This article is in collaboration with GINTELL.
Last weekend I went into the GINTELL store in Pavilion and decided to try out their new massage chair called the GINTELL DéSpace UFO Massage Chair. This to my understanding is the “Rolls Royce of massage chairs”.
Why Rolls Royce? Well let me tell you what it can do among many other things.
- It has this thing called an I-Sensing System that measures your body shape and length from head to toe to accurately provide a “tailor-made” massage experience for you.
- It has rollers that reach from your upper back to thigh, even covering your butt.
- It doesn’t just massage you but it can stretch you. Like it pulled my feet and really stretched me out. I felt like there was a real person pulling on my feet to stretch my whole body out. Kinda like how you feel in the morning when you stretch out on your own but with a lot more force.
- It has speakers at the head rest that you can connect to your phone via Bluetooth to play music.
- It can even provide heat therapy.
It was my first time sitting on a chair like this and I gotta say it was a completely different experience that I was used to from the old one I have at home. For one, once I click a switch it lifts my feet up and tilts me to this comfy position as the machinery works to massage me all over my body.
When I say all over, I mean everywhere. Traditional massage chairs normally cover your back and sometimes your feet. This one covered everything including my hands.
It was a great. One of those things I wouldn’t mind getting for Father’s Day (*ahem* if you’re reading this, that’s one month away dear Fighter and Penny. No rush).
So how much does the “Rolls” of Massage chairs cost?
RM21,988.
Yep. RM21-friggin-988.
I balked when the sales person told me the price but he was quick to explain that they have a promo now that allows you to:
- Get a free DéVano S Massage Chair if you buy one of the GINTELL DeSpace UFO Massage Massage Chairs.
- And there is a GINTELL Parents’ Day buy one free one promotion for their massage chairs with the Double Happiness package that starts with RM4,988.
Okay…. great. But still. RM21,988!
Instead of looking at the overall lump sum cost though I decided instead to calculate how long it would take for me to “recover” this investment. Now if I didn’t buy this massage chair and I was super into massages, maybe I would go like twice a week. So I went to check how much a massage in KL would cost.
A typical spa I googled up puts it at RM109.20 (including GST) for a 60 minute massage. That’s a lot of money to pay but there is some pros and cons to that comparison. The pros of going to a spa is that it’s a different experience with trained staff and nice environment. The cons of going to a spa is the inconvenience of it. You normally need to dedicate a couple of hours just to go there, find parking and all that. So the cost may well be over RM109.20.
Now assuming I go for a massage twice a week the estimated cost of that would be some RM11,357 a year. So in two years I would have completely “made back” my cost of the RM21,988 massage chair. That’s a decent ROI because every massage after that is “free” (minus electricity costs) and massage chairs normally last for many many years.
When I put it that way I can understand why people pay that much for a massage chair. The sales staff at GINTELL told me they sell a good number of them every month and just as I was trying out the chair, another customer came in already prepared to make a big ticket purchase for one of these chairs. By the way speaking of the sales staff, I thought their Pavilion outlet had some really good sales staff. I think one of them was named Bryan.. the other.. I didn’t get his name.
Anyway if you’d like to check out GINTELL’s new chairs you can check out their website or the ad below for how the chair works.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space