Transcript of Video Titled "Massage Chair Industry Update - November 30, 2018"

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Alan: Hi, I'm Dr. Alan Weidner from 'Massage-Chair-Relief.com' and today is our biweekly massage chair industry update, and it is Friday, November 30th, 2018, and we are right in the belly of the holiday sales season right now, and of course, we just passed Black Friday and Cyber Monday. There are still sales going on from that. As a matter of fact, most of them are going on right now, and should be going through, going on – well, a lot of them are going on through the end of the year – but there are a few that are ending, and I'll go over those with you in just a minute, but it's great to see.

[SCREEN TEXT: Happy Holiday Season!]

Alan: I hope you have a great holiday season. I will do one more broadcast before the 25th.

[SCREEN TEXT: Massage Chair Shipping & Delivery Deadlines - IMPORTANT!]

Alan: Maybe we should start off by talking about shipping deadlines. You know, Christmas is a big day for a lot of people, for gifts, and gift giving, and gift receiving obviously, and people want their chairs by the 25th. Well, the 25th is a Tuesday, and the 24th is a Monday, and not a lot, not all of the shipping companies deliver on the 24th, and then on the weekends, the shipping companies don’t deliver. So, the last day for shipping would probably be Friday, December 21st, and if you want to get your chair by Christmas, do not – well, actually, next Monday, Monday and Tuesday, is kind of the deadline for guaranteed regular delivery, no guaranteed white-glove delivery – but shortly thereafter, that ends, and then you're running in to time limits for just regular, standard curbside delivery. So, if you want to get a chair by Christmas, my heavens, don’t waste another minute, and you know, we have a lot of sales going on. You can give us a call at 888-259-5380, and you can find out what we have going on right now, and I'll talk about some of the sales here, but there's other sales that we have just in our showrooms, that we have available, that we can't advertise on the website, but we do have available in the showrooms, and you can call us at that number to find out what's cooking. Anyway, it's a very, very busy time of the year, and I think I had warned you weeks ago, if not months ago, that there was going to be, there was a projected onslaught of shipping and deliveries this year, and of course, that has a lot to do with just the increase in the online business that’s going on, not just massage chairs only, but in all, you know, retail and ecommerce business, there's going to be a ton of shipping, even more so this year. And so, if you want your chairs, just please, just take heed to what I'm telling you, and get it early, and early is like now, before the colors, and the stock runs out, and before it's too late to get the truck to deliver it to your home. Alright, now let's just go over the current sales while we're chitchatting about that.

[SCREEN TEXT: Current Holiday Sales]

Alan: We have – OK, and I'll just go over the ones that I have – Ogawa has $600 off on their Ogawa Refresh. Now, Ogawa does an interesting thing. When they have their sales at Christmas time, they give you an option. They give you an option for either a complete discount, or a lesser discount with a free extended warranty. On our website, we just have the cash discount, and so these are the, but I'll also tell you now what the lesser, the other option is if you want to get a chair from them, $600 off instantly on the Refresh Plus, or you can get $300 off, plus the five-year extended warranty, the Ogawa Active L, $1400 off instantly, which bring the price down to $2899, or $1100 off instantly, and the five-year extended warranty, Ogawa Touch 3D, $1500 off instantly, for $3999, or $1300 off, with the five-year extended warranty. And then, the Ogawa Smart 3D, which is $1700 off, bringing the price of that chair down to $5299, or you can take $1500 off, and get the five-year extended warranty.

[SCREEN TEXT: Ogawa - Cozzia - Fujimedic = Same Company!]

