Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – April 9, 2014”
Alan: Well, hi, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from Massage-Chair-Relief and today we are going to do our biweekly massage chair industry update for Wednesday, April 9th, 2014. We don’t have a lot of things to cover today, but we’ve got some things that are important, so let’s get in to that.
[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]
Alan: As far as stock goes, I don’t have a complete update of stock status on all the companies, but as far as I know, everything is in stock right now. Osaki’s had shipments of their popular models in. Infinite Therapeutics just received a brand new shipment of 8500s, which is where they were deficient. I don’t think they have the 9800s in stock yet, and their 7800 is out of stock on a lot of their colors too. I believe Inada is in stock, except for their ‘Black’ YuMe, and you know, I’m not sure if any of the other chairs are actually out of stock, so I think we’re good to go.
[SCREEN TEXT: HT-7120 Price Increase to $2999]
Alan: I will mention that this last week I was notified that the HT-7120 from Human Touch, the HT-7120 chair, the price, it changed from $2899 up to $2999. So, there’s $100 increase in price there.
[SCREEN TEXT: Omega Montage Premier and Serenity Models Discontinued!]
Alan: Also, we have learned that Omega has discontinued the Montage Premier chair, and the Serenity chair. Alright, now, the Serenity chair, I sold a few of those, not many. The one I had in my showroom – I was really excited when this chair came out because it was a very stylish-looking chair, and I thought ‘This is a great integration of massage and contemporary looking furniture’ – so it doesn’t look like a massage chair. Well, the chair came, and it was mostly airbag massage, and it had a roller massage, but only in the low back. It was not a great – after a few minutes in the chair, the roller became very irritating to the low back – I found. Also, I found that the wooden base, on this chair, and it was a swivel chair, it swiveled all the way around, you know, a 360 swivel, the base, I heard a crack one day while I was sitting on the chair, and you know, I just thought ‘Well, maybe it’s just settling in from the assembly.’ Well, we later moved the chair to make, to clean, or take it out, I can’t remember what we were doing, or moving it around the showroom, and I noticed a whole bunch of wood chips underneath the chair. So, we laid the chair down, and looked underneath it, and sure enough, the base was plywood, and when I heard that crack, the wood had crack, and it was, all the chips of this wood were on the carpet. So, it seemed to be a fairly cheaply made chair, I had problems with the remote, it had a pop-up remote cover that when you put it down, it got stuck, I had to use a knife to open it. Oh, it was just a nightmare, I took the bloody thing out, and put it in the back of my showroom. So, I think I ended up giving it away to someone that wanted to work on it as a project. So, when I saw that this one was discontinued, need I say, I was not terribly surprised. The Montage Premier was discontinued as well. They have the Montage Elite, the Premier and the Elite were very, very similar, there was just a very minor difference, and you know what, I can not even remember what the difference was now, but you can still get the Montage Elite.
[SCREEN TEXT: New Osaki OS-4000T … with Foot Rollers!!]
Alan: Also, Osaki has introduced an iteration of their very popular OS-4000 chair, called the OS-4000T. Now, I found out about this because one of my customers that ordered a 4000 from me, received the chair, and was so happy that he got foot rollers in his chair. I said ‘Foot rollers?’ He sent me the email telling me how wonderful it was to have foot rollers, and he thanked me. I couldn’t take credit for it, and I don’t know, I couldn’t say that I knew anything about it. Osaki has brought in a few shipments, or a shipment of a few, maybe a container load of these 4000Ts, which is the Osaki 4000 plus, the old 4000, plus foot rollers. It also has a little different synthetic upholstery. It’s a more shiny, sheeny, smooth kind of synthetic leather, as opposed to a more textured synthetic leather, which the other 4000 has. So, this is more of a test they say, it’s not something that, it may not be something that’ll be long term. They’ll see how it competes with their other chairs that have foot rollers, like the 7200CR. They’ll see how it compares, or how it holds up, if the foot rollers have problems, you know, mechanical problems, they may pull it, but for now – and the great thing is that the price is the same, it’s $2895 minus $200 for the instant savings — $2695, you get yourself an OS-4000 with foot rollers. So, a pretty good deal, and pretty interesting for those of you that might be thinking about an OS-4000.
