Massage Chair Industry Update – August 25, 2015 (Video)

August 26, 2015
 By Allison Bricker
August 26, 2015
 By Allison Bricker

Massage Chair Industry Update – August 25, 2015 (Video)

Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – August 25, 2015”

microphoneAlan: Hi, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com’ and today is Tuesday, August 25th, 2015, and this is our biweekly massage chair industry update, and we’ve got some exciting – I’ve been telling you for months that we have some exciting news, and we’re finally ready to announce the news, if you haven’t seen it already – but let me just quickly get in to stock status, that I am aware of.

[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]

Alan: The ‘Dark’ – there are some Inada DreamWave chairs that are a little back-ordered, and apparently they’re here in the states, but they haven’t been released by the FDA or something, from the port, so but they should be in stock fairly soon – I know the ‘Dark Brown’ is back-ordered for sure, because we have a customer that’s waiting for it. But, and then the only other thing that I’m aware of that’s back-ordered is the Iyashi, the Infinity Iyashi ‘Black’ on black, and it’s back-ordered until the 10th of September, which isn’t too far away, it’s a couple weeks away. So, if you want to get one, of course, we encourage you to order them now, so that you don’t end up not having one available when they do come in. I think that is about it as far as stock status goes, yeah, that’s as far as I’m aware of.

[SCREEN TEXT: Massage Chair Relief Store #2!!! In Southern California!]

