Massage Chair Industry Update – August 26, 2016 (Video)

August 28, 2016
 By Allison Bricker
August 28, 2016
 By Allison Bricker

Massage Chair Industry Update – August 26, 2016 (Video)


Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – August 26, 2016”

microphoneAlan: Well, hello, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com’ and today is our biweekly massage chair industry update for Friday, August 26th, 2016, and we’ve got some good things to go over today.

[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]

Alan: As far as stock status goes, I believe the only chair that I’m aware of that we’re back-ordered on is the Navitas Sleep from Human Touch, but that’s supposed to be coming in this week, or this next week, end of August, beginning of September. The WholeBody 5.1 from Human Touch was back-ordered, but that is in stock now, and I think that’s about it.

[SCREEN TEXT: 18-Month 0% Interest Financing 08/24 – 09/06]

Alan: Now, Synchrony Back is going to be offering their 18-month financing again soon, August 24th to September 6th, and we can offer – well, I mean the always offer the 18-month financing – but we can offer it to you because they lower the processing fees from like 10% down to 6%.

[SCREEN TEXT: 3 or 4-Year 0% Interest Financing on Select Models]

Alan: So, it’s less expensive for us, so we can offer that, but I also might just mention that we are going to be offering three and four-year financing on certain models, because the processing fees are so high on three and four-year financing, and that would be three, four years, no interest, but equal payments throughout that period of time. And but you have to – it can’t be on significantly discounted chairs – and even some chairs, because the profit margin is so low, that would eat up the entire profit margin, the processing fees would. So, I’ll get more information with regard to longer-term financing out to you soon, maybe on the next issue. I’m meeting, on Monday, in my store in California, with my staff there, and we’ll talk about it, but you know, three and four-year financing is becoming quite a thing for a lot of customers, and so we want to be able to make that available to the customers, but they’ll be obviously some stipulations with regard to certain profit margins, and whatnot, that we can’t work around. We just can’t offer a 15% discount on a chair, which is what the processing fees are. I think one of them is even 16%, if I’m not mistaken, so it’s very, very high, and we don’t want to offer that, we can’t offer that on some chairs. OK, that is that. And then the next – they sent me actually a couple other dates for the 18-month financing fee change – Columbus Day, so October 5th to October 11th, and then Black Friday/Cyber Monday, which is the kickoff to the Christmas shopping madness, if you will, is November 23rd to December 6th, but I can give you more of that information as we get closer.

[SCREEN TEXT: New Ogawa Sale Discounts]

Alan: Now, here’s a couple of other things. Ogawa, they had a sale on, up until the end of July. That was, they offered the free extended warranty for the Ogawa Active, and the Ogawa Smart, and then a free foot massager for the Ogawa Refresh. Well, that has passed, and now they’re offering some discounts until September 15th. So, if you want to get an Ogawa Smart 3D, you can get $500 instant savings off on the website, you just check off the $500 instant savings, and it’ll take it off automatically. On the Ogawa Active, they’re offering $250 off, and on the Ogawa Refresh, $100 off, so we’re allowed to do that.

[SCREEN TEXT: Panasonic MA73 Now in Brown!]

Alan: I also wanted to mention that, you know, the Panasonic MA73 is a very nice chair. It’s been a popular chair. It’s designed and engineered in Japan, but it’s made in China, in Panasonic-owned factories, from what I understand, but that chair has always come only in a black. Well, now there’s a brown model that’s out, it’s called the MA73T, so that is available. There’s not a lot of them around, it’s kind of a hard color to come by. I’ve talked to my contact at Panasonic, and asked him to import – or with every shipment, bring in one brown one for us – and he said that’s not a problem. So, if you do want a brown MA73, and it’s a nice looking chair – we’ve got the pictures on the website, but the pictures they sent us are too large, and my web guy’s got to bring them down in size a bit to make them fit on the website, so you really can’t see it yet, but hopefully, after this weekend, those will be up – but so the brown is a nice looking color. It’s a dark chocolate brown, nice looking color, so the price is the same, it’s just a different color.

