Massage Chair Industry Update 11/6/13 (Part 1)

November 12, 2013
 By Dr. Alan Weidner
November 12, 2013
 By Dr. Alan Weidner

Massage Chair Industry Update 11/6/13 (Part 1)

Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – November 6, 2013 (Part 1)”

news micAlan: Hi, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com‘ and today is my biweekly massage chair industry update. Today is November 6th, 2013, and we’ve got lots of good stuff to go over today.

[SCREEN TEXT: LOTS OF GOOD STUFF TODAY!!]

Alan: It’s an exciting time in the massage chair industry, lots of changes, lots of new models. Of course, we have Christmas coming around the corner, which is the busiest time of the year for us but anyway, lots of other things I’ll go in to today, and chitchat with you about today.

[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]

Alan: First of all, let’s go in to stock. The ‘Red’ Sogno is back-ordered until November 13th. The ‘Genuine Black Leather’ is now in stock, which had been out of stock or back-ordered for, like a couple of months, it seemed. The OS-4000 ‘Brown’ is back-ordered until November 14th. The OS-7200H in ‘Brown’ is back-ordered, but there’s no ETA on that, no scheduled time for arrival. The Pro Dreamer, the new OS-3D Pro Dreamer in ‘Brown’ is back-ordered, but there’s no estimated time of arrival for that one either. The ‘Taupe’ IT-7800 is back-ordered, with no estimated time of arrival, and finally, as far as the stock goes, I think everybody else is doing good. Panasonic, Human Touch, Cozzia, Omega, all the rest of them I believe, have stock and they’re good.

[SCREEN TEXT: New Iyashi Color – Black Interior]

Alan: I will tell you that the ‘Black, or the Iyashi chair, Infinity, Infinite Therapeutics just announced yesterday that they’re bringing in a ‘Black’ interior synthetic leather color to add to their inventory of ‘Berry Red’ and ‘Caramel Tan.’ I’ve seen pictures of the ‘Black,’ I’ve put them up on the website, and you can see the ‘Black’ Iyashi, it’s a beautiful color, a very nice contrast for some of the white exterior frame, and that chair will be available on December 6th, so in time for the holidays, but if you wanted to get a ‘Black’ Iyashi, black interior, not black exterior, and I know a lot of people would like to see a different color than white on the outside of the Iyashi, but for now it’s still white. In my interview with Jim Coppins, who’s the VP at Infinite Therapeutics – it’s a three-part interview and you can see it on YouTube or on our blog – but we talked about that, and they’ve been, they’re working on some prototypes for a different color of the exteriors for a ‘Black,’ but if it’s going to happen, and it may not, but if it’s going to happen, it’ll be next year sometime. Anyway, the interior color now on the Iyashi has a ‘Black’ option, which is a very sharp looking chair.

[SCREEN TEXT: Osaki & Luraco Visits – Now on YouTube]

Alan: OK, now I’ve posted some videos on our web, or on our YouTube channel, videos of my visit to Dallas, Texas. As you know, I went to Dallas two weeks ago, and visited Osaki and Luraco, the makers of the iRobotics 6S chair. I had a wonderful visit, and I recorded some video footage of both places. It’s a little bit more extensive with the Luraco visit, because they do assembly there, and manufacturing, and testing, and all the electronic components are made there. They have a showroom, and of course, a warehouse, and I videotaped all of that, of my visit through there. Osaki is essentially a showroom, their corporate offices, and a warehouse, they don’t do manufacturing or assembly there, so it wasn’t as extensive a tour. Osaki does have a new warehouse that they showed me while I was there, they’re moving to a 70,000-square foot showroom, or headquarters, there in Dallas. They took me there, and we went on a tour of the place, and it was huge, it was enormous, very reminiscent, the warehouse was very reminiscent of the size of the Human Touch warehouse, it just seemed endless. They will be sending me some footage of that when they’re moved in, and they’re moving in currently, so it’s going to take a couple of weeks to do so, they were in the middle of moving when I was there. Anyway, there’s some video footage of my visit to Texas, two different parts, I think there’s one video for the Osaki visit, and I broke up the Luraco visit in to two videos. So, go ahead on YouTube, and take a look at those videos, and see what’s cooking in those places. It was really a fun visit, by the way, the people there – and I can’t remember if I talked about this on my last massage chair industry update – but the people were so kind to me, Michael, and Steven, and Chris, and Manuel, and Jack over at Osaki were just very, very kind to me, we had a wonderful time together. It was great getting to try out all their new chairs, and they’ve had so many new models lately, and I’m going to get in to some of that a little bit later in this recording as well, You know, Kevin, Manthan, and Bryce over at Luraco were just outstanding – Patty, were very, very hospitable, and wonderful, they showed me around the place, all the doors were opened, all the curtains were pulled back, and I got to see everything they did over there – and had a wonderful time, and just so much fun. I just love massage chairs, and the whole industry so dang much, every time I go to one of these places, it’s such a thrill. I hope that my reporting of it to you, and giving you the detailed inside information to these companies as we visit them, and I’ve – of course, as you know, I’ve visited Human Touch before, I’ve visited Inada – it makes for a lot of great information for those of you who are massage chair enthusiasts, as am I.