Alan: Now, as far as the news goes, two weeks ago today, I signed a lease on our second store, and as you know, I have a showroom here in Salt Lake City that’s been here since 2008. We started our business back in 2005, as far as the online end of it goes, but we opened this showroom in 2008, when I sold the chiropractic clinic that I owned, and the idea of opening other stores has always been there in the back of my mind, but you know, it takes a capital investment, it takes guts, it takes quite a bit of research, quite a bit of analyzing, and pondering, and thinking, and of course, seven years later now, and we finally have announced our second store, and this one is in southern California. It’s in a town called Cerritos, which is centrally located, and in a very, very nice city. It’s on the corner of South Street, and Bloomfield Avenue, in a place called Cerritos Village, and we’ve signed a lease there for an 1100-square-foot office, or 1100-square-foot space, we’re making it in to a showroom. It’s going to be similar to the showroom here in Salt Lake, but a little wider, which is great, because there’ll be more room for moving around, and we’ll make the showroom a little deeper as well. The one here in Salt Lake, we could’ve made it a little deeper to fit in more chairs. As it is, we can fit 16 chairs here, and it’s tight, I mean, the chairs are stacked up pretty tight. There, we should be able to fit up to 20, fairly comfortably, and still have space in the back for, you know, storing chairs that’ve come to be shipped, or to have a little office space, and of course, a restroom. But I’m very, very excited about this, it’ll still be called the Massage Chair Relief, or Massage Chair Relief Store, but it’ll be Massage Chair Relief in California, will be the legal name, and we’re very, very excited about it. I have been looking for a spot for – boy, since March, April, and I think that was the first time I went down, or flew down to California, was in April – and we looked around. I had already done some research, preliminary research, with some realtors, ahead of time, to figure out an optimal place for us, demographically and geographically. And we kind of knew that the Buena Park, Cerritos area, was kind of where we were looking at, Norwalk, and we actually had found a place in Artesia, which is right between Norwalk and Cerritos, and it’s about a mile away from where we are now, maybe a little over a mile away from where we are now. But the place – it was a good spot, lots of foot traffic, a very popular Asian market was there, and it was a newly renovated space, very, very nice – and we were quite excited about it, but the cost was prohibitive to me, for the same amount of space. It was double the price of what we’re paying now. It was also – the parking was not optimal, and there were just some other things – you kind of get these gut feelings, as I’m sure you’re aware of, you get these gut feelings about what’s right, and what’s not right, or where you’re kind of going, and you know, you’re maybe going too far on a particular place, or a particular thing. Well, I was kind of getting those feelings, so we backed out of that place, checked in to some other ones, and actually found a place that we had looked at when we first went down, back in March or April, but didn’t think, at the time, of it as the optimal location. Well, now that we have gone through this exhaustive search – and I might mention that I’ve flown down to California probably five or six, maybe seven times – to look at different spots, to negotiate leases, to talk to contractors, to talk to my suppliers, and whatnot, we decided on Cerritos Village. The price is great, the spot is very nice, it’s in a fairly residential area – oh, and the location is strategically located between the 605 freeway, and the 91, and the I-5 is not far away either – so it’s very easy, for freeway access, to get to this store. The shopping center is not in a really high-traffic area, so you don’t have to deal with terrible traffic to get to it, it’s very easy to get in to, there’s plenty of parking spaces. Anyway, I’m very, very excited about this, and it’s taken me forever to announce it, and I’ve been sitting on pins and needles, wanting to announce it, but not really having signed the lease, and being fully committed, I didn’t want to make an announcement, and I’m glad I didn’t, because I probably would have made an announcement about the other place, which we ended up not going to. So, again, this one is on Bloomfield Avenue in Cerritos. The address is 19117 Bloomfield Avenue, Cerritos, the plaza’s called Cerritos Village. And of course, and you can go on my blog post, I wrote a blog post about announcing the opening, you can see some pictures. You’ll see of picture of me signing the lease, and of course, I’m in my golf shirt and shorts, on a concrete bench outside of the store. That’s where we met the realtor, or the real estate agent, and then there’s also a picture of the storefront. Ours is the one with the blank sign face, and that’s where we’ll be, and there’s a picture of me, and man named Michael Nguyen, who is an amazing man that I met. He’s a Vietnamese-American, and I was looking for someone that could speak Vietnamese because we sell quite a few chairs to the Vietnamese market. But a lot of the Vietnamese people are first generation, and they don’t speak English, and unlike maybe the Japanese or Chinese demographic, which has been around multigenerationally, so a lot of them speak English, or have family, plenty of family that speak English. Well, we have a lot of Vietnamese people call our toll-free number, and I’m unable to talk to them, I mean, the communication is very chopped, very poor, and they just need someone that can speak their language, and so, I was looking for someone, in particular, that could, and I found Michael. He was a referral from one of my customers, and he is a magnificent man. I just really enjoy meeting with him, every time I fly down there, I meet with him. He will be there at the store, he’ll be kind of the main guy at the store, and he has been in computers for quite a while, but has training in – he has a Master’s in acupuncture and Oriental medicine – and so he is a very capable man, very articulate, very friendly guy. I really enjoy him, I trust him, I feel that he has tremendous integrity, and being able to trust my brand to someone else, in a place where I don’t live, is very important to me. And so we’re very excited about having Michael be on board with us, and you will get to meet him, over time, as I interview him, and of course, once the store opens. And by the way, the store, we’re hoping to open on the first of October, first week of October, but it’s all dependent on city permits, city licensing. Right now, we’re trying to get all our ducks in a row so that we can start the remodel, and that involves insurance, and liability waivers, and whatnot, and all that other stuff that I get to deal with as a store owner in California. But anyway, for those of you that live down there, it’ll be magnificent, because now you’ll have a showroom. Again, our store here in Utah is really the only one of its kind in the country, where you can have all the major name brands under one roof. Well, we’re going to have that in California now, and you can come down and visit, if you’re in southern California. Of course, you can fly in from, probably from Phoenix, or Vegas, drive up from San Diego, or down from Ventura county, or down from Bakersfield and the area, from San Joaquin Valley, and you’ve got a place that you can come and visit, and spend the day there, and be able to go home at night, and be able to try out all the chairs that you want to try. And I suspect we’re going to have, probably 18 chairs, or so, 18 to 20 chairs, I’m not sure exactly, the ones, right off the bat, we’re going to have. I have a list of the ones that I want for sure, and some that I don’t, and then there’s some new ones. We’re going to have the iRobotics 7 there, which I’ve very excited about, which has already been a fairly popular selling chair, even though it is officially only been out for about a month. We will have the Apex Ultra, the Titan Alpine, we’ll have the Panasonic MA73, we’ll have the Inada chairs. I still don’t know what Human Touch models we’ll have, or Osaki models we’ll have, but anyway, we’ll have the Ogawa Active there, which is a new model, which a lot of people are interested in. So, we’re going to have a lot of great chairs there, and we’re also going to be having hand-held massage devices, and some, the foot massagers, independent foot massagers, that we could not fit here in our showroom here, and quite frankly, have not been a real focus of my niche, which is massage chairs. But these are products that a lot of people want, and ask for, and buy, along with the chair, to hit those areas of the body that the chairs don’t massage. So, they’re actually pretty useful devices, I use a number of them at home, and here at the showroom, when people come in complaining of particular muscle complaints that the chair does not address. So, anyway, that’s kind of a brief rundown of the store. If you have any questions, give me a call at 888-259-5380, that’s 888-259-5380, I’d be happy to chitchat with you about the store.

[SCREEN TEXT: Hours: Monday – Friday 10AM – 7PM, Saturday 10AM – 4PM]

Alan: Also, if you know of anybody that would be interested to work part time at the store, we will have – at this present time, we don’t know how busy it’ll be, or how many people will be coming to the store, or how heavy the traffic will be, or how light the traffic will be – but we plan on being open Monday through Friday 10AM to 7PM, and then Saturday 10AM to 4PM, or yeah, I think it’s 10AM to 4PM.

