Massage Chair Industry Update – September 6, 2023

September 7, 2023
 By Dr. Alan Weidner
September 7, 2023
 By Dr. Alan Weidner

Massage Chair Industry Update – September 6, 2023

Massage Chair Industry Update – September 6, 2023

Welcome to Massage Chair Relief. And today is our bi-weekly Massage Chair Industry update for Wednesday, September 6th, 2023. Thank you so much for joining me today. Labor Day, of course, has just passed us, and September typically is a month for sales from various massage chair companies. But the sales that they have go on until the end of September. Luraco had a brief five-day sale over the weekend for their Special Edition, their I9 Max Special Edition, the I9 Max, the regular, and I believe, the I9 Max billionaire models. They all had discounts just for the weekend. And That sale ended yesterday. I mentioned it in my newsletter that I sent out last Friday. But I’m sure there will be other ones in the future.

[00:01:11]

They typically provide sales on their chairs from Black Friday through Christmas, Mother’s Day, and Father’s Day. But let us know if that’s the chair you’re interested in. That’s the only US-made chair as you may or may not know, based on what I’ve told you or what you’ve learned. But that chair, we do have in-store sales that go on throughout the year, so just feel free to come to the store, and give us a call at the store. That was one sale, but that one’s come and gone. The other one is from Kyota. Kyota is a brand of Infinity. They have the Kyota Genki, regularly 4,999 on sale for 3,999. They have a chair called the Nokori™, which is a split track, similar to their Circadian™ and Luminary™ that they sell only through Costco.

[00:02:02]

And I believe the pricing is about the same across the board for Luminary™, Circadian™, and Nokori™. But they have some certified pre-owned grade-A Nokori™ pre-owned chairs for sale for $5,999. Now, that’s not on our website because we don’t carry the Nokori™. Excuse me. I do have a cough, and I apologize. I’ll be apologizing, I’m sure, throughout this broadcast because of my coughing. So, bear with me. But the Nokori™ is a Costco exclusive, but we can sell their returns. So, everybody who sells chairs at Costco has a lot of returns, and they sell them through other avenues. And this is one of those channels that they sell their pre-owned shares through. It’s through retailers such as ourselves, just so you know. And then, there’s a new product from JPMedics called the KaZe. And it’s K-A-Z-E.

[00:03:04]

And it’s made in Japan. “Made in Japan.” As is the Kumo, the JPMedics Kumo. So, the JPMedics Kaze and the JPMedics Kumo are considered to be made in Japan because their components are made in China, but they’re exported to Japan for assembly, testing, and programming. And so, the KaZe is an upgrade from the Kumo. It’ll have the health analysis program where you put your thumb on the little … Like what the Ogawa Master Drive has. And that chair has a little bit smoother, nicer lines than the Kumo, but everything else is pretty similar. When you buy that chair, you also get the JPMedics Nami. N-A-M-I. And the Nami is a device that they have; you stand on it, and it’s got a little platform and a handle, and it has a high-frequency vibration that vibrates your whole body.

[00:04:05]

And some of you may have seen things like that in the past because I’ve seen these vibratory mechanisms, strictly vibration. But they move. The body gets moved from side to side and forward and back, and it relaxes muscles, increases blood flow, it helps maybe a little bit with the proprioceptive function. Proprioceptive nerves are nerves that sense position change. So, as you get older, your proprioceptive nerves tend to dull a bit, and you have a greater problem with balance. Well, the Nami stimulates those nerves, stimulates blood flow, and lymph flow. And it may even give you a little bit of pain relief. Unless, of course, your chair is giving that to you, which, as we talked about in our last industry update, 91% of people who buy a chair for a particular symptom do get relief from that symptom. I just wanted to let you know about that.

