Massage Chair Industry Update – March 23, 2015

March 25, 2015
 By Dr. Alan Weidner
March 25, 2015
 By Dr. Alan Weidner

Massage Chair Industry Update – March 23, 2015

Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – March 23, 2015”

microphoneAlan: Hi, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com’ and today is our biweekly massage chair industry update for Monday, March 23rd, 2015.

[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]

Alan: We’ll just get in to stock today, today’s not going to be as long as last week. We didn’t, I didn’t, you know, I don’t have quite as much to cover, we didn’t do any trips anywhere terribly exciting to report on, but I will tell you that as far as stock status goes, we are – well, the Titan 8400 is back-ordered for another couple of weeks, and the Panasonic MA73’s also back-ordered – that one has been back-ordered. They actually – Panasonic actually contacted me about a week ago, and asked me what they – what I projected for sales in the near future, so they wouldn’t keep running out of chairs for us, and so we gave them some estimates. So, hopefully we will see more, you know, more stock availability, and less back-order situations in the months and, the months and, weeks and months to come, but anyway, those two chairs are out of stock right now. I believe Infinity now has all their chairs in stock. The dock workers strike did slow down some deliveries for – of course, we knew about the OS-4000T for Osaki – but that chair’s in full stock now. Infinity had their 8400 back-ordered in ‘Brown’ until this last week, so now that’s in stock, and the 8500 until the end of the month, which is within the next week. So, Infinity should have all their chairs in stock, Osaki is flush with new chairs as well, and I believe Human Touch has good stock, Panasonic, I mentioned the MA73’s back-ordered. The DreamWave, we’re still waiting – oh, no, the ‘Red’ one, the ‘Red’ DreamWave just came in on last Thursday – so the ‘Red’ DreamWave is in, and I suspect the ‘Black’ leather DreamWave is also in stock.

[SCREEN TEXT: Inada i1 Discontinued]

Alan: I will mention that Inada discontinued their i1. Now, the i1 and the i2 were – or the i2a and the i1 – were two of the original Inada chairs that I carried, back, you know, seven, eight years ago when I first started carrying Inada. But the i1 and the i2 have been, you know, chairs that have been around a good long time, very reliable chairs, they have almost a 0% failure rate, a very basic, standard chair, but great Japanese quality. Well, that chair has been discontinued, Inada still has the YuMe, and the Flex 3s, and the DreamWave as their lineup. Also, I mentioned last time that the Panasonic 1285 has been discontinued, and as far as discontinued models, I think that’s it.

[SCREEN TEXT: iRobotics 7 Update!]

Alan: Now, the iRobotics 7, as I mentioned on our last update that, you know, when I visited Texas, I visited Osaki and Titan, and I also visited Luraco, and learned about their iRobotics 7, which looks to be a very, very promising chair, and a very nice, a very nice high-end chair for the market. The components are – the components that they import are from Taiwan, not mainland China, as their i6SL was – but their components are imported from Taiwan, and then their electronic components are all manufactured here at their headquarters in Arlington, Texas. They will be manufactured, or manufacturing their electronic components, and importing their Taiwanese components, and they’ll be assembling each chair here, and quality-controlling it, or testing it, here in Arlington, Texas, and that’s pretty unique. We’ve not seen that in a chair before, and that is something that really contributes to the quality of the Luraco chairs, especially this iRobotics 7. It’s going to have a three year, parts-and-labor warranty, the price tag’s going to be similar to the DreamWave, the Inada DreamWave, it has the touchscreen, the app, like the smartphone Apple operating system touchscreen, it’s a very simple chair to use, it’s got 3D roller massage, it’s got foot, foot rollers, and calf rollers, zero gravity, a good, intense neck massage, which is something that’s lacking in a lot of chairs, and so this iRobotics 7, I’m excited about it. I just received, this morning, an email from Luraco, with all the specs of the chair, and I should have that chair up this week on the website, and you – well, they’re taking pre-orders right now, even though they’re finishing – they’re doing the finishing touches on the software for the chair, which is all being programmed here in the United States, and if you look at our video from a couple weeks back of my visit there, we saw, or we, you know, talked to Manthan, and Dr. Lee. They’re the lead engineers for the project, and I’m excited about this chair, I really am, I’m excited to get it in our showroom, I’m excited to learn it, and sit on it, and experience it. I think it’s going to be a very, very good seller, a very popular chair, I’m quite excited about it, for all those reasons that I mentioned, from Taiwanese parts, to American components, to the feature set, and to the remote control, and all that other stuff, I think it’s going to be a winner. Anyway, that chair, they’re taking pre-orders for it now, but it will not officially be ready for another three to four weeks, as far as – and when I say ready, I mean production ready, like it’s – three to four weeks is when the chair will actually be made, and start to ship out. By the way, I don’t know if you realize this, but every time you order a Luraco chair, from me, I will order it from them, but it takes about a week for that chair to get shipped out. Why does it take so long? Because they do not ship the chairs fully assembled from Asia, they bring them here, assemble them here, quality-control test them here, and then ship them out, and they only do the assembly, and the quality-control testing once the order is made. So, it’s almost like a special order, just for you, when you order a chair from them. So, you know that when that chair leaves their Dallas – Arlington, Texas, which is in Dallas – their Dallas warehouse, that chair has been recently assembled, and tested, and controlled. So, that is, that is fantastic, and I expect for that very reason, without having to travel across, you know, transcontinentally across the ocean, your failure rate’s going to be a lot less on this chair. So, whereas the typical Chinese chair is 2 to 5%, and we see with the Japanese chair is less than 1%, I would suspect it’d be closer to that 1% or less mark, so anyway, exciting news about the iRobotics 7.

