Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – March 12, 2014”
Alan: Well, hello, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com’ and today is our biweekly massage chair industry update for March 12th, 2014.
[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]
Alan: We’ll get right away in to stock since there have been some stock notifications lately. First of all, I will tell you that Inada is in good stock shape for their Sogno. The only chair they’re back-ordered on is the ‘Black’ YuMe, and that’ll be back-ordered until June 16th, which is quite a ways out, but the ‘Black’ YuMe from Inada is back-ordered until the 16th. As far as Infinity goes, the ‘Burgundy’ – no sorry, the ‘Dark Brown,’ the ‘Ivory,’ and the ‘Taupe’ IT-9800s are back-ordered – and there’s no estimated arrival time for any new colors. So, if you’re interested in the IT-9800, go with the ‘Black,’ ‘Burgundy,’ or ‘Taupe,’ and even the ‘Black’ there’s only one left, and ‘Burgundy’ has a couple left, and ‘Taupe’ has six left, so you’re kind of running low there. As you know, the Iyashi ‘Black’ one has been discontinued, but there’s plenty of the ‘Red’ and the ‘Caramel.’ The IT-8500 is back-ordered on the ‘Ivory’ – no sorry, not the ‘Ivory’ – the ‘Black,’ the ‘Taupe,’ and the ‘Brown,’ and they will be back-ordered until the 28th of March, so we’ve got another couple weeks before those chairs will be in stock. So again, IT-8500, ‘Black,’ ‘Taupe,’ and ‘Brown’ are back-ordered, the ‘Ivory’ is in stock. The IT-7800 is back-ordered in the ‘Taupe’ color until April 10th, and that’s it for Infinity. Now, let’s go to Osaki. Osaki is back-ordered on the – back-ordered on the OS-4000 in ‘Brown,’ ‘Charcoal,’ and ‘Cream’ – and the estimated delivery time is supposed to be one week, so it should be here within the next few days. Also, the ‘Cream’ OS-7075 is back-ordered, and there is no estimated arrival date for that – oh, just a minute, it’ll be late March, so it’ll probably be here in another couple weeks – and the other chair is the Pro Cyber, which is back-ordered, also until the end of March, so the Pro Cyber. The Pro Dreamer’s in stock, the Pro Intelligent, the Pro Marquis, everything else in good stock for Osaki. From what I understand, Human Touch and Panasonic are in good stock as well, but if you have any question, or you’re concerned, just give me a call, and then if we do find out – if you do order a chair from us – and we do find out that it’s back-ordered while we’re doing the ordering, I will notify you, I’ll drop you an email, or give you a call, and we’ll find out what you want to do. The great thing about purchasing the chair even when it’s back-ordered is that you know that on the next shipment coming in you’re going to be privy to one of those chairs in the shipment. There was a time, with the Inada Sogno, and a little bit with the IT-8500, when these chairs were so popular that when the chairs came in they were already spoken for, and there were no more chairs available from the shipment, so waiting until the shipment comes is not always a good idea. So, whether the chair is back-ordered or not, order it now, you know, if you’re going to get it, and then just wait for the shipment to come in and you’ll get one that’s – you’ll get one of that — one of those chairs coming in the container.
[SCREEN TEXT: 18-Month No Interest Financing Available From GE Capital 3/12 – 3/18]
Alan: OK, what else have we got cooking, oh, starting today until the 18th, GE Capital is lowering their merchant processing fees that they charge me for the 18-month financing plan. So, as you know, through GE, we offer 6 and 12-month financing plans. We can offer 36 months from the 12th to the 18th, it’s in celebration of March Madness. So, if you want to get a chair, and you want 18-month financing with zero interest minimum payment, let me know, and we can get you hooked up through the 18% plan for this next week.
[SCREEN TEXT: Human Touch is 35 Years Old This Year!]