[00:05:00]

By the way, that Nami is regularly 2,999. And so, they’re giving that away for free for the month … I believe that’s just the month of September. And then, of course, Ogawa also has their sales on their Active L Plus, Active L 3D, and the Master Drive II 2.0. They have other sales. They typically have those. And, of course, they’re continuing those on through September. Now, I have mentioned that we have changed the navigation on our website. So, if you’re buying massage chairs, on our navigation bar across the top, rather than it saying,  “massage chairs,” like it used to say, then it was a dropdown menu of all the different brands we carried … Now it says “shop,” And the dropdown menus are best-selling massage chairs, massage chair brands, zero gravity recliners and office chairs and targeted massage.

[00:06:02]

And we just added a new category called “Accessories”. We haven’t added anything to that yet, but we’d like to have things like foot pads, back pads, and chair covers that you could use on any chair, but primarily massage chairs, of course. All these other chairs that we carry that these additional products have the same thread of massage. For example, the Zero Gravity massage chairs we carry are the Svago chairs, which is an Ogawa brand and line. We have the Human Touch® Gravis Zero G or ZG, and now the new Cirque ZG. And then we also have a chair from Osaki called the Sony Sona, I believe. I haven’t seen it or done much homework on it yet. But all of those chairs have vibration or airbag massage in them. And then you’ve got the X-chair office chairs, the X-Tech, the X-Chair 2, 3, and 4.

[00:07:03]

And those four models have a section in the low back, the lumbar area, there’s an accessory that you can plug in there called the ELEMAX™. And that can give you warmth, cool, warm, cold, or vibration. So, it gives you vibration in the format of an office chair. And, of course, the targeted massage chairs or targeted massagers or massage products, which will include the Nami that we just talked about, also have eye massagers, hand massagers, arm massagers, leg and foot massagers, just foot massagers, and neck massagers. All these targeted massage products make great gifts but also can be used when you’ve got your chair at home and you want to bring a massage gun to the office in case you sit in your work chair all day long.

[00:08:00]

Unless, of course, you have the X-Chair office chairs, which you can sit in and also get a vibration massage at the same time. But these are the kinds of things you can use in your home, your work, and travel, that will continue to give you the benefit of massage, even when you can’t sit in your massage chair or a massage chair. I also mentioned last week or the last industry update that I had the second edition of my book, The Ultimate Massage Chair Buyer’s Guide. Last industry update, I showed you a picture of my original, my old book, which was printed in 2013, I think it was 13 or 2011, but a long time ago. All the models I mentioned in that book are pretty much all discontinued. Well, we changed the format of the book, so it’s more evergreen. We’ve covered more topics that are pertinent to today’s massage chairs. I have a glossary in there for terms that may be unfamiliar to you as a new massage chair shopper.

[00:09:07]

We’ve got a chapter on having your own massage chair versus a licensed massage therapist. The question of where your chair is made. And that’s a whole discussion unto itself. Is it made in Japan, China, Korea, United States? Or are parts made in China and then exported to Japan or Korea and assembled there? I think it’s safe to say there’s not one true made-in-anywhere massage chair. Because even the chairs that are made in China … And that’s where the majority of components, in China Chinese factories. They even import components from Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, and other factories to make up their chair, which is primarily built in China, and then, in some instances, exported to Japan or Korea for assembly, testing, and programming.

[00:10:06]

And Luraco, they’re made in America. Anyway, I’m going off on one of the chapters here already. I’m talking about a topic. I’ve gone way overboard. American chairs … The Luraco chairs are made in America, but they have components that come from international locales. So, there isn’t any … I don’t think there’s any that I’m aware of, one chair that all their components are made in one place. Picking a chair that fits you. Are massage chairs safe? What health conditions can a massage chair help? Massage chair delivery options. Warranty support. Shipping Internationally. I’ve got a bunch of reviews in there as well, et cetera, et cetera. But that’s the book. And we just got our printings of the book. And that book is available on Amazon as well.

