Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – April 13, 2018”
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Alan: Hi, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com’ and today is our biweekly massage chair industry update for Friday, March 13th, 2018. There’s not a lot to cover today, this should be a short one, but I do want to go over a couple of interesting points.
[SCREEN TEXT: Infinity IT-8500X3 Price Increase to $5995]
Alan: First of all, I’ll let you know that, again, I mentioned in previous issues that with the tariff on Chinese products, some of the โ we were expecting some of the prices of the Chinese-made chairs to go up, and so far, the โ Infinity’s the only company that has increased their pricing, their wholesale, or sorry, their retail pricing. And they just increased again the price of their IT-8500X3 from $5495 up to $5995, but they had increased the price earlier on the, I believe, on the Escape or the Evoke, and a couple of other chairs. But we’ve had another chair model from another company where theyโve increased our cost on the chair, they didnโt ask us to increase the retail price, but the cost of the chair has increased. So, we will see, some of that bantering between China and America will affect some of us, and in fact, it will affect some of the massage chair industry, as it already has.
[SCREEN TEXT: Some New Models Coming!]
Alan: There’s going to be some new models coming out. I’m not at liberty to divulge where they’re coming from, but we’re getting some, a couple of new models in from, two models coming from two different massage chair suppliers. Once I hear more about them, I will let you know. I will tell you that one of them is a Japanese-made chair that has foot rollers, and I’ll let you know more about that as the time arrives. I have no idea what the pricing is. I can’t say which company it is thatโs going to be making that chair available, but I just wanted you to know that thatโs on the horizon.
[SCREEN TEXT: Auto-Programs and Their Names]
Alan: Also, I get asked quite a bit, quite a bit actually, by people asking this question for people who want to know, you know, theyโll ask me something like ‘OK, I saw this program on this chair, the Sleep program, I want to know what other chairs have the Sleep program.’ Or, I’ll get someone that’ll say ‘I want a chair that has a good Morning program,’ you know, there’s maybe a chair that has that name on a program, and they want to see how many chairs we have that have a Morning program, and I just want to educate you a little bit about how massage chairs work, and how these auto-program names come up. All the chairs essentially do three main things. They โ well, aside from compressing โ you know, airbag compression, they all do that, whether it’s on the arms, legs, shoulders, feet, elbows, whatnot, they all have airbags of some sort, and you can adjust the intensity of those airbags to compress harder, or less intense, or in some cases, like the Inada DreamWave, the airbags facilitate the moving of the seat, in the DreamWave technology, and you can adjust airbag intensity, and in some cases, airbag speed and depth, but the rollers basically do three, three to four things. They do kneading, which is the up and down, and side to side kneading of the back muscles. Theyโll do tapping, which is more of a knocking, and it stays basically in one position, and by the way, you can adjust the width of those features. You cannot adjust width of kneading on massage chairs, only of โ for the most part โ only of tapping, and then there’s percussion, which is a faster tap, and then some chairs will have rolling, where the rollers just go up and down your back. There’s no kneading, no tapping, nothing, just rolling up and down your back. Well, an auto-program is basically a, it is a mix of all of those modalities, and including the speed of the rollers. So, let’s say the chair just rolls up and down, thatโs a more mellow massage. Let’s say the chair kneads a little bit, thatโs even a little bit more intense. What if it taps, thatโs even more intense. So, every chair will take those modes, rolling, tapping, percussing, and kneading, and come up with a configuration of those modes, combined with whatever airbag modes theyโve got going on, and they will call that a particular, theyโll give that a particular auto-program. So, what I’m basically saying is a Morning program, or let’s say a Sleep program, a Sleep program’s going to be probably slow kneading, light tapping, maybe more rolling. It’s going to be a more subtle, relaxing type of massage that can help you sleep. Someone might, on one massage chair, they might call it ‘Sleep,’ on another massage chair, they might call it ‘Rest,’ on another massage chair, they might call it ‘Relaxation,’ or whatever, but essentially, every chair company takes these modes that the rollers do, and combines them in certain ways, and gives them a name. The other variable would be speed, so if you’re getting a nice, slow kneading, or you speed it up, that can affect the way the massage feels. So, maybe a Morning program, or a Refresh program, or an Active program, one of those words, connotes a combination of those modes, but faster, and maybe even a little bit harder, a little bit deeper, in some chairs, it might have a 3D mechanism. So, when people ask me ‘Can you tell me all the chairs that have a Sleep mode, or a Sleep program,’ well, just because company A and company B call it a ‘Sleep,’ doesnโt mean company C, D, E, F, and G call it ‘Sleep.’ They might call it ‘Rest,’ or ‘Nighttime,’ or ‘Dream’ program, or whatever. So, it’s important that people understand that these programs are kind of titled by you know, the folks at that particular massage chair company. They probably have a group of people, engineers, or salespeople that sit around and go ‘Hmm, what should we call a program that has a slow kneading, tapping, and rolling? Well, let’s call it, you know, whatever, Sleep, let’s call it Dreamy, or let’s call it Relaxation.’ So, theyโll just come up with all these names, but essentially these chairs, they’ll all feel a little bit different, but thatโs the idea of what I’m trying to get at. So, donโt get too hooked, or too fixated on the name of a program, rather focus on what the program does to your body. If the program is a slow, methodical, kind of massage, well then, you want to look for that kind of massage in other chairs, if you’re comparing. Donโt look to see if theyโve got also a Sleep program, because if they donโt, then you think ‘Oh, well, this chair has a Sleep program, thatโs the program that I want,’ or ‘This is a program that has, you know, this is, they call this the you know, Beat the Living Daylights Out of You program, and nobody else has the Beat the Living Daylights Out of You program, so I guess I’m just going to go to this company A, because they have the Beat the Living Daylights Out of You program, and I want that program. So, thatโs just a little word to the wise as far as how these auto-programs are, how they’re put together, and they’re named. So, the name is pretty arbitrary, it’s just what they come up with for a name.