Alan: Now, they also have the Ogawa, or sorry, not the Ogawa, the Fujimedic Kumo, which is a new chair. OK, now, this gets a little complicated, and I'll try to explain it without – and for me to do this is – sometimes I don’t explain it real good, I talk too much, and don’t explain much at all, but they're, Ogawa and Cozzia come from the same company. Now, they’ve got a third brand called Fujimedic, which is also from the same company, but the Cozzia and the Ogawa chairs are made in China, in a factory called East Pau in Xhao Ming, China, and their chairs are made there. The Fujimedic Kumo is claimed to be made in Japan, but the chair looks exactly like the Cozzia Qi SE. As a matter of fact, it is essentially the Cozzia Qi SE, but quote, unquote, made in Japan. So, maybe like Luraco, where they have noncritical components imported from Taiwan, or Inada, that has parts imported from China, and then you know, made in Japan, and Luraco is made in America, with their own components made in America, and in Japan, maybe this is like that, where they, and I asked them, I asked for details on what percent of the chair was made in Japan, and what was done in Japan. It wasn’t known, but or that information was not available to me, however, we can assume that because the chair looks almost exactly like the Cozzia Qi SE, which is a popular-selling chair for Cozzia, and this one is like that, but made in Japan, I can assume that a lot of the noncritical components, and maybe some of the critical ones were imported from China to Japan, and I assume perhaps assembled there, and tested for quality control, whatnot, just similar with these other companies.

[SCREEN TEXT: "Made in (Country)" - What Does that Really Mean?]

Alan: And I've talked about this before, what does it mean to say made in America, or made in Japan, or now made in Korea, or whatever. There are, it's not as cut and dried as it seems. It's not like the whole thing was made in Japan, or the whole thing was made in America, or the whole thing was made in Korea. Usually, there's a kind of an inter-swapping of parts from China, and from America, and from Japan, and from Korea, and they all kind of put everything together to make their chair, and assemble, and test it in that country, whether it's Japan, America, Korea, whatever. So, anyway, having said that, Fujimedic Kumo, which is now on our website, and there's no reviews on it yet, it's a new model, but if you like the Cozzia Qi SE, this chair is like the Qi SE, but perhaps better, because it's made in Japan, probably the quality control testing is done in Japan, maybe some of the electronics are done in Japan, but that chair is usually $8999, and they have it off, right now, just for this holiday season, $2500 off, which brings it down to $6499 and, or you could have $2000 off, and get the five-year extended warranty. So, anyway, those are the sales from Ogawa, and – oh, and speaking of Cozzia, we mentioned Cozzia – and I mentioned this two weeks ago, and I want to reiterate, the Cozzia Qi SE has been discontinued. Sorry, not the Qi SE, sorry, my bad, scratch that, the Cozzia Qi has been discontinued. The Cozzia Qi SE is still available, and it seems to be selling quite well. The Infinity Evoke is the other chair model that we are aware of that has been discontinued as well. OK, now, what other sales do we have cooking? We also have the, oh, Infinity is offering their lifetime – sorry, not their lifetime, that’s us – offering their three-year, parts-and-labor warranty at no charge during the holidays, and this is good until the end of December. They also are giving us a break on their white-glove delivery cost, so we are throwing in free white-glove delivery on any Infinity chair as well. So, that’s pretty good, that, you know, that free extended warranty is a, that has been a real, a popular holiday selling point for Infinity. We sell a lot of chairs in the holiday for, we sell a lot of chairs from Infinity period, but we sell a lot, even more so in the holiday season because they throw in that three-year extended warranty, and Infinity is a company that has great customer support. We can the quality of the customer support of a massage chair company by the number of calls that we get complaining about the chairs not getting taken care of, or the chairs having problems. Typically, when a company has really good customer support, we don’t ever hear from the customer, the customer, unless they need to know the phone number of you know, Infinity, or Luraco, or whatever, but once they're contacted, and they make the contact with the massage chair company, we should never, you know, they take care of it all, and we don’t ever, 99% of the time, we don’t ever hear anything. If a company, we do hear a lot from a company, then we know that the customer support is not great. And Infinity, we hardly ever hear, and that could mean one of two things, it could mean that their customer support is so awesome that the customer never gets ticked off and calls us because they're not getting taken care of, or it could mean that they don’t have as many breakdowns, and as high a failure rate. And I remember talking to the guys at Infinity, and they challenged me once, because we have always said that Chinese massage chairs have 2% to 5% failure rate, and the American, and the Japanese chairs have a less than 1% failure rate. Well, one day, one of the principals at Infinity, this was, I think, last January, or the January before that, at CES, challenged me on that, and said 'Well, you know, have you, how many of our chair have you heard of having problems?' And I go 'Well, not many,' and we had this conversation, and I said 'Well, it could be because you guys are taking care of our customers, you might be getting hundreds of calls a day,' and they said 'We don’t.' They said 'Our chairs, and the factories that they're made in, they're made in very good factories, have a less than 1% failure rate.' And that is pretty awesome, but anyway, I'm kind of rambling on about customer support, and quality of this, and quality of that, but the bottom line is that Infinity is a great company, and that extended warranty, that three-year extended warranty is a great offer. So, anyway, moving on, now Osaki, Osaki/Titan/Apex, Osaki/Titan has the Osaki chairs, the Titan chairs, and the Apex chairs, and they're offering a free two-year extended warranty on all their chairs until the 9th. They actually had only had that until Cyber Monday, but the next day, they extended that to the 9th, and the Dreamer, the Osaki Dreamer is $2000 off, for $3999, and the Ekon, which is an $8999 chair, is on sale for $5999 during the holiday. We also have $400 off on the Osaki Maxim, and it's $2399 for the Apex Ultra. So, there are some deals from Osaki. Now, let's see, oh, Johnson Wellness, which is a company that, it's a big company, that has been in fitness and exercise equipment for years, if not decades, and they sell the Johnson chairs, they also have started the Synca brand, and the Inner Balance brand. And the Synca brand has the Kagra and the JP1100, two new chairs, and the Kagra is an upgrade of the old J6800, and that chair is on sale for $3999. I think it's regularly $6999, or it's $5999, I can't remember, and the JP1100 is the Japanese chair that they carry, and Johnson Wellness has great chairs as well. Their chairs are designed and engineered by former Inada, Fujimedical, and Panasonic engineers that they use to help design their chairs. And their JP1100 is the Japanese chair and it's the first one that we were aware of, I think, that’s quote, unquote made in Japan that has foot rollers, and that one's on sale for $6999, regularly $8999, and that sale is going on until the 2nd, and then it'll kick back up again on the 14th of December, of course, and then, you know, I think that’s pretty much all the major ones that I have in front of me right now. If I have forgotten any, I am sorry, but yeah, I think that’s it.