[SCREEN TEXT: Osaki/Titan New Pricing and Models]

Alan: OK, now, Osaki, Osaki/Titan/Apex, that’s kind of the same company, they have sent me some interesting price changes for us, and because we have them on our website, on banners, on the front of our website, they’re allowing us to offer deeper discounts. So, now the Osaki OS-4, the 4S, sorry, the 4S Japan chair, which is usually $9995, now we can offer a $3000 discount, it brings it down to $6995, so that’s a good deal. The 4D, the Japan 4D chair, was $9995, now it’s down to $4995. In other words, there’s an instant $5000 savings on that, so that’s been bumped up. And the Titan Alpine, they now have a $3000 instant savings on that, so it brings the price down to $3995. So, they’ve lowered prices on all these chairs. Now, I don’t know what their method behind their madness is, if it’s just because they’re not selling a lot, or they’re discontinuing any of these models, I have no idea, and I’m not going to speculate, but that, it makes me wonder what’s cooking. Also, we have – oh, well, that is, no, oh yeah – the Osaki OS-4000T, and that’s a chair that usually, the list price is $2895, we’ve had a $200 instant savings on it, which brings it down to $2695. Well, now they’re dropping it down – the coupon, or the discount, up to $400 off – so it brings the price down to $2495, so you can get the OS-4000T for $2495. Now that chair competes with the Osaki 4000, that Costco sells for usually about $2000, so now this is the same chair, but with foot rollers, and with more airbags. So, and that chair has been a fairly consistent seller over the years. Well, now they’ve dropped the price down a couple hundred bucks. I also have a floor model of that chair. We’re selling our floor model here in the Utah showroom for $1495, and that’ll have – so that’s even $1000 less than that – and that’ll have a one-year parts-and-labor warranty, free shipping, the chair’s in fantastic condition. Anyway, so that’s for you, a new one, and a used one.

[SCREEN TEXT: Pre-Owned Open Box Specials!]

Alan: Speaking of used ones, check our pre-owned directory for open box, clearance, refurbished, floor models, whatnot, that’s where we sell all of our used chairs, returns, and we have a few chairs on there, and you can take a look at it. It’s on, if you go to our website and look at the navigation bar, underneath the header, on the top of the page, it has ‘Massage Chairs,’ and then ‘Pre-Owned,’ and you can take a look at those. We have a two-month old iRobotics 7 from Luraco, which is a very, very sought-after chair. I just added that this morning. It’s a black one for $6990. The regular price on those Luraco is $8490, so we’ve got $1500 off on that, so if you want that one, act fast. It’s on the website, you can go buy it right now, and that includes free shipping, and of course, the full three-year parts-and-labor warranty, minus a couple of months, and two more years of parts. It’s a great buy. We also have – oh, the Infinity IT-8500 has been, if not the top seller, one of our top-selling Chinese chairs, since it came out five or six years ago – and we have a one-month old ‘Taupe’ Infinity IT-8500 that’s on the pre-owned directory, and you can get that one for $3295. It’s regularly $4295 on sale, so you’re getting another $1000 off, a very, very good price for a one-month old Infinity IT-8500. So, if you want a good, strong, neck massage, strong overall massage, great foot rollers, good fit, great stretch program, that Infinity 8500 is phenomenal, and we’ve sold tons of them, and we have them in our showroom. They outsell most other chairs, except maybe the Luraco, probably 10 to 1, 20 to 1, it’s that popular of a chair. So, take a look at that one, and I think we also have a floor-model YuMe. We have – oh, we have an Ultra that just came back – an Apex Ultra, a popular L-track chair. That one is regularly $2995, and I’ll be bamboozled if I can remember what we’re charging on it on the directory. Let me take a quick look here for you, and totally waste your time while I do this. That one we’re selling for $1995, so $1000 off, and this is only three months old, so great, great buys on our pre-owned, go there. The reason I sell them for such good prices is because inventory costs me money. If I have a returned chair, and I’ve had to refund the customer, I’m out that money, so it costs me to have inventory, so I like to get rid of the chairs, and get them in to peoples’ homes. The warranties are transferable, it’s a no-brainer to get them. They’ve already been used, and so you know they’re working, and they look – I mean, one to three months – how bad could a chair be beaten up? And I’ve rarely seen a chair beaten up, the worst chair I ever saw was a chair that came back and it was covered in cat hair, that was the worst I’d ever seen. So, these chairs are in even better shape than those, so FYI, if you want a used chair, or a pre-owned, or refurbished, or floor model, or whatever, take a look at our pre-owned directory. By golly, you know, I think that is just about it. Yeah, I think that’s it. Oh, sorry, that’s not it.