[SCREEN TEXT: “Top 10 Massage Chairs” – Consider the Source!]
Alan: And the second thing I want to talk about, I’ve talked about this before, and this is kind of a pet peeve of mine, I get people that call me, and say ‘Oh yeah, I’ve read all the reports, all the Top 10 reports out there, and I want to know about this massage chair, it’s called the Excalibur’ โ and I’m just using a name, I don’t know if there’s a chair called the Excalibur โ and I’ve never heard of the Excalibur before, and I’m going ‘Gee, what chair are you talking about?’ Well, they say ‘Well, take a look, it’s a Top 10 chair, according to this report, and I’ll look at the report, and there’s like seven chairs that I’ve never heard of, obscure chairs that are maybe sold really cheap on eBay, or Amazon, and it’s just some local dude thatโs selling a bunch of chairs, and he gives them a name, and he offers a good profit margin, and so, that chair then becomes this, the customer becomes fixated on this one model, saying ‘I’ve got, tell me about this chair, I want to get this chair, how come you donโt carry it?’ Well, theyโll list Top 10 chairs, and not a one of Top 10 chairs is a Japanese chair, or is a what we know in the industry is a good chair, a good quality chair, what we would consider one of the better chairs. Theyโve got a bunch of no-name brand chairs in there. Well, buyer beware, because a lot of these reports are just reports put out by people that we call affiliates, which is a very real industry in the online marketing, online marketing, online retail business, it’s people representing other people’s products and getting a commission if they get paid, or if they sell a chair, they get a commission from the provider of the chairs, if they sell that chair. And so, Amazon has an affiliate program, and you can sign on as an affiliate and then create your own content about ‘I’m going to pick these 10 chairs, because these are the 10 chairs that I can become an affiliate for, and they have good profit margins, so I’ll get a better commission, so I’m going to write just a little blurb about each of these 10 chairs.’ And there might only be two or three, the one report I saw, there were seven chairs I’ve never heard of, and then there was a Panasonic chair, the Inada chair, and I can’t remember what the other chair was, which were arguably good chairs. But the other seven, I’ve never heard of, and the rank some of the other seven above the three well-known chairs. So, again, buyer beware if you see a report that says ‘Top 10 Massage Chairs,’ consider the source. It may be an affiliate guy, some affiliate guy or gal thatโs just selling chairs, and put together this piece, and put an ad on Google, and you see it and you read it, and you buy, or you buy in to it, and you get a chair. Not to say that the chair that you get is going to be a bad chair, but donโt call it a best seller when in the grand scheme of things, it is not really a very well-known chair, and probably not a best seller compared to the name-brand chairs. It could also be a company that sells direct to consumer, and they donโt have a retail network, but they put up little reports, or little sites, elsewhere on the web, with these reports that say ‘Hey, this chair is ranked number one, or number two, or number three,’ and it just happens to be their chair, and thatโs the other, and thatโs the other kind of person that would put out reports like that, because they want to make their chair look good relative to a bunch of other chairs. So, just be wary of that, and I’m not trying to poo poo anybody thatโs trying to make a living out there, but I am just trying to say, you know, watch out that you’re not getting, you know, getting some false information. Do more homework, study more, or read more, it’s hard. The massage chair industry right now is kind of like the wild west. People coming up with more and more products, more and more distribution channels, more and more reports, and articles, and videos. It’s really hard to believe, or hard to know what to believe, and what not to believe, and what chair to get. I get calls all the time from people that say ‘I am so confused, there’s so many chairs out there, and so many articles, and so many reports, so many Top 10s, so many this, that, and the other.’ They really do get confused, and I’m not telling you that I’ve got all the answers, but you know, I’ve been in the business for 14 years, and I know someone, I know a chair thatโs pretty much just a no-name brand chair, and there are some red flags that can help you identify those, and I’ll get in to that in another video. But there’s also brand-name chairs, chairs that do have a reputation, good or bad, but they are considered brand-name chairs.
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Alan: So, I hope that helps in some way. If you have any questions, of course, you can give me a call at 888-259-5380, and of course, you can email me, or reach out through any of my, you know, properties, whether it’s Facebook, or Twitter, or YouTube, or chat on our website, chat software on our website. If you ever have any questions, feel free to give me a call, or reach out to me, or any of my staff, we’d be happy to help you.
[SCREEN TEXT: Please “Thumbs Up” Like This Video!!]
Alan: Well, I hope you found this video informative, and helpful in some way. If you did, please feel free to thumbs up ‘Like’ us on our YouTube channel, and of course, help us spread the word about massage chairs by sharing this video with your friends and family through your various and sundry social media platforms. We do appreciate you helping us spread the word. I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com,’ and I will see you again in two weeks. Bye bye.
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