[SCREEN TEXT: New Models - Fujimedic Kumo, Infinity Genesis, Infinity Riage X3, Infinity Smart Chair X3]

Alan: Now, also, we've added a lot of new chairs to our website over the last couple of weeks, and one being that Fujimedic Kumo. The other ones are Infinity chairs, the Smart X3, the Riage X3, and the Genesis. Those three models we've started to carry because Infinity has made some changes to the way that they distribute their chairs. They are primarily going through furniture stores, and you know, stores like, brick-and-mortar stores. Anyway, they had always, like when I first started with them, they were pretty much an online, they sold a lot online, but now they’ve become such a big player in the industry that they are now putting their chairs more in stores, and less online. And so, they changed our status from an online business to a furniture store, and of course, I've had a store since 2009. So, but I'm glad to finally be considered a furniture store, and so they allow us to carry these other models, and the Genesis, if you recall, or if you're aware of this, used to be sold at Costco, not anymore, but that’s a very, very popular chair, and a very nice-looking chair. We have that one coming to our California showroom, along with the Riage X3, which used to be sold at the Brookstone stores, but those are now defunct. And so, now the Riage is available, the Riage X3, which has been a very popular chair for them through the years, that chair is now available through our store, and we will have it in our showroom. The Smart X3 is a lot like the 8500X3, with some very minor upgrades, but the bottom line is we now have these chairs on our website, and in addition to the other chairs that we've always been carrying, like the 8500, the Escape, the 9800, etcetera. Let's see, what else have we got cooking?

[SCREEN TEXT: Why Buy Your Chair from Massage Chair Relief?]

