Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – January 2, 2012”

Alan: Hi, this is Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com‘ and Happy New Year.

[SCREEN TEXT: Happy New Year!!]

Alan: Today is January 2nd, 2013, our first broadcast for the year, and I hope you all had a great holiday and a good time to spend with family and friends and reflect on 2012 and make wonderful resolutions for 2013.

[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]

Alan: Now, we’ll begin with our massage chair industry update today by going over stock and inventory status for the different companies. I do not have the Human Touch status, but as of two weeks ago, we were back ordered on the HT-9500 and the ZeroG 4.0 in a few colors, and apparently they were all due to be in stock at the end of December, so I expect that they are all in stock now. The Sognos are all in stock, the YuMes, and the i1s are all in stock for Inada. They have some inventory pressure on the ‘Red’ Sogno and the ‘Black’ leather Sogno, but everything else is available. Well, they’re all available for shipping, but all the other colors are in good stock, good supply.

[SCREEN TEXT: Discontinued Osaki OS-2000]

Alan: Osaki has discontinued the 2000, the OS-2000, and I didn’t know this until I’d received an order for a couple of 2000s for a client in New York, and when we went to fill the order we were advised that they had just recently discontinued the 2000. So, we’ve not taken it off our website yet. My web guy has got that on his list of to-dos, and hopefully that will be off the website, but the OS-2000 by Osaki is discontinued and out of stock. The OS-1000 and the OS-7075R are both back ordered as well – in all colors – until the middle of January, so another week and a half, two weeks. The 7075 is a very, very popular chair, and I continue to get orders even though they’re back ordered, and we do encourage you to order these chairs ahead of time. Don’t wait until they are – the back orders are supposed to be filled, because they may already be spoken for, the future chairs are already spoken for – so order now if you’re interested in the 7075R. The Osaki OS-3000 is out of stock except for the ‘Charcoal’ color. So, there are some updates for you as far as Osaki goes. Now, Omega, their popular Omega Montage Pro is out of stock until mid-March on all colors except for the ‘Grey.’ So, I have no idea why they’re out of stock until mid-March, that’s a long time. That’s an inventory control issue, which is hurting their stock, and obviously will hurt their sales, but that is back ordered as well.

[SCREEN TEXT: Panasonic EP1285 NOT Discontinued …Yet]

Alan: I had reported – on my last inventory, or not inventory, but my last massage chair industry update – that the Panasonic 1285 had been discontinued. Now, I have contacted my – that was a rumor that I heard from a reliable source – but I contacted my Panasonic supplier and I was notified that no they are not being discontinued. Now, I don’t know if that means that they are not being produced right now and they just have a lot of existing stock here in the US, but that chair, the Panasonic 1285, is available for sale.

[SCREEN TEXT: Increase of Inada Sogno Price February 1, 2013]

Alan: Now, also I should mention that the Inada chair, the Sogno is going up in price another $200 on February 1st. Now, this should not come as a surprise to anybody. Inada has raised the price of this chair every year since 2008 when it first came out in to the market. And I think when it first came out it was $6299, now it’s all the way up to $7999, on February 1st it will go up to $7999, and the ‘Black’ leather will go up to $8999. Now, the YuMe will not be changed in price, nor will the i1.

[SCREEN TEXT: Doctor’s Choice 3A by Inada]

Alan: Their Doctor’s Choice 3A chair is being closed out, and so there are some clearance prices for that. If you’re interested to take a look at that chair, which has a similar roller system to the Sogno, but just not the airbags, and a whole different look. But a wonderful chair, I use it every time I finish playing hockey, and I have a sore back, that’s the chair I like to sit on because of the ease of use, and because of the rollers going way down in to the buttock. I really enjoy that because that’s where I’m sore, in the sacral area and the sacroiliac area.