[SCREEN TEXT: 3-Part Video Interview With Jim Coppins Now on YouTube]

Alan: Also, as I mentioned, I recorded the Jim Coppins interview, Jim Coppins is the VP of Infinite Therapeutics. I interviewed him over a year ago, just after we became a retailer for them, and we revisited that interview, and talked about a bunch of other things, including the new Iyashi, the IT-8100, which came out since that initial interview, and we had a great conversation, broke that up in to three videos as well, and you can see those on our YouTube channel or on my blog, but there’s some good information in there. They’re working on a model that may come out – well, it will come out next year, they don’t know when, Jim mentioned that, depending on the complexity of the chair, it could take anywhere from 6 to 18 months from concept to launch on a new chair model – and they’re working on one for, hopefully it’ll be out next year, but wonderful interview, great interview.

[SCREEN TEXT: Luraco Video Interview Coming Next Week!]

Alan: I might just mention that last week I interviewed, on Halloween morning, on the morning of Halloween day, I interviewed Kevin, Bryce, and Manthan from Luraco, as a follow up to my visit there a couple weeks ago. We did a Skype interview, and I’ve broken that up in to three videos as well, three parts, and we will start posting those next week. There is some good information in there, some good stuff we talked about, some things that are very unique to Luraco, because it’s the only company that actually assembles their chairs here, tests all their, every one of their chairs here, and manufactures a good portion of the chair here in the United States. So, there’s a lot to talk about that’s a little bit more technical and engineering oriented, as opposed to most of the other places, which import their chairs, and it’s mostly just, they have headquarters, which are vehicles for distribution. So, there’s a little bit more going on at Luraco, they just have the one model that we sell, but there is more, as far as the technical stuff that goes on there, and we’re excited to share that with you when it comes out next week.

[SCREEN TEXT: New IT-8100 & OS-3D Pro Cyber in Our Showroom]

Alan: Also, oh you know what, we got the new Cyber in the showroom, I got two new chairs last week, it was like Christmas morning for me, of course, I had to pay for them, but it still felt like Christmas. We got the IT-8100, which is their, kind of their – it’s not the $7800 price tag, it’s the $2695 price tag – kind of lower to mid-range price tag, and I’ve sat on it briefly, I will be doing a review on it, more comprehensively, next week.

[SCREEN TEXT: Osaki OS-3D Pro Cyber Review Coming Tomorrow]