[SCREEN TEXT: Apex Chair Line Update]

Alan: Now, as far as Osaki goes, and Titan, and Apex, I mentioned that the Apex line, we’re introducing the Apex line on to our website. We’ve got two of the chairs on there, there’s three that we’ll have, the Apex Ultra, which is the one that if you look at the video, it’s one of me sitting in the chair, and it has – it’s a light blue color, but it’s really a gray chair – but with that chair, they also have the Apex Regent, and the Apex Regal. Now, the Regal, I have up on the website, but I don’t have the information for the Regal yet, so I should have that up this week as well, I just received the specs on that.

[SCREEN TEXT: Apex Regent = Johnson J6800]

Alan: The Apex Regent is the old Johnson J6800 chair, which has kind of resurfaced. Now, I don’t know if you remember, but a couple years ago, or a year and a half ago, or maybe even more than that, we started carrying the Johnson line. They approached us to carry their chairs, and we put them on our website, and then we found out that, shortly thereafter, that they changed their policy to not have any Internet marketing, or any Internet presence of their chairs, so we basically had to take everything down. We had one in our showroom, nobody knew about the Johnson chair, I sold the floor model. Well, now Osaki has – they’ve, Osaki is now the distributor for the J6800, which is the top of the line Johnson chair, so that chair now is in Osaki’s possession, if you will, in their warehouse, and they – of course, Osaki has no problem with me putting that product on the website, and it is up now, but rather than being the Johnson 6800, it is now going to be the Apex Regent from Osaki. The Apex Regal is another model altogether, another Chinese-made chair, but remember, the J6800, or the Johnson chairs, are Taiwanese, primarily Taiwanese made, so better quality, better warranty, I believe they’re going to have a – I’m trying to remember if they’re going to have a three year warranty on that Regent – I cannot recall, and maybe I need to check that to make sure we’ve got that right, but Johnson used to have a three year warranty on that chair, I’m not sure if it’s going to be the same, but anyway, great chair. It’s got, from what I recall, it’s got a very good neck, and low back massage, it’s got 3D rollers, it has a hand warmer, it has a thing you put around your neck, you can put over your chest, or around your back, or you can put your hands in little pockets for hand warming, or back warming. It’s a pretty clever little mobile heating device for that chair. Anyway, that’s the new Regent from the Apex line from Osaki. Again, the Ultra, I’ll have that one in our showroom before long. That’s a nice chair, it’s reminiscent of the Alpine to some degree, a little bit more vigorous than the Alpine, I would say, on the neck and shoulders, it has the calf rollers, it seems like a nice chair, and from what I understand, it’s from a new manufacturer. So, I don’t know, you know, what their failure rates are yet, I don’t know what their reliability is, I’m not quite sure on that, but that’s stuff that will begin to be discovered and uncovered as time goes on.

[SCREEN TEXT: New Osaki Model Coming – Japanese Manufactured!!]

