Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – June 24, 2013”

Alan: Hi, this is Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com,’ and today is our massage chair industry update for June 24th. We have not a whole lot of things to go over today, mostly just stock status and a little update on the Iyashi and the Osaki 3000, which I’d talked about in previous videos. Those are the two new models that are being introduced.

[SCREEN TEXT: Osaki OS-3000 and Infinity Iyashi Updates]

The Osaki OS-3000 is a redesign, and that chair is available. The Iyashi is a new model from Infinity, it will not be out until July. We may have that chair in our showroom in the next week or two. We’re looking forward to having one because we want to start the review process. I’ve had a number of people contact me since I talked about this on the last video, and also since I wrote an article – a couple of articles – about it, one comparing the Infinity Iyashi to the Infinity IT-8500, which is currently their top seller through our business.

[SCREEN TEXT: Iyashi vs. IT-8500]

Alan: There are quite a bit of differences, even though there are some nice similarities too, like foot rollers and a couple of other things, and you can see the similarities and the differences in that article that I wrote. Anyway, the Iyashi is a new model coming out, we’re excited to see it. It has the rollers that go down to the thigh and the buttocks, and we’ve not seen that before in this industry. I have sat on a prototype before – when I was at the Furniture Market a year or a year and a half ago – there was a prototype with rollers that went down to the buttock and the thighs. It was a cool feature and I thought at the time this is something that the industry will need and use. You know, in the eyes of a chiropractor or a therapist, I can see the value of having rollers down there. Airbags on the hamstrings and airbags on the glutes are good, and they’re better than nothing, but I think rollers are going to be far more therapeutically effective, so we’re excited about that chair.

[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]

Alan: Anyway, as far as stock status goes, the only updates that I have are the, of course, the Panasonic MA70 is still back-ordered. Hopefully that will be ending soon, because I think they said until July, and July is just around the corner. We also have the Inada ‘Black’ leather and the ‘Red’ Sognos are back-ordered until July 10th. The Osaki, the OS-7200 only has a couple of ‘Charcoal’ and ‘Creme’ still available, they’re waiting for the ‘Brown’ – oh, they have lots of ‘Black’ as well – but they’re waiting for the ‘Brown’ to come in stock. The 7075R, they have ‘Creme’ and ‘Taupe’ only, but they’re low on those numbers as well. So, if you’re after a 7075, the numbers are down, and they didn’t give me a date as to when they would be coming in. I know that Osaki is receiving a shipment of a bunch of chairs this week. I think they’re getting some 4000s tomorrow and they’re getting some 7200s this week, but there should be plenty of stock of those, I just don’t know about the 7075. As far as I know, the Human Touch chairs, and the Omega, and the Luraco – oh, the Luraco are back-ordered again also – but they should be only back-ordered I think on the ‘Black’ and the ‘Brown’ until the end of this month.

[SCREEN TEXT: iRobotics 6 Price Going Up to $7990]

Alan: Then, remember also Luraco’s price is going up to $7990 from $4990. The last time I talked to Patty over there at Luraco, she said it would happen at the end of the month, so I suspect that at the tail end of this week or the beginning of next week, the price of this chair is going to be skyrocketing. We will see if the market will bear that. You know, if the market will know – the market will adjust itself fairly soon if this price is too high. I kind of feel it is a little bit, of a bit of a, well, not a bit of a – too big of a jump – but we’ll see. If the market will pay it, then they were right in their assessment of the demand and the supply, and the price will be validated by the purchasing, but we’ll see what happens, of course, as I find out. I’ve noticed since I announced that, the inquiries of the iRobotics chair have dropped a bit through my website, but I don’t know if that’s indicative of their business as a whole since that announcement. Anyway, that’s it as far as the stock goes.

[SCREEN TEXT: Chairs for Tall and Large Folks!]

Alan: Let’s see, I’ve written a couple of articles – it’s really odd, it kind of comes in waves, but just recently over the last couple of weeks, I’ve had a lot of inquiries by people that are very tall and very large about chairs that would fit them – and I wrote an article as a result of it in the blog post that addresses, you know, what chairs would be optimal for people that are over 6 feet and over 300 pounds. In the midst of receiving a bunch of inquiries about this, I had a fellow that came to my showroom, he was a salesman, and I looked at him and I thought, ‘This guy’s tall and he’s big,’ and I just happened to be on the phone to one of my customers when he was in the showroom. He overheard me talking and he said, ‘Well, I’m 6′ 5″ and I’m 350, I could sit in your chairs and tell you which ones fit.’ So, he sat on every chair, well not every chair, but almost every chair in our showroom and he kind of said, ‘Ah, too tight here, too tight there, this fits good, this doesn’t fit good.’ Anyway, I put an article about that on the blog post, or I made a blog post about it, and it’s there on the blog if you want to read it, for people that are tall and large. Also, I wrote an article, I talked to you about the Iyashi versus the 8500, both Infinity chairs, and what the similarities and differences are. Then, I wrote an article about – and I talked about this a few weeks ago – I’m doing a series, an 8-part series of the chairs that I carry, each article reviewing a different company’s warranty.

[SCREEN TEXT: Human Touch Warranty Review]

Alan: I’ve already done Panasonic and Inada, and this last week I did Human Touch. So, if you want to read that and get the fine-toothed comb version of the warranty, and maybe some – you know, taking that legalese and putting it in normal, you know, normal, everyday Joe jargon – go ahead and read my review of that warranty, for the Human Touch warranty. I believe that is it, as far as the news for the massage chair industry update for this week. I will keep you posted as we get the Iyashi in stock. Oh, we did get an IT-8500 in the showroom. I sold a floor model to make room for that, and so we have the IT-8500 set up, but it’s not fully functioning yet. We should have that this week, and I’m excited to get that. I’ve never actually sat in the 8500 – it’s exactly the same as the 8200 with a different shoulder massage mechanism and a different stereo system – but I’m excited to sit in it and feel the airbags in the shoulders. There’s some other chairs, like the Doctor’s Choice chair from Inada and the Osaki 7075 that have airbags that inflate to the front of the shoulders and pin the shoulders back, but the Infinity’s been a very, very popular chair, the 8500. So, I’m excited to have this one in the showroom, and check it out and see how it feels, and then I’ll probably put some feedback on my next video about that as well. I’ll probably make some videos, or make a video about the shoulder airbags of the IT-8500. That is it, I hope that you found this short video informative to some degree. If you did, please feel free to ‘Like’ us on Facebook, on YouTube, and share us on Twitter and Facebook. Please subscribe to our channel if you want to get further updates of other videos like this or our review videos on the chairs, be happy to send those out to you if you subscribe. Again, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com,’ and we will see you in two more weeks. Bye bye.

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