[00:10:59]

As we do live streaming and other interactive situations (and I’ll be talking about that in just a moment), we’ll probably give away a book at each of those live streams. If you’re interested in that book, let us know, or you can go to Amazon and get it. Don’t get the old version. I think it’s still up. We’ve got to bring it down. The old version is a blue color. This has a big button here that says “Second Edition,” and it’s still called The Ultimate Massage Chair Buyer’s Guide. And then, of course, live streaming. We’re going to be doing live streaming primarily for interviews with industry experts. In the past, I’ve interviewed the CEOs of the massage chair distributor companies. I’ve interviewed a technician about the difference between cheap chairs and good chairs. I’ve interviewed customers about their experience with their chairs.

[00:12:01]

So, there are lots of people that are in our industry that we can talk with. And we’d like to invite you to attend those live streams. And we will notify you beforehand when they are so that you can come and engage in the conversation. So, let’s say, for example, we have Jim Coppins from Infinity, who we’ve interviewed in the past a number of times. We would have him on the live stream. We will let you know in the live stream. And then, you could come on to the live stream as a viewer, and you can ask questions. So let’s say there’s a chair from Infinity, Kyota, or Sharper Image that you have a question about. You can ask Jim or whoever may be the person who’s there to do the chit-chatting with me. And you can ask those questions, and he can give you direct responses. That’s something that we are working on. We have everything set up.

[00:13:00]

We’re actually using the studio in this recording. And the format will be a little bit different when it’s live. Then, of course, those interviews will be posted to YouTube, Facebook, and our website so we can get the information out to everybody who wants to see it. That’s the live streaming. I also mentioned a couple of weeks ago about our pre-owned options. We do have a number of pre-owned chairs. As you know, Furniture for Life has discontinued its relationships with all retailers except their own retailers, just their own stores or their own retail network. And so, we have some floor models that we’re selling. We’ve sold most of them off now, but we still have a number left, like the Positive Posture Brio Sport, the OHCO M.8, the KAI GTS7, and the Katana, which is their low-priced model for $2,999. But anyway, we have those floor models for sale.

[00:14:00]

So, if you’re interested, you can go to our pre-owned directory menu item on the navigation bar on our website. Or, of course, you can give us a call or reach out through our chat or whatever. But we have very, very good prices on those chairs because we have to clear them out. We’re not their distributor anymore. Even though they are giving us as a parting gift, if you will, they’re giving a full factory warranty on those chairs. So, if you buy an OCHO M.8 from us and it’s been in our showroom for 6 to 9 months or whatever, you will get the full three-year parts and labor warranty. And that’s pretty cool. And we appreciate them doing that for us. Be aware of those pre-owned sales. A lot of people like the pre-owned deals. But the problem is if you buy a pre-owned chair off of Facebook marketplace, Craigslist, or whatever you got locally, I can pretty much guarantee you’re not going to have any warranty on that chair. Because if you’re buying it from a private deal, those warranties are not transferable.

[00:15:05]

Even our own lifetime labor warranty is not transferable, which we give to everybody, every chair that we sell on our website or in our stores. Once again, I got off on a bit of a tangent there, but there are lots of pre-owned options for you that you can pick up off the website. We also have a Human Touch Certus. We have an Infinity Circadian® available. That Circadian® is a split track. The Certus is Human Touch’s newest model. Very nice chairs. That’s about it for that. I just want to talk briefly about something. And this is a pet peeve that I’ve talked about before. And for those of you who have watched my videos, read my articles, or read any of my free reports, you’ll know that I’m not a big fan of these best massage chair reports or top ten massage chairs or consumer guide, if you will,  massage chair consumer guide or the consumer protection, whatever.

[00:16:17]

These listings of chairs mostly have chairs that, from what I’ve seen, aren’t even in production anymore. They’re discontinued. But then they’ll have 1 or 2 on that list that they really promote. And then they’ll have a link for you to buy it. And that link will take you to Amazon or some other affiliate program because they’re going to get paid an affiliate commission for selling that chair to you. Or the most recent one I’ve seen is “The best massage chairs of 2023”, and it’ll list five massage chairs. The first one is the chair that they want to sell. And I believe it’s put out even by the company that builds the chair. And then they got four more models that are either really weak or not even, like I said earlier, available anymore.

