Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – December 15, 2016”

[SCREEN TEXT: SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel and be Notified of Each New Massage Chair Video!]

Alan: Hi, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com’ and today is our biweekly massage chair industry update for Thursday, December 15th, 2016. This is our last update before Christmas, and as a matter of fact, until the end of the year. Then, I will see you again probably after the new year, but going over some things today.

[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]

Alan: As far as the stock status goes, the Novo XT, which is the new offering from Human Touch, has not arrived yet. I guess it was held up in the port, and it hasn’t arrived yet, even though we are taking pre-orders on them. They are supposed to be here next week, and they’ll be shipping out next week. There seems to be a fair amount of interest in that chair, based on our conversations with people calling in.

[SCREEN TEXT: Navitas Sleep to be Discontinued]

Alan: Also out of stock is the – oh, just a minute, what is it – oh, not out of stock, but the Navitas from Human Touch, is going to be discontinued. And I believe the Inada DreamWave is in stock, they’re a little low on the ‘Red,’ they have some inventory pressure on the ‘Red’ DreamWave. The YuMe chair has been discontinued. I think, as far as I can remember though, that’s the available stock status.

[SCREEN TEXT: Christmas Shipping Almost Past Due]

Alan: Now, as far as Christmas sales go, and by the way, today is Thursday, next Friday, the 23rd, is really the last day for shipping, because the shipping companies don’t deliver on Saturdays. So, if you want to get a chair, you’ve pretty much missed your opportunity with any white-glove delivery, unless it’s local to our store here in Utah, or our store in California, then we can have our own guy do the delivery. But if you want white glove around the nation, that opportunity has pretty much passed. If you want curbside delivery, you can still get it. You might have a hard time with Luraco, because they take three or four days to assemble the chair, and test it, and then ship it out, and then you’ve got a week of shipping. So, I don’t think – the chances of getting a Luraco by next Friday are pretty slim – the Luraco iRobotics 7. But most of the other chairs, if you order today, there is a possibility you can still get it by next Friday, so just so you know, there is still a chance. And of course, if you live near like, we have our – if you live near where the chairs ship out of – like for example, if you live in Dallas, or if you live in Southern California, we can get the chairs picked up right away, and delivered to you, because some of the massage chair companies, like Osaki, Titan, and Apex, and of course, in Southern California, we have Ogawa, and Human Touch, and Inada. We can get those chairs picked up, and delivered for you, and that’s white glove, we can get those picked up and delivered to you this next week.

[SCREEN TEXT: Christmas Sales Still Available]

Alan: Alright, so, as far as the sales go, we still have sales going on, not as comprehensive as we had before, the end of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday week. But we have the Ogawa chairs still offering the $1000 off on the Smart 3D, we have $500 off on the Active, and $400 off on the Refresh. Infinity is still offering the three-year, parts-and-labor warranty at no charge on any of their chairs through until Christmas. As a matter of fact, most of these sales may even go until the end of the year. Luraco still has $700 off on their very popular iRobotics 7. Human Touch still has the free five-year extended warranty for the Novo and the Navitas, and the Osaki Maxim is still on sale for $2895. We’re seeing, in this Christmas season, and of course, before this, we saw this, but the L-track chairs have become very, very popular. We sell a lot of the L-track chairs, but there’s some people that don’t really care about the L-track chairs, or don’t like the L-track chairs. I’ve got one customer who has pain in his coccyx, or his tailbone, and the L-track irritates him, and then so that’s not good, and there’s others that don’t really care about it. They may not have glute pain, or sciatica, or you know, piriformis syndrome, or whatever. So, the glute thing, the butt roller, or the extended L-track is not a big deal to them, but we have, of course, still, plenty of S-track chairs, like the Luraco, and the DreamWave, and the Panasonic, and the Infinity 8500. And the Infinity 8500 has been a top-selling chair for us for years, and that’s never had an L-track, and it’s still selling popularly. So, anyway, the L-tracks have been selling popular, and the Osaki Summit, the uKnead Lavita, the Osaki Maxim, they’ve been fairly popular items this holiday season for us. So, anyway, and the Infinity 8500 is still probably our top-selling S-track chair, period, and then the iRobotics 7 with the sale pricing, and the gated popularity of that chair has been fairly popular as well.