Alan: Oh, I was going to talk, just at the tail end of this here, I just wanted to say we, you know, I visited Inada, or Furniture for Life, and we talked about this in the last update, I think, but two days later, we found out that an order that was supposed to go to my California store, of four chairs, so they were supposed to going to a grand opening for a big medical clinic down in Southern California, and they were supposed to have their chairs by Friday. And I can't remember the date now, but this was just a couple of weeks ago, before this last update, I believe, and before my last update, and anyway, the chairs inadvertently got shipped to my Utah showroom, and we got those chairs Thursday. Well, actually, we didn’t even get them at the showroom on Thursday, they were at the terminal on Thursday, and then we asked if they could be rerouted, they said yes, but it wouldn’t get there until Monday. Well, the people needed the chairs, and we promised them the chairs, we said they'd get them by that Friday, so that they could be assembled and ready for their grand opening on Saturday. Well, we knew we weren't going to get the chairs to them, and they were not happy. They were upset because we told them the chairs were routed to the wrong store, and of course, as a customer, you're saying 'Well, I don’t care, I ordered the chairs, you promised that we'd get them,' and I've had this experience before, where the shipping companies, the shipping companies really are, can be a real pain in the royal rumpus, because of all the headaches that come with logistics. But surely enough, these chairs went to the wrong store, so I went and rented a, like a U-Haul, it wasn’t a U-Haul, but it was a Budget, a Budget truck, one of those big trucks, right here, just up the street from where I live. I rented it at 9 o'clock at night, and we went to the terminal, and loaded up the four chairs, and when I say we, that’s me and the guys at the terminal, and then I went and picked up my son, Rob, who has worked for me in the past, and he offered to drive with me, but we drove down through the night to LA, here from Salt Lake, down to LA. We left here at quarter to 10, we got to LA at 8 in the morning, or to the store at 8 in the morning, and we handed it off to Dominic, who is our delivery guy down there, and he got the chairs set up, and it was a heck of an adventure. And needless to say, and then my son left at, as soon as we got there, one hour later, he left to the airport to fly home, and I stayed and worked at the showroom for Dominic, because he also works at the showroom on Fridays, and I worked for him until he finished with the chairs, and then I flew home at three in the afternoon, or left at three in the afternoon. And so, I just had to share that experience with you, because it was such a crazy fiasco, but it was such an adventure, and my son and I had a great time, you know, we got to talk for, you know, eight hours, or it was an 11-hour trip, we got to talk and visit and laugh and have a good time, but we were so glad that we were able to get those chairs to Southern California in time for that grand opening. And of course, we'll do what we can to keep our customers happy, and I actually wrote a blog post just yesterday, and you can take a look at it. It talks about why buying from us is a no-brainer. I call it a no-brainer because it really is a no-brainer with our free return policy, our 90-day return policy, our Lifetime Labor warranty, and our customer support, as this kind of, this example exemplifies, we do take very good care of our customers, and of course, we want your business. I mean, I am a business, I am a businessman, and I work in a business for profit, but you know, you're not going to make profit if you don’t take care of the people that butter your bread, and so we try to take really good care of our customers, and we do all we can to make sure that everything is done right. But it doesn’t always work out right, you know, with shipping, or damaged chairs, or a chair that doesn’t work, or a chair that you got, that you buy, and it wasn’t the right one, or it didn’t feel right, or someone didn’t want it. You know, we want to make sure that all those angles are covered with our customer support, so that you have the best experience you can, and when you're buying a chair, or having to return a chair, or if a chair's not working, we are here to serve you in any way we possibly can. And I'm usually directly involved with pretty much all of it, so even though, you know, someone else may answer the phone, or whatever, I am involved in pretty much every angle of this business, since it is my business. But we ant your business, and we want to take good care of you, because we believe that we can, and we will take the best care of you that anybody could, as good as anybody else, if not better. Well, OK, that’s enough of tooting my own horn. I've done plenty of that, between that article yesterday, and today's, to this industry update. But if you have any questions, feel free to give us a call, I gave you the number earlier, it's 888-259-5380, and you can reach us through our chat, through comments, through an email, through any of our social media platforms, you can get a hold of us, we're always available. But please do feel free to get a hold of us if you have any questions about chairs, if you want to know what sales are going on, if you need to know if you can get a chair by Christmas. And believe me, I get calls, in the next week, starting next Monday, I will be getting phone calls, panicked phone calls about people who have come to the showroom, or who have been studying chairs all year, and now, they're finally ready to make their decision, but they're nervous that they're not going to get their chair by Christmas, and that is a legitimate concern. So, call, and we'll kind of help you out with it.

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

Alan: Anyway, I'm Dr. Alan Weidner from 'Massage-Chair-Relief.com.' If you found video helpful, please feel free to thumbs up 'Like' us on our YouTube channel, and spread the word about massage chairs by sharing this video on your social media platforms. But I will see you again in two weeks, and yeah, it'll be before the end of the holidays, so we can update then, but have a great day. Bye bye.

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