[SCREEN TEXT: I’m Looking for Another Part-Time Employee for Our New Showroom]

Alan: And so, I’m going to need two part-time people, and Michael will be one of them, and he’ll be kind of running the show there, but I need another part timer. So, if you know of anybody in the southern California area, that would be interested to work part time in a massage chair store, please have them call me. You can reach me on that toll-free number, or email me, or chat online with me, or whatever, but please, if you know of anybody, please send them my way, because we’re looking for a second person to work with Michael, to be a massage chair consultant, expert, salesperson, etcetera. OK, that’s that, but you know what, that’s not the only exciting thing I have to announce, and boy, oh boy, I hope I’m not going too long here. We’ve already gone 11 minutes, but the second thing that I’m so excited about, and I’m actually quite giddy about this, is that – and you may, if you’ve saw on our YouTube channel, I recorded an interview with this gentleman – but Dr. Michael Olpin is the head of the Stress Center at Weber State University, here in Utah, up in Ogden, it’s about an hour away from where we are, and Michael, over the last four or five years, has purchased a number from me for his Stress Center. Well, he called me, a few weeks back, maybe three, four weeks ago, to ask me if I would help move his chairs. He had our three, and then another one he’d bought quite a while before that. He wanted to move them because they’re moving their Stress Center to a different floor, in the same building. So, my son Rob and I – Rob does a lot of my local deliveries for me – he and I drove down to, or drove up to Ogden, and moved these chairs for him, but while I was with him, we were chatting about how he uses these chairs. Now, I know that he uses them for stress relief, but what I did not know, was that he monitors certain vital signs, before and after the massage chair session. And so, he measures their blood pressure, both systolic and diastolic, measures their pulse rate, or heart rate, and measures their stress levels, which is a fairly subjective thing, but I was fascinated by this. And he had had, I think, over 12,000 people that had sat on these chairs, for which he had gathered and harvested this data. I was dumbfounded, and I asked him, ‘Well, so what do the statistics show?’ He says ‘You’ll be amazed.’ It is statistically significant changes in blood pressure and pulse, and this – my mind was just going crazy – because I have always wanted to be involved in research projects. Ever since we did, we were on a TV show here in Salt Lake City, demonstrating one of our chairs, and we measured the range of motion of a golfer, before and after sitting in a massage chair, and we measured his rotation, because golf involves rotation of the low back. So, we measured the rotation of the low back, before and after sitting in a massage chair, and he had had a 35% increase in range of motion. And a light went off on me, back then, that was probably six years ago, that ‘Hey, we should be doing a research study on this,’ but I didn’t know where to go, I don’t have any connections up here at the University of Utah, or BYU, or anywhere. I didn’t really know where to go, and frankly, didn’t make the time to go look in to it. Well, of course, this conversation with Michael fell in to my lap. So, we met for lunch a week later, and then we chitchatted some more, and I went back up there a week later, after that, to look at their biofeedback machine, and see some of the other resources they have, some of the other tools. And then, we just met last week again, with two other people that we’ve invited to be part of this, who have some experience in research through their Master’s degrees, and my goodness, now we have a little team of four, and we are embarking on a series of research projects. We are going to – and of course, this research that Michael did was not really meant to be research – it was meant to be just, how is stress before and after? And you can, of course, you can measure stress with blood pressure, and pulse rate, as well as subjective, you know, surveying, which he’d all done, but this was more or less just to show that these things were relieving stress. Well, sure enough, they were, but it had never been parlayed in to a research project. Well, we’re taking that data, we’re going to turn that in to a research project, then we’re going to start doing more specific research projects. We’re going to be measuring things like lung capacity, muscle tension, pain relief, posture correction, perhaps, circulation, body chemical measurements, all these things that we say massage can do. And much of the information that is out there about massage chairs, and you’ll see this in my book that I wrote ‘The Ultimate Massage Chair Buyer’s Guide,’ we talked about the benefits of massage, but we take those benefits, and we immediately assume that they will apply to massage chairs. When in reality, and in fact, no studies, that we’re aware of, have been done, to prove that massage chairs themselves actually decrease blood pressure, decrease pulse rate, decrease, or increase lung capacity, or improve sleeping, or decrease muscle tension, or muscle spasm, or muscle activity.

