Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – December 31, 2015”

Alan: Well, hello, this is Dr. Alan Weidner from ‘Massage-Chair-Relief.com’ and today is our biweekly massage chair industry update, and today is December 31st, 2015. It is the last day of the year, and tomorrow is 2016, a brand new year, and I hope that all of you have a fantastic new year, and a great 2016. And for those of you who had a tough 2015, ahh, we can breathe now, and we can move on to a great 2016, and I hope it goes well for you, and if you’re getting a massage chair, that will certainly help, now, won’t it?

[SCREEN TEXT: Stock Status]

Alan: Anyway, let’s talk about stock status, you know, the Christmas rush is over, and I don’t know – I just hired a gal, earlier this year, to take care of all my order processing, and some of my mailings, and other things, here or there, and I told her – and you know, she’s a very competent woman, she was my chiropractic assistant for 10 years in my chiropractic clinic, when I had my practice, and you know, she’d been handling stuff pretty good, all year long, and was pretty, you know, ‘Yeah, no problem, I get this, I get this.’ Well, I told her at a staff meeting a couple weeks before Christmas, I said – or not before Christmas, but before Black Friday – I said ‘Now, brace yourself, it gets a little busy during, you know, from Black Friday to the end of the year, and she goes ‘Yeah, yeah, no problem.’ Well, after Black Friday/Cyber Monday, and then a week or so – and we had to delay our staff meetings for a couple weeks, because I was in California, getting the store open, and training, and whatnot – and when we finally had a chance to meet, it was about a week before Christmas, and to be honest, she looked rather frazzled. And I had to laugh, and I said ‘I told you it was going to be busy,’ and she said ‘Yeah, I had no idea.’ And so, it’s been rather enjoyable to see someone else get a taste of what, you know, being in the massage chair business is all about, and especially at this time of the year. But anyway, I think she’s kind of looking forward to a little bit of a slowdown, starting next week, but January is also one of our busiest months, so I suspect there’s not going to much time for breathing. Anyway, Dionne, you’re awesome, thanks for all your help, I’m sorry I’ve dumped so much stuff on you. So, anyway, the Christmas rush is, for the most part, done, the Christmas/New Year’s rush; there’s pretty good stock on everything. Luraco’s back-ordered on their ‘Black’ iRobotics 7. That chair’s been a very popular seller during the holiday season. I’ve been very impressed with their sales, and of course, the chair itself. As far as I know, all the DreamWaves are in stock, and I know the DreamWave is selling a lot – I know Inada sells a lot of those DreamWaves – that’s a popular chair. I’ve got a guy – my Southern California delivery guy – delivers a lot of the Inada chairs for them, and he says it’s just nonstop, so that’s a very popular chair too.

[SCREEN TEXT: New Infinity Escape in Our SoCal Showroom!]

Alan: Let’s see, anything else back-ordered? No, the new Infinity Escape, we finally got that. Well, I guess we’re done with stock, so I’ll get in to the other stuff. But we got the new Infinity Escape in our showroom on Tuesday, and I went down to California Tuesday and Wednesday to – I assembled the chair, and I tested it, I sat on it, I wrote some – a lot of notes for it, about doing a review. I’ll do a review in the next week or two, when I’ve had a chance to breathe, but the Infinity Escape is a nice chair. We have it next to the Apex Ultra, and that’s the chair that is kind of the – would be a parallel, peer-to-peer competitor, to the Infinity Escape – and it’s got foot rollers, it’s got L-track, it’s got a good neck massage, low back massage, arms, airbags in the arms, the hips, the shoulders, the legs, calves, and feet, a very nice chair, and it’ll fit a bit of a bigger body. We’ve found that the Ultra is ideal for people under 6 feet tall, it can fit more than 6 feet tall, but the legs start to get – it gets a little long for the legs, and you have to kind of fiddle with the ottoman to make – to kind of adjust it to make it work right for a longer-legged person. But for 6 feet and under, it fits fine, and if you’re like 200 pounds, maybe a little – you know, around 200 pounds, or less, you’ll fit fine in it too. But we find that the chair is a pretty tight chair, great chair, but it’s a little small for some bodies. Well, the Escape, kind of, is the answer to that, it can handle a taller body, it can handle a bigger body, it has a little bit wider seat, and wider shoulder airbags, so that chair is great for, it’ll be great for the bigger bodied. It also has an awesome foot massage, like the Ultra has foot rollers, and foot airbags, but the Apex, or sorry, the Infinity Escape has, I think, six rollers per foot, and you feel it. I mean, it feels like a lot of activity’s going on with your feet, so if you like good foot massage, along with the butt massage, and everything else that that chair offers, then the Escape kind of has the heads up, and the thumbs up, on the feet. The neck massage on the Ultra is, by default, a little bit stronger, and a little bit better, than the Infinity Escape, but when you go to the manual settings on the Escape, you can move the rollers up to the neck, and it’s a very intense massage on the neck, very nice, I really like the neck massage on it, in the manual settings. There’s like nine different programs on the Infinity Escape. The arm airbags, ah, there’s like one long – it’s like a sausage airbag, that kind of inflates – and your arms can kind of teeter on one side, or the other, and you got to make sure you slide your arms to the outside of the armrests, to make sure that they don’t get squished out by the airbags. And the calves – the calves, and the arms, were nothing to write home about, but to be honest, I don’t think they’re any – they’re not much to write home about on a lot of chairs, including the Apex, also. The Apex has the – the Ultra has the arms that come in from the top – so it’s a little bit different, so you’re using gravity to kind of keep your arms in place, and it does a decent job. I’d probably give the advantage, maybe, to the Apex Ultra on the hands, calves are sixes, feet better on the Escape, the Ultra has the calf rollers, which the Escape doesn’t have. But anyway, they’re both $2995, great chairs, but the Escape will give a much more comfortable foot massage, and it’ll fit a bigger body. So, that’s probably it in a nutshell, and the butt, and low back rollers, are pretty similar on both. I sat on both, right after the other, one right after the other, and I felt that they were both pretty equivalent, as far as the butt, and the glutes, and the back rollers go. So, anyway, and I had a lot of people ask me about this Escape, that’s why I felt like I needed to get down there, get this thing assembled, and finally have some feedback for people. So, anyway, and I know there’s a lot of people that’ll be watching this video, that’ll be interested in the Escape, because I’ve had so many calls about it, and now we finally have some information on it. And you know what, we were so busy at the store, on Tuesday, and Wednesday, taking care of calls, and customers in the showroom, that I never got the chance to take any videos. I brought my video camera down, I was planning on doing two to three videos on each of the new models that we have down there, that I don’t have here in the Utah showroom. I never got around to it, it was just – but I will get back there, early in the new year, and when I say early, probably in the first – well, in January, I’m going to get down there. I just thought of my schedule, off the top of my head, and it’s just a busy schedule.

