[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGhLlk4Ew0w[/embedyt]
Transcript of Video Titled “Massage Chair Industry Update – October 14, 2020”
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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 for Wednesday, October 14, 2020. Thank you so much for joining me today, lots of interesting things going on right now to talk about. First of all, we’ll start off with some product information.
[SCREEN TEXT: Infinity Genesis Discontinued and All Stock is Gone]
Alan: The Genesis, the Infinity Genesis, is now finally done. So, they had discontinued it a few months ago, and they had a pricing of $3999 for the chair while it was, you know, once it had been discontinued until stock was gone, and stock is now gone in all colors, and so the Infinity Genesis has reached what they call the end of life phase, so it is no more. Of course, we have the Infinity Genesis Max, which we have in all three of our showrooms, which is a good chair. It has calf rollers, a USB port for charging, 3D/4D rollers, it’s a little bit quieter than the old Genesis, and it’s a very good price at, it’s priced very, very well at our showrooms. So, anyway, but the Infinity Genesis is done.
[SCREEN TEXT: Infinity Riage x3 Has Been Discontinued – Clearance Pricing]
Alan: The Infinity Riage x3 is in its end of life phase as well, it’s been discontinued, and that chair, I believe, is selling for $4999 right now. It may go down a little bit lower, I’m not sure for the end of the, as it gets closer to end of life.
[SCREEN TEXT: JPMedics Kumo on Back-Order for All Three Colors At Least Until December]
Alan: But anyway, also, I thought I would mention that the JPMedics Kumo is back-ordered in all three colors. You don’t, this is a terrible time to have inventory-management blips right before, you know, Black Friday, but their next shipments aren’t coming in until December, and so that’s a very popular chair for us. So, we’re a little disappointed that the inventory management was not better on this one, and who knows what the reason is, maybe they ran out of particular upholsteries, maybe, who knows, who knows what goes on over in China in the factories that can inhibit production of the chairs. But usually, it’s just poor inventory management, but just so that you know, the JPMedics Kumo is on back-order for all three colors. I believe the Cappuccino color won’t even be available until March of next year, but apparently, the Black, and the Red, or the Burgundy, and the Espresso colors are back-ordered, and we’ll be getting shipments in in December, the first or second week of December.
[SCREEN TEXT: Great Pre-Owned Massage Chair Deals]
Alan: We have plenty of chairs on our pre-owned directory, plenty of good options. I mean we have the Master Drive AI for $6499, we have a Luraco for $6490, a Luraco iRobotics 7 Plus. We have, oh my goodness, what else have we got? We’ve got the Japanese JP1100, Synca JP1100. So, we have plenty of good options on the pre-owned market, so go ahead and check our pre-owned directory out, and you can see what we’ve got. I believe we’ll be adding a D.Core Cirrus here this week. And that might be it, but there are some very, very good options, and very, very good discounts. Our pre-owned directory typically has lower prices, and there’s no shipping delays with those. We have those ready to go immediately.
[SCREEN TEXT: Shipping Delays, Especially White Glove – Be Prepared for Holiday Backlog]
Alan: Now, and speaking of shipping, the massage chair companies, as you may or may not know, the white-glove delivery process has been considerably slowed down since COVID-19 hit. What’s happened is some of these companies that will not go in to people’s homes or some areas where they are not allowed to go in to people’s homes, but what has happened is that there has been a back-up of white-glove deliveries and some companies are asking customers to expect up to five-week waits, and it used to be two weeks. One week for regular curbside, two weeks for white-glove delivery. Now, we’re telling people to plan on anywhere from two to four weeks, some as much as five weeks. now, what does that mean for Christmas deliveries, holiday deliveries? It means that things are going to be a little tighter now. So, whereas before you could order two weeks ahead and get your chairs by Christmas, now we’re getting Christmas times that are going to be much earlier. For example, well, and I’ve received two so far, one from Cozzia, Ogawa, and JPMedics. They’re, if you want regular curbside delivery, or if you want white-glove delivery, you have to order by November 30th, if you want regular LDL freight, which is curbside delivery, it’s December 4th, and UPS deliveries are December 9th. And we had an interesting experience where we had a chair shipped here by UPS freight from Daiwa’s headquarters in Southern California, and it took forever for that chair to get to Salt Lake, and from Southern California to Salt Lake is not that big of a drive, or that big of a distance. I actually ended up going down to the terminal to pick it up because once it got to the terminal, and this was just for regular curbside delivery to our showroom. Once the chair had arrived, they were telling us it could take up to another two weeks before a local truck could deliver it to our showroom, which is absolutely ludacris. So, we don’t, we try not to use UPS free when we do our own, when we do our chair deliveries, or our chair shipments, but just be aware that shipping is going to take some time.