Alan: Also, we have – Human Touch is 35 years old – now, I didn’t know they were that old, you know, I didn’t connect it. I knew that they started in the 80s, but I didn’t realize that it had been so many years, ’80, ’90, yeah, I think they’re in their 35th year now, so they’re celebrating that. We received some, you know, some images of logos and whatnot that have the 35 year celebration anniversary logo thing. Anyway, other than just mentioning it, there’s not much more we’re going to say about it, but Human Touch, congratulations. It’s a big company, a couple of springs ago I went out to Long Beach to visit their headquarters, and I took video, and we recorded, you know, the whole place, including the warehouse, and then the chairs, and their showroom, and they were wonderful. They treated me wonderfully, and the warehouse was impressive, it was huge, and that’s a big company, they sell a lot of chairs, but Human Touch celebrating 35 years this year.
[SCREEN TEXT: Luraco iRobotics 6S Chair on Bio & History Channels]
Alan: Also, Luraco was on TV, and I mentioned this on my last update, that they were going to be on TV, and we received the video clip from Luraco showing their iRobotics 6 – or LUR-aco as they called it on the video – but you can check it out, it’s only a couple minutes long. The video is on my blog or article library, it was last week that I posted it under one of the ‘Quick Hits‘ posts, and you can see that video of Luraco’s iRobotics 6 being covered by the tech guru of the channel.
[SCREEN TEXT: Cliff Levin, President of Inada USA Coming to Utah Next Week]
Alan: Also, let’s see, oh, you know who’s coming to town next week? Next Monday and Tuesday, Cliff Levin, the president of Inada USA is coming in to town, and does travel around and visit his distributors, and you know, check and see how people are doing and what’s cooking. He’ll be coming – we’ll be spending Monday night and Tuesday morning together, dinner on Monday, business, mostly business on Tuesday, and if you have any questions that you’d like me to ask Cliff Levin about anything that Inada’s doing, whether it’s about the Sogno – and of course, I always get asked ‘Is the Sogno going, are they going to come out with an upgrade to the Sogno?’ and they won’t, at least that was the last I heard, and I’ve asked them many, many times. Or, if you want to ask about any new models, or anything, about anything that has to do with Inada, let me know, send me an email, give me a call, drop me a line, and I’ll ask Cliff when he’s here. I’m looking forward to meet with him again, we always have great conversations about the massage chair industry.
[SCREEN TEXT: S-Track vs. L-track]
Alan: OK, I had an interesting email from a fellow, last week, asking me about an S-track versus an L-track. I had honestly never heard of an L-track before, as defined as an L-track, and when he asked me – well, first of all, an S-track is what pretty much every massage chair has, they have a track that is in the shape of an S, or an S, you know, kind of a sinusoidal, you know, pattern to follow the curves of the spine – forward in the neck, back in the mid back, forward in the low back, back in the pelvis. Well, that’s an S-curve, and most chairs, well, pretty much every massage chair has that. Well, this fellow was asking about an L-track, and the only thing that came to my mind was the Iyashi, which has an S-track that goes down, and then it goes across the butt, to give you that buttock massage, and so it’s kind of in the shape of an L. Well, there was some rumor that he had heard, that if you have an L-track, there’s no need for 3D roller massage, because the rollers will be different on the back. Well, I’d never heard that before. I did confirm the L-track was what this fellow was assuming was called an L-track on the Iyashi, but the 3D massage is not affected. 3D remember, is the ability of the rollers to move forward and back, to increase or decrease the intensity of the roller massage, respectively. To say that in an L-track, where the track comes down, like in the Iyashi, and then across the butt, it doesn’t need a 3D roller massage, is a little counterintuitive to me. It doesn’t make sense, because moving the rollers forward and back, or I guess up and down if it’s under the butt, is a feature that you’re going to be seeing in more and more chairs. I assume you’re going to be seeing it in these L-track chairs, as we’re going to be seeing more and more of those. But no, the 3D feature in the S-track, that is now starting to show up more and more in the S-track, if it’s going to be an L-track chair, yes, I would suspect they’re going to have 3D massage that’ll increase the intensity of the massage, whether it’s on your back, or whether it’s on your butt. So, if you hear the term L-track, that’s what they’re talking about, the track that comes down, and under the butt, it still has S-track on the upper part of the spine, and it probably still has a little bit of an S-track curve underneath the butt, as it goes, you know, around the buttock and maybe up to the top of the hamstrings in the back. So, S-track versus L-track, if you ever hear that, you know what we’re talking about now. I wrote a couple articles over the last few weeks, one was on zero gravity, and one was on shoulder airbags.
