. 97.2% of our shoppers found our website, www.massage-chair-relief.com, very easy to navigate around.

I would love it if you would take our survey too. I appreciate all the input I can get to make my site and business as wonderful as it can be. And, with your assistance, I can do it!

Here is the link:

www.massage-chair-relief.com/survey

There are two pages…each one with 5 questions. It will take you  less than 5 minutes to take the survey and your input will have an effect on how we manage our site and business.

Thank you so much for your input. It is very much appreciated.

Dr. Alan Weidner
www.massage-chair-relief.com

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My Interview With Family Inada US Distribution President, Cliff Levin

Friday, June 27th, 2008

I mentioned last week that I had a telephone interview with Cliff Levin, president of the US Distribution arm of Family Inada massage chairs. I said I would post a link to the interview once I had it edited and ready to go. Well, it is ready to go. Below is the link to that interview. It is about 50 minutes long and we discuss a number of things, from the new and exciting Sogno massage chair to the other Inada models to some of the industry issues at the current time. I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.massage-chair-relief.com/Cliff_Levin

The Sogno massage chair is available right now to order. The Sogno Dreamweaver Plus will not be available until the third week in June. You must call our showroom or our toll free number if you wish to order a new Sogno massage chair. Sogno massage chairOnline shopping cart sales are not part of the retail agreement with Inada. So, give us a call at either 1-888-259-5380 or 801-417-8240.

Have a great day!

Dr. Alan Weidner
www.massage-chair-relief.com

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Hey, Look Mom, I’m On TV!!

Thursday, June 26th, 2008

We were invited to bring one of our massage chairs down to KSL, which is the local NBC affiliate, to demonstrate it on the noon hour TV show, Studio 5. So, I went down with my black HT-1650 massage chair and showed it to the great citizens of Utah. Below is a link. I am certainly not TV personality material, but I sure appreciated the chance to show our cool chair to the public. The host,  Darren, seemed to really enjoy it, don’t you think?

Here is the link to the segment:

http://studio5.ksl.com/?nid=56&sid=3615841

My wife and I were over at the showroom last night putting some finishing touches on the showroom preparatory to our Grand Opening on Saturday. We are pretty excited about it. I will post some pictures of the event over the weekend so you can see what was going on.

Did I also mention that we will begin carrying the two of the iJoy models, the iJoy 300 and the HT-2720, as well as the Perfect Chair, all by Human Touch? These chairs should be on the website and the showroom this next month.

Dr. Alan Weidner
www.massage-chair-relief.com

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Dang…Massage Chairs Can Be So Cute!

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

I just came out of the back office to check on my son, who came to work with me today and I found him, fast asleep, on the Omega Montage massage chair, apparently listening to some soothing music on the headphones from the built-in mp3 player. It was so dang cute that I had to take a picture and share it with you all. This is one of the perks of owning a massage chair…putting your kids to sleep and then being able to adore them when they fall asleep (and some times that is the only time you can adore them!!). This son loves to help out his dad and mom when he can.

By the way, we are busy getting ready for the Grand Opening this Saturday. We are excited about it. We have been doing some radio ads and have a local classic rock station coming on Saturday to do a remote broadcast from the new showroom. Today, the electrician has been over all day putting up the sconce lighting that my good wife, Mona, purchased for the showroom. All the decorating, by the way, I leave to her…she has a real knack for decorating and making things look really good. Our showroom has a real “homey” feel to it, thanks to her. It truly feels like a lovely living room of a home.

In July, I mentioned that we will be having the new Inada massage chairs in the showroom, but I failed to mention that we will also be having an iJoy chair and a Perfect Chair, both manufactured by Human Touch, in the showroom too. The iJoy chairs are a lesser priced, less luxurious chair that are great for college kids and lesser budget massage chair shoppers. It does not have a leg/calf massager and it sits low to the ground. The Perfect Chair is not a massage chair, but an anti-gravity chair that is the predecessor to the HT-7450. It is a very comfortable chair, great for low back pain, and about half the price of the HT-7450. So, you get the anti-gravity feature without the massage.

Talk to you soon. I’ve got to get back to work on the showroom.

Dr. Alan Weidner
www.massage-chair-relief.com

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Sogno Massage Chair News and Interviews With Fius President

Tuesday, June 24th, 2008

Greetings!

I just found out today that the delivery date of the Sogno Dreamweaver PLUS massage chair, of which I am so excited to finally see and experience, is being pushed back to the third week of July. It is going to be such a big deal with this chair that I totally get why it is hard to find one around. I pre-ordered mine way back at the beginning of the year, and am still awaiting it’s arrival. The moment I get it in the showroom, I will test and retest it (which means I’ll be sitting in it all day!!) and then will post on the blog so that you can get my feedback about it.

The regular Sogno massage chair is now out on the market and is available to be bought for $5999. It costs about $500 less than the Dreamweaver Plus chair ($6499), but doesn’t have the following features that only the Sogno PLUS does have:

1. heated seat
2. dreamweaver seat massage
3. 3-D massage rollers.
4. the cream color that you see on the video and images is only available on the PLUS model, NOT the Standard model.Sogno massage chair

I have far more requests for the Dreamweaver PLUS Sogno chair because of these four features. It seems to be far more popular at this point. I suppose that is why it is back ordered for so long.