Alan: We also got the Osaki 3D Pro Cyber, which we got last Thursday or Friday as well, and I have already done a review on that. I mean, I’ve taken the notes, all the notes are on this pad of paper, and I will be transcribing those notes, or converting those notes, in to an actual blog post review later today or tomorrow. So I’ll have that up, and you can read my review on the Cyber, I really like the Cyber. It kind of reminds me of – it looks like a much more contemporary, sleek looking 7075 – but with a better feel and comfort level in the chair. You have the 3D massage rollers, which you can move these rollers as much as 3 – almost 3 1/2 inches forward, and when you have – OK, the 3D as I’ve explained before, 3D means that the rollers can move forward and back. Most of the chairs up to this point have been static, so the intensity you get is the intensity you get, you cannot adjust it, unless you put a back pad behind you to dampen the intensity. Well, this 3D moves those rollers forward and back, and on this Cyber, as well as the OS-3D Pro Dreamer, which we got a couple of months ago, that thing moved, those rollers move 3 to 3 I/2 inches forward, and I’m telling you something, that, if you want a deep tissue massage, this 3D stuff is fantastic, and it will move you. As a matter of fact, I sat on the chair, I sat on the Dreamer and the Cyber, between the two of them, for about an hour and a half, almost two hours, on Monday, and when I came off of the chairs, I actually felt a little bit of motion sickness because it had moved me so much that it kind of, it actually got to me for sitting on it too long. Usually, if you have any kind of feeling like that, it’s very transient and temporary, you won’t feel it on the next time around, or usually those kinds of feelings are gone within, you know, within a few sessions on the chair, but man, I’m telling you, I really like this Cyber chair. It’s a decently priced chair, a very nice looking chair, great feature set, foot rollers, it has the 3D massage, it’s got a nicer speaker system than the Pro Dreamer has, it’s got nice arm airbags, it’s got the little nodules on the arm airbag, or airbag covers to kind of hold your arms in, kind of like the Iyashi did, it has zero gravity, two zero gravity positions, it has a good stretch program, anyway, it’s just a very good chair, I really, really like that chair a lot. For those of you who are, you know, who don’t want to get the 7075, and there have been some problems with the 7075 to be quite candid with you, this Cyber might just be the ticket, and this thing, I really like it. I’m going to write the review, you can take a look at the review in the next day or two, I’ll have it up on the website. Then, I’ll do, I’ll also review, I’ll do a review on the 8100 pretty soon as well, hopefully next week I’ll have that up as well.

[SCREEN TEXT: New Johnson Chairs to Come to Massage Chair Relief]

Alan: We will probably be carrying a new line called the Johnson line, it’s from a company called, I think, Inner Balance. They’re out of Milwaukee, or out of Wisconsin, and the reason that I’m attracted to these chairs, or what attracted me to them, I don’t think they’re a well-known brand just yet, I’ve seen them on a few other websites out there but, you know, periodically I’ll do some homework on some of these chairs to see what’s out there.

[SCREEN TEXT: Why Doesn’t Massage Chair Relief Carry Every Massage Chair Brand?]

Alan: I’m going to tie this in with another topic that I want to talk about today, which is why, you know, why don’t we carry some of the brands, I mean, some massage chair sites carry every brand under the sun, and I get asked, once in a while, not very often, but once in a while ‘Why don’t you carry these other chairs, these other brand name chairs, or no-name brand chairs, for that matter?’ Well, one of the reasons is because of the warranty, I’m a real stickler for warranties. All the chairs that I carry have a parts-and-labor, in-home warranty, and after the in-home warranty is done, you’ve got a parts warranty, and they will send you the parts, and they will coach you on how to install the parts if you need help. Some of these other chair companies, they have lower prices, but they also have lower tech support, or customer support, they will not have – and it can vary, there’s different reasons – some, they don’t have a labor component for their warranty, so their first year, it might just be 1 to 5 years or 10 years of parts, but no labor. Well, actually nobody has 10 years of parts, but you know, 10 years of structure or frame, things that probably will never go wrong with the chair, but I like to see labor, I like to see in-home labor on these chairs, at least for the first year, and then good customer support for the parts portion of the labor after the in-home warranty expires.

Well, some of these companies don’t have that, or if there is a problem with the chair, you have to ship the chair back to them to have it fixed, or to have it replaced, you have to ship it to them to have it replaced, they will not come out and replace it for you, and I don’t like that, and that’s just my own personal preference. I want my chair to be taken care of, and I want people to come to my home, if the chair needs to be replaced, I want them to come and get it, box it up, and take it out, and bring the replacement to me. I’m kind of a stickler that way, and so these companies that I represent have that kind of support, and even though some of the companies are not extremely popular, and others are very, very popular, the customer support’s very, very important to me, and I like that. Well, that’s one of the reasons why we don’t carry some of these no-name brands.

Number one, I don’t, well, and I’ve talked about this in my blog posts in my article library, but you know, some companies are just being run out of a fellow’s garage, or out of a home, and then they don’t have a network of technicians that they’ve outsourced their warranty work to around the country. That stuff just makes me nervous, or they sell their products just on eBay, and there’s nobody there to really guarantee that, five years from now, that company’s going to be around, and they’re going to have customer support. Now, they may, they may be just a great company, and they’re just a company in the making, but you know, in the infantile state, I’m not willing to gamble my reputation, or the contentment and the happiness of my paying customers, who are paying thousands of dollars, when we’re not sure if they’re going to get good customer support or not. So, that’s one of the reasons why I don’t carry every model under the sun.

Click on the following  link to watch this Massage Chair Industry Update on our YouTube channel.

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