[SCREEN TEXT: ‘www.inada-3a-massage-chair.com’]

Alan: But if you want to check out that chair, go to www (dot) inada (dash) 3a (dash) massage (dash) chair (dot) com. I’ll have it up here above me so you can see the correct spelling, but you can check out that chair. It’s regularly $5799, but we have it on clearance – or Inada has it on clearance – for $4499. But that, other than that, only the Sogno is going up in price. Now, I’ll tell you, the Inada Sogno is an anomaly in the industry. It is a very, very popular chair, it has been ever since it came out in 2008. I mean, I remember when they introduced that chair to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in February of 2008, and I started getting calls then, about this chair and when it was going to be out. And then of course, we didn’t get it until July, and we were one of the first retailers in the United States to have one, and we’ve had it in our showroom ever since. It’s a very, very popular chair, and we’ve made a lot of videos on it, and we’ve talked a lot about it in articles. I’ve written ad nauseum about the Sogno. It’s a very, very good chair and a lot of the chairs that you see today, like the IT-8200, the 8500, the Osaki 4000, 3000, 6000, 7200H, the Omega Montage Pro, and some other styles have all been kind of look-alike copycats of the Inada Sogno. Now, they’re not the same chair as far as the Japanese-made quality, nor do they have the exact same feature set, though a few of the chairs have tried to imitate a little bit of it – like the Infinite Therapeutics chairs have a seat that moves from side to side like the Inada Dreamwave does, and the Osaki 6000 and 7200H have a cervical traction device that has airbags that push down on the shoulders – but again, not quite the nuanced, refined, discriminating massage that the Sogno has. But the Sogno is a very, very popular chair, and its price has gone up every year. As a matter of fact, last year it went up $800, and you know what, sales have continued to soar for this chair. It has continued to grow, and I don’t expect this $200 increase to change that at all, but it will go up from $7799 to $7999, so if you want to get that chair and you want to save a couple hundred bucks, do not wait until February 2nd or after February 1st to buy this chair.

[SCREEN TEXT: How To Save $200 on Inada Sogno]

Alan: Also, with regard to the Sogno if you want to save a couple hundred dollars, you know, we include ‘White Glove’ delivery on that chair. If you do not want the ‘White Glove’ delivery and you order regular, free, curbside delivery, which we have on all of our other chairs, I don’t have to pay the $200 for the ‘White Glove’ delivery and I can pass that savings on to you as the consumer. So, if you’re interested in saving a couple hundred bucks on the Inada Sogno, order before February 1st and let me know if you’d like to order without the ‘White Glove’ delivery and I can take off another $200 off the price of the chair. OK, enough said about the Inada Sogno. I think that’s probably about it. I will – I’d like to just make an observation – massage chairs are becoming more and more popular in the United States. Now, in Asia, and particularly in Japan, you find them everywhere. In Japan, it’s almost like every other house has a massage chair in it. Massage chairs were invented in Japan. The first massage chair companies, Fujiiryoki and Inada, are Japanese companies. Panasonic, the first mass producer of massage chairs, is a Japanese company. So, overseas massage chairs are a part of their regular, healthy lifestyle. Well, in the United States it’s becoming so, and I think a couple of factors are playing in to that. Number one, just more and more chairs are coming out, and they’re more well known, and more people are aware of this form of a therapy. And but, secondly, I think that the ‘Baby Boomers,’ of which group I am a part, are starting to experience more and more aches and pains from riotous living, if you will, when we were younger. I know that my sports when I was younger have now resulted in aches and pains I suffer today. There’s other things that come in to play as well, but for the most part, it’s just us getting old and a little bit of our osteoarthritis setting in and some scar tissue that is starting to rear its ugly head, and the massage chairs are a wonderful, wonderful therapeutic device for those of us in this age group. Now, having said that, I want you to know that it’s not just ‘Baby Boomers’ and old people that order massage chairs. There’s a lot of young people that are buying massage chairs for the stress relief and for the anxiety relief and for minor aches and pains, but I think because of the massive ‘Baby Boomer’ demographic, massage chairs are becoming more and more popular. And so, to my customers and to my shoppers and visitors, thank you for patronizing us in 2012. It was a very good year for massage chairs, and I thank you for making us your destination of choice when it comes to picking a massage chair out for your home or your business.

Now, in closing, I’d just like to mention I get asked quite a few times – when people call me and we chit chat, one of the first questions people ask me is – ‘Well, what kind of a doctor are you?’ because I am a doctor, but I’m a doctor of chiropractic. And I thought I might give you a little history of how we got in to this business. In 1988, my wife and I and our two older children moved to California from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada – we’re both from Alberta, I’m from Edmonton and my wife’s from Southern Alberta – but we moved down to Southern California so that I could go to chiropractic college. And I took, you know, four, five academic years of chiropractic college and graduated with a ‘Doctor of Chiropractic.’ And we settled here in Utah, we didn’t want to go back to Canada because it was too cold, didn’t want to stay down in Southern California because it seemed a little bit too crazy for us in raising a family. And we came here to Salt Lake, which is kind of halfway in between Canada and California and has been the perfect place for us, but I practiced here for 17 years and sold my practice about 4.5 years ago to do the massage chairs full time.