[SCREEN TEXT: Order Earlier than Normal Because of the Shipping Delays]
Alan: Furniture for Life, which is the parent company of OHCO, D.Core, Positive Posture, and Panasonic, their cutoff dates for full-service delivery is December 1st, so about the same as what Cozzia/Ogawa is, and for their regular freight, just you know, curbside delivery, their cutoff dates are December 2nd for the East Coast, December 3rd for the Midwest, December 4th for the West, and then December 9th for the Coast, for the West Coast. So, anyway, the bottom line is just don’t wait until, especially, people wait until the last minute every year anyway. I remember sending emails out to people: Hey, if you want your chair before the 25th, you know you can still get it if you live local to one of our, you know, see we’re, so let’s say you live in Southern California, the warehouses for Furniture for Life, for Ogawa and Cozzia, and for Daiwa, and for Human Touch are all located in Southern California, so you can get your chair within a couple of days, 2 to 3 days, with our white-glove delivery team that does the deliveries. But boy, oh boy, if you don’t live near one of the warehouses, please plan ahead. Black Friday’s coming up, there will be some sales, of course, as there are every year, and by the way, if you do buy a chair from us before Black Friday, and then Black Friday shows up, and you see some sales that show up along with Black Friday, that give you a better deal than what we gave you, let us know and we will either credit you, or reimburse you, or give you that extra special whatever it is, whether it’s a free extended warranty, or a discount on the price, or whatever, we will match that for whoever purchase before Black Friday. And I encourage you to purchase before Black Friday because getting the chairs, and getting stock, may be very challenging as we get to Black Friday. Some companies are starting their Black Friday advertising before, long before Black Friday. So, anyway, I hope I haven’t confused you and said too much about something that’s actually pretty simple, but anyway, just make sure you order your chairs well ahead of Christmas or New Year’s, or whatever it is, whatever the event is that you’re purchasing chairs for, make sure you give it plenty of time.
[SCREEN TEXT: Buyer Beware Brochure]
Alan: I talked about the buyer beware brochure that I wrote, and I’m getting requests from people for this report, and I don’t, we’re waiting to get a landing page done on our website for it, but it is a, I think it’s a very good report. It kind of, it’s a long report, it’s the longest one I’ve ever written, but it’s all about making sure that you are protected, and from scams and misleading advertising, and fabricated reviews, and whatever the case may be, just make sure that you’re aware of certain things when you’re searching for a massage chair because there are things that you need to be very, very cognizant of. I’ve discussed some of them in the past, like chairs that say they’re FDA approved, or companies that have, you know, virtually no return policy, or a very poor factory warranty. These are things that you need to be aware of as you’re shopping for a chair. But anyway, I talk about it, so if you want it, email me, you know, go on the website, go to our contact us page, and you can send out a request for that buyer beware page. Also, you know, keep an eye on the website, it’ll be under the Support, probably under the Support tab, or sorry, the Education tab will have that report available as well. But if you want to just send me a, drop me a line, and I’ll email it to you. But anyway, and lots of, again, lots of things to be aware of when you’re shopping for a massage chair. We don’t want you to get ripped off, or feel like you’ve been misled, or falsely, false claims were, you know, thrown your way, please, you know, just be, just buyer beware. It’s as simple as the name of the brochure.
[SCREEN TEXT: Daiwa Supreme Hybrid Does NOT Have a Memory Function]
Alan: Now, we had listed, the new Supreme Hybrid from Daiwa is a good chair, a popular chair, we like it. When we first received information about it, we were told that it had a memory function, and we have recently learned that it does not have a memory function, so we took that off of our website. Apparently, according to Daiwa, they had originally planned to include a memory function, but then they chose not to before the chair was launched publicly. So, there’s no memory function, there is with the Daiwa Pegasus, but not the Supreme Hybrid, just wanted you to be aware of that.
[SCREEN TEXT: “Augmented Reality” Now Available on All Furniture for Life Products -OHCO, Positive Posture, D.Core & Panasonic]
Alan: We have also added some software from Furniture for Life on their product pages. It’s called ‘augmented reality,’ and what you can do is use your phone to take, you can, OK, so you can use your phone and get a picture through this link, get a picture of the chair, whether it’s the OHCO M.8, or the Positive Posture Brio Sport, or the D.Core Cirrus, and you can hold that picture up against the backdrop where you want to put the chair, and it’ll show you how it’ll look in your decorum, and that’s a pretty cool idea. I’ve seen that before with other products. I think we saw it on Wayfair, and I’m sure it’s on other websites as well, but this is the first time we’ve seen it with massage chairs. So, anyway, take a look at that. It’s on the tabs on the product pages of any of the Furniture for Life pages, any of the Furniture for Life products, and it’ll be a tab next to, you know where it says, we have Overview, Videos, Articles, Specs, and then there’ll be an Augmented Reality tab, just click that and there’ll be instructions on what to do, a pretty cool feature. I think that is just about it in terms of up-to-date news.
