Massage and health devices are the category DG works deepest, because it does not only trade them: it specifies, commissions the testing, imports and retails Medics Care and Sana Vivo under its own name. That means carrying the parts of the trade most traders hand off — the safety file in our own name, the two-man delivery up a stairwell, and the technician who opens the back panel eighteen months later.
Two chairs with the same shell can be entirely different products. We ask who makes the linear actuators, the air pump, the solenoid manifold and the control board, and whether those are the parts fitted in production or only in the sample. The shell is styling; the mechanism is the warranty.
Before the price list we ask for the CB Test Report to IEC 60335-1 and 60335-2-32 from a CB Testing Laboratory in the IECEE scheme, and we check that the model designation on the report is the model being quoted, not a sister model. A CB certificate with the national differences already tested is worth more than a folder of unrelated national certificates.
The golden sample gets stripped: hose routing where it crosses the backrest pivot, strain relief on the loom at the hinge, foam density, seam construction, roller bearing quality, noise at full stroke. What fails in year two is visible in the teardown in week one.
A chair is not returned to base, so the service economics are part of the purchase. We agree the spare-parts kit as a share of the order, the parts availability window, the exploded diagram, the service manual and who holds the firmware before the FOB price is settled.
Much of what arrives damaged in this category was damaged in transit or under a clamp truck, not on the line. We run drop and compression testing on the loaded carton, check the corner and edge protection, and fix the two-carton split so the heavy piece is the one that stays on the pallet.
We write the bill of materials rather than picking from a catalogue: track geometry and stroke, roller count and profile, airbag map and pressure, actuator travel, heat zones, seat and backrest angles. It is locked with a signed golden sample and a photographed parts list, so a substituted board or pump is a breach and not a discussion.
Synthetic leather is where these products age badly. We specify grade, backing and abrasion and colourfastness testing against the market: coastal Portugal, the Balkans in summer, the Gulf and southern China all punish a low-grade polyurethane skin, and delamination shows up as a warranty claim long after the container has been paid for.
Menu text, voice prompts, hand-controller legends and the printed manual are set per market and per language, and programme names are written to stay inside comfort language rather than drifting into therapeutic claims. Where a device pairs to a phone, the radio module brings its own conformity work and the app brings data obligations.
Carton construction, internal foam, the two-carton split, the rating plate, the mark set, the responsible economic operator on the box, the recycling and battery symbols, the Arabic or Chinese label copy and the barcode all get built as one artwork pack per market. Getting the label set wrong is the cheapest way to hold a container.
As brand owner we commission the testing, hold the reports, and issue the declaration of conformity in our own name. When a customs officer or a marketplace asks for the technical documentation behind a model, it exists, it is current, and it names the model on the rating plate.
Sana Vivo Brands, Lda in Porto is an EU-established economic operator. DG Brands Europe doo in Belgrade and Novi Sad carries Serbian import, the Serbian-language declaration and the 3A conformity mark. DG Brands Limited handles Hong Kong and the Asian corridor. Buyers deal with an entity inside their own regime, not an offshore invoice.
We hold control boards, hand controllers, actuators, pumps and airbag sets in the markets where we run the after-sales, because a faulty chair is repaired in a living room. Distributors get the exploded diagram, the service manual and a technician briefing rather than a returns address.
We book the pre-shipment inspection ourselves, to an agreed sampling plan, with function cycling, dielectric strength, earth continuity on Class I units, and a carton drop on the same visit. The balance payment sits behind the report, so the factory's incentive and ours point the same way.
We run the retail and after-sales for these brands in our own markets, so returns reasons, complaint patterns and field failures come back into the next specification. Product change is driven by the service log rather than by a supplier's new catalogue.
The document set below is what this category needs to clear. We raise it rather than forwarding a checklist.
Chairs and mechanisms are built in Greater China and move by sea into Koper, Rijeka and Piraeus for Central Europe and the Balkans and into Leixões for Portugal and Iberia, with Serbia trucked inland and cleared outside the EU customs union — the same chair, two different document sets, prepared before the vessel sails. Eastbound and intra-Asian volumes run into Hong Kong and Singapore, with small devices moving by air when the lithium paperwork is clean, and Gulf shipments route to Jebel Ali and Jeddah, where the per-shipment certificate rather than the product certificate is what holds or releases the box.
Both classifications are used in practice. Subheading 9019.10 covers mechano-therapy appliances and massage apparatus, while heading 94.01 covers seats, and customs authorities have classified massage chairs as seats where the article remains comfortable and usable as ordinary seating and the massage function reads as complementary. The choice moves duty, and in some markets it moves the tax and registration treatment as well, so we get it decided in writing in advance rather than argued at the border.
No, and you should be suspicious of anyone who says yes. CE is a manufacturer's declaration, not a certificate someone lends you; the obligation follows the name on the rating plate and the packaging. If you sell our brand, we hold the file and the responsible economic operator is ours. If you want your own label, we can commission testing and build the technical file in your name — that is a project with a cost and a timeline, not a document transfer.
Solenoid valves and air pumps, hoses chafing where they cross the backrest pivot, hand-controller cables, control boards after mains disturbance, and upholstery delaminating in hot or humid markets. Almost none of it can be shipped back to the factory economically, which is why the spare-parts kit, the exploded diagram and the parts availability window are negotiated alongside the unit price rather than after the first claim.
We do not. Consumer massage chairs and personal devices are sold as consumer products, described in terms of what they do mechanically — track, stroke, airbags, heat, positions — not what they treat. A device that claims a medical purpose moves into a medical device regime with its own file, its own registration and a materially longer route to market, and that decision is taken at specification stage because it changes the design, the labelling and the price.
Tell us the product, the origin and the destination. We come back with the classification, the document set and a realistic timeline.
Leave three lines and we will come back with the corridor, the customs position and a realistic timeline for whatever you are moving.