[SCREEN TEXT: Price Increases for Infinity IT-8500 & Iyashi]

Alan: Anywho, let’s see, what else have we got cooking? Oh, you know what? I think I mentioned this on the last one, but Infinity increased their pricing, and their price now is $4295 on the IT-8500, still a phenomenal bang for the buck. That chair has been a top seller for years, and then we also have the Iyashi has gone up $300 in price. Their instant savings has gone down from $600 to $300, and the actual price on the 8500 has gone up $300. You still have a $300 instant savings, so it’s listed at $4595, brings it down to $4295; the price on the Iyashi is still $5895, but instead of $600 off, it’s $300 off, so it brings it down to $5595. Is that right? OK, I was never a math genius, but anyway, you figure it out for me.

[SCREEN TEXT: Inada DreamWave Price Increase]

Alan: And let’s see, oh, and February 1st, the Inada DreamWave goes up in price to $8799, and I have been in awe every year, at this price, this chair would go up in price, because I’d always think ‘Oh, it’s not going to go up any more, it can’t go up any more, it can’t go up any more, no way, no one’s going to buy it,’ and it still sells, as is evidenced by what I just told you earlier about stock status, and from my Southern California delivery guy, it’s a remarkable chair.

[SCREEN TEXT: Luraco Savings Done Today!]

Alan: Let’s see, oh, and Luraco – the iRobotics 7, which has been a great selling chair, they had $700 instant savings, they’ve allowed us to have that, but now it’s – after today, it goes back up to only $500 off. So, I just thought you should know that as well.

[SCREEN TEXT: Make-A-Wish Fundraising Update]

Alan: Now, our Make-A-Wish thing, and I’m just so excited about Make-A-Wish. Our goal for the year – well, for the last two years, was to get to about $34,700, and we’re at $20,125, but I have not added the contributions from December yet, I do it at the end of every month, so I will be doing that in another week, and I expect there will be – we’ll probably be up to about $22,000, maybe $22,000, by, within another week or so. So, I’m so excited, I got a phone call from Make-A-Wish, who was it? I can’t remember the gal’s name, but she called me to tell me how thrilled they were that we donated so much money, and she asked me if she could send me a little book. And she sent me this little book about spiders, or something about spiders, how spiders – oh, I can’t remember, but it’s for children, and it was written by a guy who has – who was a Make-A-Wish child, at some point, and wrote this book about overcoming obstacles, for this spider, or this insect. And it was so cute when she described it to me, I said ‘Well, would you mind sending me three?’ because I wanted to my two daughters, that have my grandkids, and then have one for my kids at home. And they sent, she sent me three, I just got them last week, I’ve not had a chance to go through it yet, but what a delightful little – A. I was just very thankful that they called to thank me, it was – I mean, all this stuff is, we don’t expect thanks for it, but to be recognized for it, makes me feel good, knowing that we’ve contributed this much, and that it was enough that it made, it turned some head in the head office in Arizona, to want to give me a call, I was very thankful. So, I want to thank my customers, because if it wasn’t for you buying a chair from me, I’d have nothing to give. So, as you know, or may not know, we give a portion of every sale to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, and like I say, we’ve topped $20,000; we’re shooting for $34,000, or $35,000, and by golly, I’m just so proud of that, I love it. Again, as you may, or may not know, I love kids. I got six of my own, I got four grandkids, I’ve got a child with diabetes, and she’s my 20 – oh my goodness, I’m going to get this wrong – 20, 29-year-old, and I love my kids. I’ve always been an advocate for children, I’ve had people in my life, very close to me, who were abused as children, and my heart just aches for them, and for what some kids have to go through, whether it’s abuse, whether it’s a terminal, or a life-threatening illness, like Make-A-Wish addresses, but I have a real soft spot for the children. And so, I’m just so happy that we were able to – we’ve been able to raise so much money so far, and I hope to raise more, and we will, of course, because everything – a portion of every chair goes to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, but I love it, and thank you, thank you so much for trusting me with your purchase, because it allows me to give a little bit back to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