[SCREEN TEXT: Wall Hugger vs. Space Saver Massage Chairs]
Alan: I will mention that I wrote an article this last week called ‘Massage Chairs: Wall-Huggers Versus Space-Savers,’ and you know, we get these terms thrown around, a lot of people are not quite clear on what they mean. Back in the day, before the L-tracks came around, the S-track chairs, you know, the way they work is that the chair back works independently of the seat, so the chair back goes back, and it’ll hit your wall if it’s too close to the wall, and usually you need anywhere from 13 to 16 inches of space from the wall. Well, along came these L-tracks, and these L-tracks, they have an L-shape, and the chair scoops under when you recline, and then so you don’t have to be as far away from the wall because it scoops under, rather than leaning straight, like it had before, like rather than going straight back and hitting the wall, now it kind of scoops under, and so it doesn’t require as much space from the wall, and typically an L-track used to require anywhere from, you know, three to five inches of space. Well, then they came out with these chairs, and I think the Infinity Iyashi was the first one that we saw with it, it had a sliding base. So, the wall, the chair could be put up like virtually up against the wall, within an inch, and then when you turn on the chair, the chair moves forward 12 inches, and then it reclines, and so that is what, that is what a wall hugger is. So, a space saver is, you know, anywhere up to five inches away from the wall, and a wall hugger is, you know, within an inch of the wall. So, a wall hugger is a space saver, but a space saver is not necessarily a wall hugger, and I think, for example, of the Luraco Legend Plus, which is an L-track, and it is, it does save space compared to an S-track, but I think it’s like eight inches from the wall, whereas you can go to a chair like the Super Novo, or you know, the Supreme Hybrid, and you can go within an inch of the wall, and it’ll, and it’ll slide forward and make, and give you the room you need, or the Osaki Ekon, or the Infinity Genesis Max. Those are all chairs that are wall huggers. And so anyway, if you want to read more about that, you can go to my website and see it with some pictures and I try to explain it pretty simply. It’s a little harder explaining with words, much easier to show with pictures and video. But anyway, just know that that’s what those terms mean, wall hugger, space saver versus the traditional S-track, which does not have any space saving whatsoever.
[SCREEN TEXT: 888-259-5380]
Alan: Alright, well, I think that just about it for this week’s massage chair industry update. If you have any questions, you can feel free to give me a call at 888-259-5380, and of course, you can reach out through our chat feature, which is on our website, or through the comments section on our YouTube channel, or on our Facebook page, or on Twitter. We’re always available, and I usually answer most of those questions, so feel free to give us a call. If you have a problem with your chair, you can go to our Support tab on our navigation bar of our website, and it’ll give you instructions on what to do to get your chair fixed. If you call us, you have now an option for customer support for, you know, warranty issues or problems with your chair. Anyway, we want to make sure that you’re taken care of if you do have a problem with your chair, and we’ll get what you need to, we’ll help you get taken care of what you need to get taken care of. But if you’re calling us about a chair that we don’t carry, or some no-name brand, we really don’t have much help for you. Most of these repairs require parts, and these parts are usually very model specific. So, if you have a particular model, like people will call me and say ‘Hey, listen, I have a you know, an old King Kong chair,’ which is an old chair that used to be sold through Costco, but they’re out of business and that happened years and years ago. But people will call now and say ‘Hey, I need a new remote control, can I get a remote control?’ And people think that there’s like a universal remote for massage chairs. Well, there’s not, and that remote control that you need is specific to that King Kong chair, and not just the King Kong brand, but maybe that particular model has its own remote control. So, it gets a little tough to find parts, but we get calls about that all the time, and if we can help you, we’ll help you. If we can’t, we’ll let you know. And but anyway, chair problems arise and we’re here to help you out in any way we can. I don’t even know how I got on to that subject, but anyway, it’s neither here nor there.
[SCREEN TEXT: Please “Thumbs Up” Like This Video!!]
Alan: Well, that’s about it. If you found this video helpful, please feel free to thumbs up ‘Like’ us on our YouTube channel. Of course, help us spread the word about massage chairs by sharing this video with your family and friends on your various and sundry social media platforms. But I hope was helpful, it was helpful in some way to you today. 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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