Alan: Also, Osaki is coming out with another chair, which is – I could not mention the manufacturer – but they would allow me to say that it is from a prominent Japanese manufacturer. So, Osaki’s going to come out with a chair that is Japanese made, and I actually sat in it when I was at the showroom, and what – if you’ll look, I think I have a picture of me, laying on the chair, with my thumb up at Osaki, when I went on that visit, I think that picture, we put on the blog, but that is the Japanese chair, and they are going to be relabeling it as an Osaki – I can’t remember if they have a name for it yet. They also have another chair that LG has in Korea, and I’m not exactly – I’ve never heard of LG being in the massage chair business, but Osaki is – I don’t if you know about Osaki, but they’re very prolific, as far as introducing new brands to the market, and new models to the market, there’s always something coming out of Osaki. Well, the Apex is their most recent line, and now, of course, that includes one of the Johnson chairs. Now, they’re going to come out with a Japanese chair, from a top Japanese manufacturer, at decently affordable pricing. Then they’re going to have this chair, which is currently in creation – I think it’s a Chinese-made chair by LG, which you’ve probably heard of from commercials – but it’s a chair that Osaki’s going to be bringing in to the US. So, lots of cool things coming up.

[SCREEN TEXT: WholeBody 7.1 from Human Touch]

Alan: Let’s see, what else can I tell you about? I think that’s probably just about it for this week. Watch for the, watch for the Apex Regal being up on the website, watch for the iRobotics 7 being up on the website this week. Oh, and one chair that I’ve completely forgotten to put on the website, and I went to – as you know, a month and a half ago, I went to California to visit Human Touch, to visit Fujiiryoki, I was going to be visiting Cozzia, but they didn’t – the principals that wanted to meet with me weren’t there, so we couldn’t make it. But when I was at the Human Touch showroom, I was really impressed with their WholeBody 7.1, which is, I think, like a $1995 chair, it’s a low price chair. It had the heat, the convention heat element, through the mesh in the back, which was very interesting, but it had a – I believe it had a calf roller, it had foot rollers, and it was a nice chair, for like $1995, it was a great – it looked like a great bang for the buck, and I have neglected to get that chair up on the site, shame on me. I know that I’ve had to had, I’ve known that I needed to get it on the website, but I kind of let it fall through the cracks on my to-do list, and I got to tell you, my to-do list is huge, and that’s my own fault again. We just hired someone to take care of a lot of the extemporaneous things that I deal with on a daily basis, to not bog me down, so that I can do more things, like product posting, and business development, and whatnot, you know, content writing, and video recording, and whatnot, so this has been a long-needed hire for me. Anyway, and the gal that I hired is the gal that was my assistant as a chiropractor for 10 years, and it’s – she’s actually a dear friend of mine, and I’ve hired her to take care of a lot of the stuff that requires constant vigilance, and like – and making sure the products get on the website, and making sure that Dr. Weidner is doing what he’s supposed to be doing, and so, anyway, hopefully we’ll get that WholeBody 7.1 up pretty quick. They have another one also, the 5.1, I’ll need to remember to get that one up too, but I was really impressed with the 7.1, for the price, great bang for the buck, I wouldn’t mind getting that one in the showroom. Anyway, we have some other exciting things going on in the next couple of months, and I will announce those things as time comes – as time bears out, not – and I don’t want to say too much about them right now, but we have some exciting things happening at ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com,’ and of course, you’ll be the first ones to know, whenever I announce something, I always do it on my massage chair industry update, and on my blog, so stay tuned and watch out for that information. Well, I guess that’s about it, eh? So, if you have any questions, feel free to call me, you can see our phone number up here, at 888-259-5380. You can always email me at Alan@Massage-Chair-Relief.com, you can always chat with me online, you can go to our Facebook page, go to our YouTube channel, and leave comments, and questions, and I’d be happy to answer them, I try to get to as many as I can. One thing that I really have trouble letting go of is the one-on-one communication with my customers, I still like doing that. I know I should hire an expert to talk to customers, but you know, I just really enjoy that part of my business, so I will be available to communicate with you if you’d like to reach out to me, to talk about anything massage-chair related. Anyway, that’s it, so if you liked the video, please thumbs up ‘Like’ on our Facebook, or on our YouTube channel, share us, ‘Like’ us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, whatever your social media platform, help us spread the word about massage chairs. We’re very grateful for you, and thankful for the time you spent to watch this video. I hope you have a great day, and I will see you again in two weeks. Bye bye.

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