[SCREEN TEXT: California Store Update!]

Alan: Anywho, that is that. Oh, and the store, and I’ll finish up on this, because I was so excited. I went down to the showroom, I hadn’t been down there since we did the training after, you know, Black Friday/Cyber Monday. So, it had been like two or three weeks since I’d been there, and I was a little nervous going back. I was wondering how much of the build out had been completed, and I’ll just tell you, the sign is still not up, because of the insurance. Holy monkey, the insurance restrictions, by the landlord, are so overwhelming, that nobody I’ve dealt with has ever heard of it before. And of course, we still don’t have our sign up, and because we don’t have our sign up, we couldn’t get our final inspection done, and because we didn’t have our sign up, we couldn’t get approved for Synchrony Bank financing at the store, so we still have to work through the store here. Oh my heaven, what a pain in the rumpus. Well, when I was down there, I kind of laid the law down, if you will, by contacting both the landlord, and the sign guy, and telling them to get the bloody insurance people hooked up, so they can get the right stuff, because it’s holding up everything. So, anyway, needless to say, that’s just me expressing my frustration.

[SCREEN TEXT: Check Out the Video of the New Showroom on our YouTube channel]

Alan: But I was so happy when I went down there, and saw the showroom, it was all, it was pretty much all done. The bathroom was finished, the new white door at the back of the showroom was up. We had to put the shelf – well, the shelving got done, I filmed a video – and it’s on YouTube, you can go take a look at it, but I filmed the video of the whole place. The shelving hadn’t been done, but the shelving got done yesterday before I left. The back office is beautiful, I mean, it’s tiled, and that’s where all the chairs are going to go, and that’s where we have our desks, but man, it’s beautiful back there. I was impressed with it, I loved it, I bought a little water feature thing to put on a table in there. We still have some decorating to do, you’ll see in the video that the walls are still pretty bare, and we don’t have things in the corner. Mona wants to put like a lamp, a nice lamp, a big lamp in one corner, and a fake plant in another corner. We did buy two plants, but they both died, they both died within a couple weeks, I don’t know why, maybe because we didn’t talk to them, or we water them too much, or not enough, or there wasn’t enough sun, or too much sun, I have no idea. I’m not good with plants, we’ve always had fake ones in our house, and our business, please don’t judge me. But anyway, but needless to say, we’ve got work to do in that showroom, but I’m very pleased with it, and Mona did some decorating down there a couple weeks ago, and it’s great, I love it, it’s nice. We’re going to film all of our chair – from here on out, hopefully we’ll record all of our chair videos down there – it’s just more spacious, you can see the chair better. Here, everything’s just scrunched together. That showroom’s longer, it’s wider, and it’s just nice, it just feels good in there. We can actually have more than one customer in at one time, it’s awesome. Anyway, so please come visit us, it’s in Cerritos, in Southern California, if you’re down there on holiday, we had two people that came to California on holiday. And they – while they were here, they came to see – or I guess, here they call it vacation, in Canada, we call it holidays – but they came here for vacation, for Christmas, and two customers came to the showroom, and bought chairs, because they finally got a chance to come, and try out the chairs, and it was coincidental with their vacation, it was awesome. So, anyway, come visit us, it’s in Cerritos, at 19117 South Street, which is on the corner of South, and Bloomfield, between the 605, and the 91 freeways, very easy to get there, it’s not on a busy street. The parking’s great, the view outside the front window is awesome, I love it, and you can see it on the video. I put the video, again, I put the video up yesterday, go check it out, and see what’s cooking, but that’s the latest with the store. So, I’m just tickled pink, and it’s been fairly busy, but December’s not a great month to determine how successful the store is, because it’s going to be busy, because of Christmas. The real test will be next year, and we’ll see, we’ll see if I’m in the poorhouse, or if we’re still selling chairs a year from now. But anyway, that’s about it for Massage Chair Relief, or for the massage chair industry update for this week. I hope you found this video helpful, in some way, or entertaining, if nothing else, but please thumbs up ‘Like’ us, if you did, on our YouTube channel, and of course, share us on your Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Plus accounts. Help us spread the word about massage chairs, this is something exciting, this is an exciting industry, and you’re helping it grow, so thank you. Well, 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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