[SCREEN TEXT: 1-Month Old Espresso-Colored HT-7450 for $2899]
Alan: Let’s see, what else can I talk about? Oh, you know, I got, and I mentioned this, I think, last time, no I didn’t, I think I was just getting the chair, but I got a Human Touch HT-7450. It’s a brown one, it was only a month old, the guy used it a couple weeks, didn’t like it, sent it back, or he didn’t want it, or something, it wasn’t was he was expecting. Sometimes people will buy a chair, sight unseen, and you’d be amazed how many people do, but he bought it sight unseen, it wasn’t what he was expecting, I don’t know what the deal was, but it’s in pristine condition. The 7450 was like the pioneer zero-gravity massage chair by Human Touch. I have one in my showroom, I’ve had one for years, they’re great chairs, and it’s a great price, we’re selling it for $2899, it’s usually $3499. So, call me if you’re interested in it, give me a jingle, and we’ll get you hooked up.
[SCREEN TEXT: S-Track vs. L-Track]
Alan: You know, I had an email question from one of my viewers that asked me about the L-track, or he was asking about S-tracks and L-tracks. Now, I’d never heard of L-tracks before, so I assumed he was talking about a chair like the Iyashi, and I’ll explain why. Pretty much every chair nowadays, that is a full-fledged massage chair, has an S-track, a roller S-track, which means the rollers follow the S-shape, or the sinusoidal, snakelike-shape of the spine, the neck, mid back, low back, pelvis, it goes in this shape, and then, it stops at the low back. Well, the Iyashi now – I think I talked about this two weeks ago, come to think of it, but then the Iyashi, comes down, and follows the S-track, and goes underneath, and under the butt. So, that is what I figured meant the L-track, well, sure enough, that’s what the L-track was, and this fellow seemed to think that with an L-track, you did not need to have intensity adjustment. Well, I don’t know if that’s true, because the Iyashi does not have intensity adjustment. Any chair that has an intensity adjustment, I think, is better than a chair that doesn’t have intensity adjustment because you can accommodate different body sensitivities, and you know, if someone wants an aggressive, deep-tissue massage, you can crank it up. If someone wants, you know, is too sensitive, and they want it pulled back a little bit, you can pull it back. Anyway, if you ever hear the term ‘S-track,’ you’ll understand what that is, and you can always check out our ‘Massage Chair Dictionary‘ on YouTube. I have a glossary there, and we describe different terms in different videos. The S-track just means that the rollers follow that S-track. Well, the L-track is not really part of the – it is part of the S-track – but it just moves in a different direction. Anyway, if you hear those terms, now you’ll understand what an L-track is, and an S-track. They’re not two separate and distinct things, they’re usually involved in the same roller track, they just go, S-shape down, L-shape across.
[SCREEN TEXT: Inada Duet in Japan]
Alan: Now, Inada’s got a new chair coming, it’s in Japan, I don’t know if they’re going to bring it to the US or not, I haven’t heard any talk of it yet. It’s called the Duet, and what is has is an S-track curve, an S-track roller system down to the low back, and then, it has a whole different roller system underneath the butt, that works the butt and the calves. So, you actually get, it’s like, I don’t know, it’s like 70 inches or something, it’s a humongous amount of roller massage. The rollers on the back, that follow the S-curve, are different, they’re more typical quad rollers. The rollers on the butt and the calves are more, it looks like a sprocket, almost, like two sprockets that kind of work the butt, and then, down the calves, and that is maybe the exception to the rule of the S-track and the L-track being one. This is like an S-track, along with this other funky track, going down the butt and the calves. Anyway, I’m talking too much about tracks, just thought you’d want to know, and if you hear those terms, you know what we’re talking about.
[SCREEN TEXT: 888-259-5380]
Alan: You know, I think that’s just about it for this week. So, I will keep you posted with any new things that I learn, or things that I that I find out about. If you have any questions, feel free to email me, or give me a call, I’d be happy to chitchat with you. You can always reach me, or someone at our place, at our toll-free number, which is 888-259-5380. Of course, you can chat on Facebook with us, or leave a comment on our blog posts, or on our YouTube channel, whatever, but we’d love to hear from you. Especially if you have any good questions, or any ideas, or thoughts, or news that you’ve heard that you want to share with us as well, and I think that is about it. So, feel free to, if you like this video, or found it helpful, or any of our videos helpful, please share us, tweet us, ‘Like’ us, ‘+1’ us, subscribe to the YouTube channel, whatever you need to do to, you know, to help spread the word about massage chairs, and of course, for you to be apprised of any future videos that we have coming out. So, again, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com,’ it was great visiting with you today, and we will see you in another two weeks. Bye bye.
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