[SCREEN TEXT: Massage Chair Research Studies on the Way]

Alan: Well, now, we are embarking on a series of studies to prove these things, either prove them, or disprove them, so that when you talk to a massage chair salesman, it’s not just a bunch of anecdotal evidence, or a bunch of stories, or maybe even some hot air, this is actually backed-up research that will validate everything that we say the massage chairs will do. So, what we’re doing is we’re delving in to the academic world of massage chairs, which heretofore has been very shallow, and very light. And we are going to start doing some research studies to validate massage chair physiological benefits, not just anecdotal, even though the anecdotes are pretty cool. I’ve heard stories from people about nerve problems getting better, or headaches, and whatnot. Well, that is great, and I love hearing those stories, and we do share those with our customers, but now to have something that actually backs it up, some research to validate it, this is awesome, and I am so excited about this project, as well.

[SCREEN TEXT: Check Out My Interview With Dr. Olpin on Our YouTube Channel]

Alan: And so, that was the other big announcement that we had, was that we are involved in these research studies, with Dr. Michael Olpin, who is a Ph.D, and is a professor at Weber State University, as well as the manager of this Stress Center. He also has written a textbook, and I go through his CV, or his bio, on the interview, and you can see that on YouTube. I split it up in to two parts, so you wouldn’t – for those of us that have some attention deficit issues, we wouldn’t have any problem watching one and then the other – but you might want to look in to it. And Michael talks a lot about the studies that can be done, and about the research that has already been garnered, and harvested, the data that’s been harvested, and so we’re very excited about this. So, stay tuned for more information on that, and as I – of course, with this, or with my blog, or whatnot – as I learn about the various benefits, and as we study them, and validate them, I will share them with you, for those of you that are interested.

[SCREEN TEXT: iRobotics 7: 3 Year, Parts-and-Labor Warranty]

Alan: OK, my goodness, look at that, 17 minutes already, I apologize for taking so long, but there’s just a couple other things we need to talk about. Number one is, the iRobotics 7, and I had this – Luraco corrected me on this, I thought it was a two year, parts-and-labor warranty for that iRobotics 7 – it is a three-year, parts-and-labor warranty for the iRobotics 7. The iRobotics 6 has a two-year, parts-and-labor warranty, but I think because of the Taiwanese components, and a little bit more American ingenuity in the creation of this chair, they’ve pumped the warranty up to three years. And one thing we did learn, which we did not know before, is that a commercial warranty for the iRobotics 7 is not a three years, parts and labor, it is six months, parts and labor, and then one year of parts. So, if you’re going to buy it – it’s kind of like Inada, Inada has their regular, residential warranty, which is three years, parts and labor, but then, you have to buy a commercial warranty, if you’re using it for a commercial setting, like a dentist’s office, or a tire store, whatever, whatever you’re using it for, or for staff, for your staff – so iRobotics now, has stipulated that they have a commercial warranty that’s a little bit separate, and a little bit lower, quite a bit lower, than the residential warranty.

[SCREEN TEXT: New Osaki OS-4D Pro JP Premium Chair = Fujiiryoki]

Alan: And then, also, I wanted to mention, I get asked every once in a while about Fujiiryoki chairs. Now, I’m a distributor for Fujiiryoki chairs, and I don’t know if you know this, but Fujiiryoki was actually the first massage chair company, the first commercial massage chair company in Japan, after the chair was invented, or discovered, back in 1959, and in 1960, or ’61, Fujiiryoki came around, and created this massage chair, that became – they kind of pioneered the whole rolling system – Inada came shortly thereafter, and pioneered the airbag technology. Well, Fujiiryoki has some chairs here, but I’m a distributor for them, but I don’t put them on my website, because I’m not completely convinced, or sold yet, on the customer support at Fujiiryoki. But I thought I would mention that Osaki now, is relabeling a Fujiiryoki chair, and they’re calling it the Osaki OS-4D Pro JP Premium chair, that’s a lot, that’s a mouthful, but it’s basically a 3D chair, with speed adjustment, and I’ve talked about the joke that the term of 4D really is, and I talked about that on my blog. But anyway, I just wanted you to know that Osaki now, has a Japanese-made chair, it retails for $6995, actually $9995, but they have a $3000 instant savings, which brings it down to $6995. But anyway, if you have any questions about that chair, it’s good quality, if it’s a Fujiiryoki chair, it’s good quality, and I know that if it’s Osaki, I know the customer support’s going to be good, but anyway, if you have any questions about it, feel free to give me a call. Well, that is about it for our massage chair industry update for this week, I will see you again in two weeks. If you have any questions, feel free to, you know, call me, or get in touch with me through email, or through this phone number up here, or feel free to make comments on our YouTube channel, or on our Facebook page, or whatnot, I’m always available to chitchat with. And of course, if you found this video helpful, please thumbs up ‘Like’ us on YouTube, share us on your social media platforms, and help us spread the word about massage chairs. Have a fantastic day, and I will see you again in two weeks. Bye bye.

Click on the following link to watch this Massage Chair Industry Update on our YouTube channel.

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