Now, I started the massage chair business about 10 years ago in my clinic when I had a massage chair on display, a Human Touch chair. It was an HT-125, and a lot of patients liked sitting on it, and I had people sit on it just to help them pass the time away while they waited for me to pop their bones, so to speak. Well, a few patients bought those chairs, asked me if they could buy them and I provided them for them, not as a business, but just as a courtesy, and those chairs – those clients that bought those chairs – all of a sudden didn’t come back to the clinic for as much care as they used to have before they got the chairs. One of the gals that bought one of the chairs had parents that lived across the street from me here in South Jordan, Utah, and when I saw the folks one day I said ‘How come your daughter doesn’t come by for the adjustments anymore?’ And they said ‘Well, ever since she got the chair she hasn’t had aches and pains like she had before.’ So, I saw that the chairs were actually offering a tremendous therapeutic benefit and it was actually supplanting some of the therapy that I was offering, and so that’s when the whole idea of maybe starting a business began. And so, in 19-, or sorry not 19-, in 2005 we began our website, ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.’ And in July of 2005 – and worked night and day on that thing, I remember being up ’til the early hours of the morning building the site and trying to get it to show up on Google so people could find it when they were looking for massage chairs – and in October of 2005, we sold our very first massage chair online, and it was a fellow in Kansas and I was so excited. Well, I remember thinking ‘Well, if we could sell one massage chair a month that would help us, you know, maybe help pay our mortgage,’ or whatnot because chiropractic was not a very, it was not a very good business for us as far as making a living, and we struggled for many, many years in the chiropractic profession trying to make a decent living. So, we thought ‘Well, if we could sell one massage chair a month that would help pay our mortgage.’ Well, of course, it started to increase in sales and in 2006, which was our very first full year, we did so well in the business that I figured well, you know what, maybe this is where I should put my energy, and then that’s where we did put our energy. We put the chiropractic practice up for sale, it took two years to sell it, or a little over two years to sell it. And we finally had it sold in May, May 29th of 2008. And I’m actually still in the same building where my chiropractic practice was, and when we do a tour of the – when I do an online video tour – of the showroom, I’ll show where our office is and where the old chiropractic office was. But I’m just five doors down from where I spent the first 17 years of my professional career, and so we’ve been in this business ever since and we’ve made it a full-time venture, and my family has become involved. My sons have helped me to deliver chairs and install chairs, my wife has worked in the showroom on various and sundry days, and my daughters have done things from answering phones to writing blog posts and whatnot. So, it’s been a wonderful family business, but that is kind of the history of how I got in to the massage chairs, and as a chiropractor it’s a perfect fit with massage chairs because massage chairs deal with musculoskeletal problems principally, and that’s what chiropractors do, and a lot of the things that people come in for care for in a chiropractic office get benefit from the massage chair. And so that is my – that’s the story of – and I’m sorry if I rambled a little bit too much, I do have a tendency to verbal diarrhea if I’m not careful and I think I verbal diarrheaed all over you now for the last number of minutes.

But anyway, that gives you an idea of how we got started in this business and I’ve been here ever since, and I love it. And I love the people that I serve, I love selling these chairs, I love the happiness and joy and pain relief that it offers our shoppers and our customers. It really means a lot to me that you have become such a big part of our business for so many years and helped it grow to where it is today. And I am very, very thankful to all of you who have made this business, or this website, or this online property a success and I thank you from the bottom of my heart and express my deepest appreciation for you. So anyway, a new year is upon us, I will keep you posted of course, as I hear about new chairs, new models, I’ve heard whisperings of some new models coming out. I can’t say anything yet because of I have been sworn to secrecy, but I will – in the next few weeks – will probably be telling you about some new models. And if you have any questions, feel free to call me on my personal cell number, 801-651-2026. You can also call me at the showroom, 801-417-8240, or of course you can call us toll-free, 888-259-5380. We’d love it if you ‘Shared’ this video or any of our other online content, articles or videos, with your friends on Facebook or Twitter or if you could ‘Like’ us on YouTube, that would be awesome as well. We really do appreciate that support. Again, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com,’ and I hope you have a fabulous day and a fabulous new year. Bye bye.