[SCREEN TEXT: New Osaki/Titan Models]

Alan: Osaki is coming out with some new models. They’re coming out with a Titan Summit, which is an upgrade from Titan Alpine, and the only thing that I really see that’s different is that they have shoulder airbags here, instead of the shoulder airbags behind, on the Titan Alpine. But the Titan Summit is going to be listed at $4295 instead of $3995, and it will have the shoulder airbags, but essentially it’s the same chair. We have the 4000LS, which is an L-track, which I’ve never sat in, but it’s a decently priced chair at $3495. We’re not going to get that in our showroom here, but we are going to get this new chair called the Osaki OS-Maxim, and the guys at Osaki are swearing up and down that this is going to be a great-selling chair. It’s going to be selling for – I’m still not clear on the price, because the thing they gave me was a little screwed up – but anyway, it’s going to be in the 3 to $4000 price range, but they are very, very high on this Osaki Maxim. So, when we get that up on the website, I’ll let you know. We’re going to be replacing the Titan 8400 with an 8500, which is – and I can’t, I don’t know the details of these chairs yet – but we will be seeing some additions to our inventory fairly soon.

[SCREEN TEXT: New uKnead Models Coming in September]

Alan: uKnead, the U-K-N-E-A-D, that company that we have the Lavita chair for, and that Lavita has been a fairly popular seller since we’ve introduced it. But uKnead is coming out with three different new models: the Symphony, the Lagato, and the Nuage, and they will be out in September for us. I think they showed them at the Las Vegas Furniture Market last month, and they were well received, and they’re going to tweak some things, and they’re going to make those chairs available. A lot of their chairs are made in the same factory that the Infinity chairs are made in, in China, and they seem to be good chairs. That Symphony chair, I’m excited about, because it’s a 3D L-track, we don’t have a 3D L-track. Infinity has a 3D L-track – but they’ve given an exclusive of that chair, which is like an Iyashi chair, which we carry, but with 3D in the rollers, to move the rollers forward and back, on an L-track chair – they’ve given those to Mattress Firm and Brookstone, as private-label chairs. So, they have nothing for us, the regular retailers, online and small-store retailers. So, uKnead has this one coming out, the Symphony, and I’m quite excited about it, and we’ll let you know when it gets out. We’ll probably make a fairly big deal of it, even though I got to be honest with you, L-track is the big deal, 3D L-track, 3D on anything is OK, but once you get used to it – like the idea of 3D is enchanting, you can increase the roller intensity by moving them forward, you can decrease the roller intensity by bringing them back, you know, on paper, and in reality, at first, it’s pretty exciting – but after a while, you just get used to your one setting, and you just use that setting all the time, and you may not even adjust the intensity that much. But the L-track goes down the back, and under the butt, and massages the hamstrings, and the glutes, and the piriformis muscles. That, I think is pretty rocking solid, because a lot of people have SI joint problems, sacroiliac problems, SI, sacroiliac, same thing, sciatica problems, hamstring tightness, and these uKnead chairs, they actually go down and hit the belly of the hamstring, at least on me, and I’m about 5′ 9″, and they were hitting my hamstring, which is pretty cool. Well, I think that’s just about it, eh? I think we’ve got everything covered. I hope you’ve had a wonderful summer. The weather, I mean, it’s still warm here, but it’s starting to cool down a little bit, and when I wake up in the morning, it’s a little chilly, so I know that fall is on its way. Some people love fall, because of the season change, and the beautiful leaves, and things are cooling down a little bit, but for people like me, from Canada, all that fall means to me is that freezing cold weather is just around the corner, and all the best to you on that. So, I don’t know how you feel about fall, but it’s coming, you can feel it in the air. But anyway, I hope you have a fantastic day. I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com.’ if you found this video helpful, please feel free to thumbs up ‘Like’ us on our YouTube channel. Share us on your social media platforms, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, and I’m sure I’ve missed something, but anyway, feel free to spread the word about massage chairs for us, we appreciate that very much. So, I will see you again in two weeks. Have a fantastic day. Bye bye.

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