[SCREEN TEXT: Post-Christmas Returned Chairs for Sale]

Alan: Let’s see, the Novo XT, I just told you about that. Oh, you know what, we are – you know, this is the Christmas season, we sell a lot of chairs, and there’s always a relative percentage of our chairs that come back – so we have a very small return ratio, but they do come back, and when we sell more chairs, of course, we’re going to have more returns. So, if you’re waiting for some kind of extraordinary deals for Christmas – by the way, you know, Christmas sales, you’re not going to get any more exciting Christmas sales from the massage chair companies – what I just told you about is what we have, but when we get returns, we put them on our website under the pre-owned – you know, pre-owned, or open box, whatever you want to call them, used chairs – and we have a 90-day money-back guarantee, so people have 90 days to bring their chairs back. So, if they’re buying them in November and December, we have until, you know, February, March, for some of these chairs that may come back, and when they do, we post them immediately on our used-chair inventory, and then you can see it on our website. It’s on our navigation bar, we’ve got ‘Massage Chairs,’ our blog, or ‘Article Library,’ and then ‘Pre-Owned Massage Chairs,’ and you can keep an eye on that directory, check it every week, see if there’s anything new. We’ve only got one chair on there now, and that’s that Human Touch Bali that we had in our showroom in Utah, it’s our floor model, but other chairs will be going up there promptly, and between floor models and used chairs, there’ll be more coming up, so keep an eye on that, if you want to see some good deals. These chairs are all, for the most part, all the returned chairs are less than three months old, they all come with a continued warranty. And of course, the floor models, even though they may be a little bit older, like a year, or eight months, or whatever, they still come with a full warranty, so just keep your eye open for those used chairs, if you’re still waiting for some kind of great deal on chairs, the used ones are the way to go.

[SCREEN TEXT: Customer Support After Purchase]

Alan: Also, OK, now, everybody is buying these chairs now, and there’s going to be problems, you know, these chairs are not flawless. I mean, it’s not like they’ve perfected the electronics, in any niche, or segment of the industry, so there’s going to be problems with chairs. Now, the failure rate on the Chinese chairs, we have estimated to be around 2 to 5%. The failure rate on the Japanese and American chairs is less than 1%. So, there’s not a – you know, the chance of a chair breaking down is pretty slim – but if you’re part of that 2 to 5% crowd, or less than 1% crowd, it seems like they all break down, so these massage chair companies have good customer support. So, like Luraco, and Inada, are known, and Infinity are known for having great customer support. Human Touch has been around for 35 years, 37 years, 36, I can’t remember what it is, but they’ve been around forever, and they’ve got a very large and good support department. And Osaki has developed their – and Osaki/Titan/Apex, it’s the same, they’re all the same company, but the Osaki/Titan has really developed their customer support, so now they’re beginning to, you know – or not beginning to, but they are really stepping it up, because they sell an awful lot of chairs, so they have a larger customer support department. They moved in to their new facility a couple of years ago, a huge facility, and they are handling the growth very well now, and I have no concerns at all about their customer support, it’s fabulous. So, anyway, pretty much all these companies – the one company that probably gives us probably some grief, would be Panasonic only because we don’t have much control over them – if there’s a problem with your chair, you have to call an authorized service center, and often, if there’s one close to you, they will come pick up the chair, and fix it, and bring it back to you, but they don’t have any in-home service. And if something goes wrong with a Panasonic chair, if you live in a place that’s far removed from an authorized service center, it can get a little bit tedious to get your chair fixed. So, that’s the only drawback for customer support that we see out there. All the other companies are in home, good support departments, and you’ll be OK, in any of those chairs. And plus, if you buy from us – and of course, now I’m tooting my own horn – but if you buy from us, we become your advocate with the massage chair company. So, if there’s a problem, let’s say you have a problem, you call, you know, company A, or B, or C, and you say ‘I’ve got a problem,’ they say ‘OK, we’ll fix it,’ and then you feel like they’ve dropped the ball, or they’re not getting the problem fixed, or they’re dragging their feet, or whatever, they’re not following through, you call us, and we get involved, and that usually helps expedite the – it doesn’t usually – it always helps expedite the process. So, use us as your advocate if things aren’t the way you want them to go when you’ve got a problem with a chair. But knock on wood, you won’t have any problems, and you’ll never have to worry about that anyway.

[SCREEN TEXT: Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and Happy New Year!!]

Alan: OK, you know, I think that is just about all we have this week. It’s Christmas time, and the holiday season, and generally a fairly festive and happy time. I would hope that you have a great holiday season, and great time, good new year, safe new year. And that, you know, at the beginning of, you know, on New Year’s Eve, you set goals, and new goals, and hopefully, they last longer than, you know, January 7th, which is my history. But you know, I hope you have a great Christmas, great new year, great holiday, and when you get your new massage chair, I hope you just enjoy it thoroughly, and maybe after the holiday stress, there might be a good need for some massage chair therapy.

[SCREEN TEXT: 888-259-5380]

Alan: But anyway, I’m Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com.’ If you have any questions, feel free to give us a call at 888-259-5380.

[SCREEN TEXT: Please ‘Thumbs Up’ Like This Video!!]

Alan: You can chat with us on our online chat, leave comments or questions on our Facebook page, or our YouTube channel. And if you found this video helpful, please feel free to thumbs up ‘Like’ us on YouTube, and of course, share this on your Facebook, or Google Plus, or Twitter, or LinkedIn, or Facebook accounts, we just appreciate you helping us spread the word about massage chairs. Well, I am Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com,’ and I will see you again in two weeks. Thanks. Bye bye.

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