[00:17:11]

So, it leads you always to that number one pick or whatever pick it is that they’re trying to sell. And they will give you, of course, a great deal. But who knows what that chair is? There are so many no-name-off brands on the market, that it’s hard to tell what is considered a name brand. And some of the companies are trying to move more mainstream, like more primary brand name. But it’s tough because we’ve got these certain chairs that have been using retailers in the industry for years. They’re considered a premium brand. And then all of a sudden, you’ve got a company that comes along and says, “Hey, will you sell our chairs for us?” And, of course, some of these companies, we’re familiar with. They’ve got terrible customer support, or their chairs are made in cheap factories, and they’re cheap chairs. They’re inexpensive chairs but made with cheap products and components, and they’re not that great.

[00:18:06]

They have people writing these articles, these affiliates writing these articles about “top ten” or “best massage chairs of 2023”. And I look through those, and it makes me mad a little bit because I think customers are being misled because they’re being led to believe that these are great chairs. And they might be good chairs, but for the most part, they’re just run-of-the-mill everyday massage chairs from China that you can get a dime a dozen, if you will, in terms of selection and number of models. That’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine. I’m a retailer, of course, and I sell premium brand chairs, and I’m a believer in that. But as I’ve said many times before, cheap chairs do allow people to get into the market. and that’s great. So, there’s certainly a place for them.

[00:19:09]

But when I see an article or a booklet or a free report, if you will, that touts those models as the top models in our industry, Oh, my gosh! That is … I don’t know. That is not … Or the best massage chairs. I saw one report written by … I can’t remember if it was massage chair experts or massage chair technicians or something that touted the people who wrote the report as experts with massage chairs. And I looked at the list, and there were models like the Omega montage or whatever, that chair hasn’t been around for ten years. And then there were a couple of other ones that were just one-off shot chairs, one one-hit wonders.

[00:19:59]

They weren’t even wonders. They were just one-off chairs that were there, and then they flamed out again, like Slab Way. Slab Way was really big and popular. They were selling their chairs like crazy. Now they’re out of business, and you don’t see those chairs. And if you need parts or support, it’s non-existent. I get that you may not buy your chair for me. I understand that. That happens a lot. We educate, but we don’t always get the business. But I do want you to make a wise decision and get the kind of chair that you’ll be happy with, or at least get it from a company that you know will give you the support and the backup that you need should anything go wrong with your chair. Hopefully, you get a premium chair that has a lower failure rate, so you don’t have any problems with your chair. Once again have gone off on a bit of a tangent, but I wanted to talk a little bit about that because as you are shopping for chairs, you’ll see these chairs, you’ll see these reports, you’ll see these articles. Take them with a grain of salt.

[00:21:00]

It’s not to say there isn’t a good chair in that in those lists. There are some great chairs in those lists, but not many. As a matter of fact, I saw one list. I think it was a top-ten chair list. And there were two chairs that were name-brand, and the rest were just off brands, and some that I hadn’t even heard of before. Take my advice. And I’m trying to give it to you as a peer, not as a massage chair guy who sells massage chairs. I’m telling you, as someone who cares that you picked the right chair for you, your body, your budget, and for your family or whatever. That’s the note that I wanted to end on. I hope you found this video helpful. If you did, please feel free to thumbs up like us on our YouTube channel, and help us spread the word about massage chairs by sharing this video or any of our videos with your friends and family through your various social media platforms.

[00:22:03]

And, of course, you can also call us at 888-259-5380 if you have any questions. Actually, you know what? We’ve got the new format in here. So, 8888-259-5380. It’s down here. I forgot that we use a whole new format. And I’ve been doing the massage chair industry update since 2009, so 14 years. And by golly, I always used to point up here for the phone number, now it’s down here on the ticker. I hope you have a fantastic day. Feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions. If you want to know what our prices are for particular chairs or if you want to come and visit one of our showrooms, please just feel free to give us a ring. I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from massagechairrelief.com. And I will see you again in two weeks.

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