Here is an interesting thing you should know about the Inada massage chairs…although I can display it on my website, Inada will not allow online retailers to sell the massage chairs using an online shopping cart. The pricing is displayed and the chair information is all on the site, but to order one, you must call us over the phone to place the order. As a matter of fact, the Sogno Dreamweaver PLUS cannot even be displayed on the website…it is only to be demonstrated in a health care provider’s clinic or in a specialty retail store showroom.

In the meantime, I had a phone interview on May 27, 2008 with the president of FIUS, which is the US distributor for Inada chairs. His name is Cliff Levin and he spent close to an hour answering my questions and telling us a lot about the Sogno chair, the workings of family Inada in Japan, and brief overviews of most of the products we will be selling in our store in July. He is a wonderful fellow and really answered my questions thoroughly and clearly. FIUS, by the way, stands for Family Inada US.

I will provide a link to the interview as soon as it is edited and I have it posted to my website.

Dr. Alan Weidner
www.massage-chair-relief.com

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Sanyo HEC 5000 Massage Chair Scanning Function

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Sanyo massage chairs have an interesting twist on the body scan technology. As with most of the finer massage chair manufacturers, Sanyo has a height, weight, and muscle tone assessment feature in their body scan technology, but they have added something else that is quite interesting and that patients seem to get a kick out of…the heart/pulse rate, perspiration, and temperature scan.

Sanyo has added an additional remote that sits in a caddy of the main remote control of each chair. This remote has a couple of areas on the back of it that are shiny silver in color over which the user places his/her right hand. You would hold it as though you were holding a small walkie-talkie. This is what the sensor uses to determine your heart/pulse rate, perspiration, and body temperature.

While you are being scanned, the massage chair technology will display the results of that scan, along with the typical height, weight, and muscle tension scan, on the main remote control display. There is a figure of a seated body with blue dots all over it’s back side, indicating the places of the body that are being scanned.

The scan results are displayed as red circles around the blue dots on the body drawing on the remote control. So, during the scan, red circles will show up around the blue dots representing the parts of the body just scanned. Once the scan is complete, the user can do one of two things:

  1. Put the scanner back onto the cradle and just enjoy the massage, or
  2. Continue to hold the scanner throughout the massage and see what happens to the red circles on the body figure on the remote. It surprises us to see that as the massage chair focuses on the areas of the body where the red circles are found, the red circles begin to disappear over the course of the massage session. In other words, as the massage chair works on the rough areas of the spine and fixes them, the body sensor can actually tell that it is better and the red circles are then removed. Now, if the rough spots are really bad, it may not get rid of the red circles during just one session. It may take a few sessions. But, the fact that the chair can tell right away where the improvement is being made is quite impressive.

The patients just love this feature. To use the vernacular of my teenage years…it’s pretty “cool”.

What is always interesting to us when we have a new client sit in the Sanyo massage chair, is that when the scanner displays the red circles on the person’s spine on the remote control display, based on the scan findings, the user always says “Yep, that’s where I hurt!”…that happens pretty much every time!

By the way, there is no fixed timer on the Sanyo massage chairs because of this scanner technology. Whereas other chairs have a fixed 10, 15, 20, or even 30 minute massage setting, the Sanyo varies between 20-25 minutes because the massage program is catered to the findings of the body sensors. It just might take a little longer on some of our spines because our spines just might be a little more messed up than others.

Dr. Alan Weidner

www.massage-chair-relief.com

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Massage Chair Body Scanning Function

Tuesday, June 10th, 2008

Every upper end massage chair nowadays has a scanning feature of some sort that checks out your spine prior to beginning your massage session. The feature is designed to get a feel for your height, weight, and muscle tight spots to figure out how intense the chair will decide to massage you. Very fascinating, actually.

What this means, is that each person that sits on a massage chair could have an entirely different massage than any other person that sits on the same chair. What is even more interesting, each person that sits on a massage chair will have a different massage each time he/she sits on the massage chair if the musculature of the user has changed from session to session.

For example, if I sit on a massage chair in the morning, after a good night’s sleep, the massage chair will scan me based on the relaxed musculature of a night’s rest. If I have a tough, stressful day, that very same day, or if I become injured playing basketball or get in a car accident, and my musculature changes accordingly, the reading of the massage chair scan could be completely different. Thus, my massage at the beginning of the day and my massage at the end of the day may be completely different.

This personalizes the massage that much more. I think this is a development in massage chair technology that just further adds to the effectiveness of massage chair recliners and further allows the chairs to compete with real therapists. Of course, nothing we have in the industry, right now, completely mimics the hands of a licensed and trained massage therapist or even a chiropractor, but I can tell you…they are working on it!

I will discuss individual manufacturer’s body scanning technologies in subsequent blog entries. Though most of the quality massage chair manufacturers have body scan technology in some shape and form, they are different and proprietary for each company.

Dr. Alan Weidner
www.massage-chair-relief.com

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