[SCREEN TEXT: New Article #1: Zero Gravity]
Alan: Now, I get a lot of people that ask me ‘Do I need, you know what, I want to have zero gravity in a chair.’ Well, my experience has been that most people don’t really know what zero gravity is, and zero gravity is nothing more than a 30-degree tilt of the seat, and a 120-degree articulation between the seat and the chair back. Well, that zero gravity design is to minimize the compression stress on any portion of the spine. It kind of evenly distributes the weight of the body on the chair so that one part of the body’s not feeling more compressed, or more labored, than any other portion of the spine. This is the position that the astronauts found was more – that NASA found that it was most comfortable with the astronauts in space, this weightless position – they call it weightlessness when you’re in the zero gravity position, but basically, balancing out the weight and stress of the body so that you’re not getting any stress points. Well, that zero gravity’s pretty cool, it’s a nice feature, but there is a tradeoff. If you want zero gravity, you’re going to be sacrificing the distance that the rollers can travel, and now, that might not make sense to you with the way I’m explaining it, but if you read the article, you’ll see what I’m talking about, and so there’s a tradeoff. For example, people will say ‘Well, the Sogno, the Inada Sogno and the Panasonic MA70 don’t have zero gravity and I want that.’ Well, the Panasonic MA70 and the Inada Sogno have a longer – the roller track goes down, or the rollers go lower in to the buttock – than do any of the other zero gravity chairs, and why is that? Well, I explain that in the article, so take a look at that. Is zero gravity really that important, is it something you really need, yes or no, I don’t know, it just depends on what you’re really looking for, so take a look at that article.
[SCREEN TEXT: New Article #2: Shoulder Airbags]
Alan: Now, the second article’s about shoulder airbags. Now, there’s different kinds of shoulder airbags. They were introduced – the first one I saw was with the Doctor’s Choice 3A massage chair from Inada, and that chair had airbags that inflated to the – it was a housing, a shoulder mechanism, housing mechanism on the sides of the shoulders with airbags that inflated, and inflated to the front of the shoulders, and pulled the shoulders back. Well, that is one type of shoulder airbag. There’s also the shoulder airbag that just inflates from the side and compresses the side of the chair, the side of the shoulders. There’s another one that you’ll see in the Panasonic 30007 that inflates from the back, that kind of pushes your shoulders forward a bit, and then there’s the Inada Sogno shoulder airbags that come from the headpiece down on to the traps, which is the top of the shoulder. Well, I go over those four different types of shoulder airbags in this article. So, if you’re wondering what airbag your – the chair that you’re considering getting – if you’re wondering what kind of airbags it has, shoulder airbags it has, this will explain it, and if you have any further questions, and you’re not sure about whether your chair has one type or another, just call me, I can explain it to you. So, that is that with regard to articles that you can take some time to read. OK, that is pretty much it for this week. We’re coming in to the spring and summer season, which is not usually a very busy season for massage chair manufacturers, and not a lot of new models come out at this time. Usually, you’ll see that in the fall, end of the summer toward the fall, but if anything new comes out, or if I hear any new things that these companies will let me talk about, I’ll let you know, but that’s about it for week.
[SCREEN TEXT: 888-259-5380]
Alan: If you found this video helpful, please feel free to share us on Facebook, or Twitter, or Google Plus. ‘Like’ us, subscribe to the YouTube channel, so you can be updated with subsequent videos that we come out with, and of course, if you have any questions, just call me. You can always reach me, or one of my staff, but I try to answer most of the calls, and if I don’t get to it, my staff will get me in touch with you when I’m available. My number’s 888-259-5380, that’s our toll-free number on the website, feel free to call us any time.
[SCREEN TEXT: Hey Doc! It’s 801-417-8240]
Alan: If you’re calling from out of the country, and you can’t use the toll-free number, call us at 801 – oh my goodness, what, well, I can’t remember the – 417, well, I can’t remember our showroom number, 82, 417, well, 801-417-82, 8240, I believe that’s it. So, sorry, I’m an idiot, but I don’t usually use that number, so I can’t remember it. Anyway, feel free to give me a call, I’d be happy to chitchat with you about any topic in the massage chair industry. I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com,’ and we will see you again in two more weeks. Bye bye.
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