Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – April 6, 2015”
Alan: Hi, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com’ and today is our biweekly massage chair industry for Thursday, April 6th, oh sorry, Monday, April 6th, 2015. I’ve got a few things to go over with you today.
[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]
Alan: As far as stock status goes, I haven’t received anything different from the โ any different notifications from the massage chair companies โ so I assume that we’re still back-ordered on the ‘Black’ IT-8500 for another week, the ‘Red’ Inada DreamWave’s on back-order for another week, I believe the Titan 8400 is back-ordered for another week, as well. Some of this stock that was backed up by the dock workers strike, over the last few months, is still coming through, so it still hasn’t all come in through the docks yet, but apparently it’s almost, we’re almost there. So, needless to say, stock’s still pretty good for most chairs, but if you have a concern, give me a call. And a lot of times, people will say ‘Well, why does it say on your website that we’re in stock, you’re in stock on this chair, and when I order my chair, it’s not in stock?’ Well, there’s two things I can explain there. Number one is, the chair, as far as we know, is in stock, and then when we send in the order, then they notify us and say ‘Oh, well, that chair is back-ordered.’ That’s poor inventory โ that’s poor dealer communication โ and possibly some poor inventory management, not letting us know what is available, and what’s not available. And secondly, we may have chairs of another color in stock, than the color that you ordered, so we may have chairs in stock, of a particular model, but not the color that you want. So, we are still in stock, just different colors, so that explains that.
[SCREEN TEXT: Apex Regent = Johnson J6800]
Alan: OK, Osaki is coming out with a new chair โ oh, by the way, I wanted to make sure that this was clear, I think I talked about this on the last visit โ Osaki has added a new, this new product line called the Apex line, and it has the Apex Ultra, and the Apex Regal, which are two new models from China, and it also has the Apex Regent, which is the old Johnson J6800. Now, if you recall, I used to sell the J6800 โ well, the Johnson line, the 6800, the 5800, and I think, the 3800 โ a year and a half ago or so, when we first were asked to carry these chairs, but then they forbid any marketing or advertising of the chairs on the Internet. So, we had to basically take them down. Well, the chair is back in, now being sold as โ resold now as an Apex chair, the Apex Regent from Osaki, but it is still a Johnson chair โ and they’re calling it, they’re re-branding it the Johnson Regent. And I know the Johnson chairs โ or sorry, yeah, the Apex Regent, sorry โ and the Johnson chairs are Taiwanese-made chairs, good chairs, they have a good, strong warranty, good, strong chairs.
[SCREEN TEXT: Japanese vs. Chinese vs. Taiwanese]
Alan: And for those of you that may not know about the makings of chairs, Japanese is considered the top-made chairs, they will last you 15 years plus, Panasonic and Inada say 15 to 20 years, their failure rate’s less than 1%. The Chinese chairs are typically a 10-year lifespan, and have a 2 to 5% failure rate, as a general rule. So, they’re less expensive, but their quality is a little bit less. Well, Taiwanese-made chairs are kind of halfway in between, and I don’t know exactly what the failure rate is on them, I know it’s not as high as the Chinese chairs, it may be as low as the Japanese chairs, but I’m not sure, but I also know that those chairs will last a little bit longer. How much longer? I do not know.
[SCREEN TEXT: iRobotics 7 Imported Taiwanese Parts Assembled in USA]
Alan: Now, while I’m on the topic of Taiwanese chairs, the new iRobotics 7, which is still not out, it should be out in the next week or two, that chair has imported Taiwanese components, and it’s assembled with the American components here in Dallas, Texas, Arlington, Texas, where their head office is. So, that has Taiwanese components, so we expect that chair to have โ it will have a longer warranty, I believe it’s going to have a three-year, parts-and-labor warranty, and it will, it will โ it should have a lower failure rate, and it should last you a lot of years, a very nice chair, and I’ve talked about that. You can visit our, see my video on YouTube, or go to my blog, and read up on what I wrote, and talked about on that iRobotics 7, cool chair, looking forward to see it.
[SCREEN TEXT: LG Chair Coming to Osaki?]
Alan: Anyway, OK, so that then, and also, when I was visiting Osaki a month or two ago, I can’t even remember when I was there, I think it was a month ago, I was talking to Michael, over at Osaki, and he’d mentioned to me that they’re also considering bringing in a chair, an LG chair โ you may be familiar with the LG name in electronic components, I think they โ the little motto is ‘Life is Good,’ but LG has a chair, and it’s currently in Korea. Now, I think it’s manufactured in China, but it is distributed in Korea, and I believe that Michael and Steven at Osaki are going to be bringing that chair in, as a separate chair, as a separate model, I don’t know what it’s going to be about, I don’t know what it’s called, but that will probably be in the not-too-distant future.
[SCREEN TEXT: New Price for Inada Flex 3s – $5999!]
Alan: I talked about the iRobotics 7, that will be in the next week or two. Oh, and you know how the Inada Flex 3s had an $800 rebate during the month of March? Well, that ended March 31st, but they are now changing the MAP pricing, or the minimum advertised pricing, to $5999. So, now you can get that chair for $5999, all the time, you don’t have to wait for a rebate, it looks like the chair’s selling at a good clip at that price, so they’re dropping the price. So, it’s not very often you see a price drop in massage chairs, I will be honest with you, you rarely see that, if anything you see it stay the same, or it goes up. Well, Inada’s lowering the price of their Flex 3s to $5999, a good price for a quality Japanese product.
[SCREEN TEXT: New Brown Color for iRobotics i6SL]
Alan: Oh, and speaking of Luraco, I mentioned Luraco earlier, and I forgot to tell you that the i6SL comes in three colors, it comes in ‘Black,’ a ‘Caramel,’ and ‘Brown.’ Well, they’ve changed the ‘Brown’ color, they’ve got a new brown, and it’s not as dark, it’s a little lighter, they likened it in to a Snickers bar, I love Snickers bars, so I knew exactly what color they were talking about. But the color is not a deep, dark brown as, like you might see with the ‘Espresso’ on Human Touch, or the ‘Dark Brown’ on Infinite Therapeutics, it’s a lighter brown. It’s a nice looking brown, and it truly looks like a chocolate brown, but I thought I might let you know that the i6SL from Luraco is now a โ it now has a different brown โ and I’ll put that up on the blog. They don’t have any high-res images yet for me to put on my website, so I can’t show you on โ the colors won’t be on the website yet โ until we get those images, but it will be on my blog. I’ll be writing a post this week about that, and you can take a look at the colors there. Well, I think, believe it or not, that is about it for what we’ve got cooking this week. I had mentioned last time that we have some exciting things going on at ‘Massage-Chair-Relief,’ and I hope to make an announcement in the next couple of weeks about that, but we’re very excited about the future of ‘Massage-Chair-Relief,’ and the future of massage chairs, in general. It’s really become a home therapeutic staple in the US market, and we love it, and it is great. Of course, if you can help us spread the word about massage chairs, feel free to thumbs up ‘Like’ this video, share us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Plus, whatnot, we appreciate you helping us spread the word about massage chairs. But I think that is about it for this week, thank you so much for coming. If you have any questions, feel free to give me a call, you can see my phone number above, the 288, or 888-259-5380, but otherwise, I will see you again in two weeks. Thanks. Bye bye.
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