SUP Planned Obsolescence

Seriously, and I'm risking a lot here haha, but is there a real need to release a new model each year by the brands?

Or is just planned obsolescence biting at our wallets, like in other consumer product industries?

Two main points in my opinion.

SUP design is still in its early stages. Performance and construction improvements are being made daily. Everyone wants to surf better and go faster.

The other point is that the companies involved are running a business. You can't keep selling the same product year after year.

So I say keep it coming guys.

Wait till you see the prices for a 2016 Starboard...........need a 2nd mortgage to afford......word is a 30% increase in price from the 2015 models surf and race.....

Yeah, valid opinions all round. It is in many ways though 'us' against 'them', as in the consumer against the retailer and brand. The way it's always been in the world of consumerism of course.

I've heard similar murmurs of distaste of 2016 prices too.

I don't think we are anywhere near done yet. The next big development may well come with inflatables. If a manufacturer can find a way to improve nose shapes, rail shapes, and rocker, hard boards will become almost extinct. And then there is the possibility that someone will develop any entirely new construction process that will produce light, durable and good shape boards at a fraction of the cost of current ones, and then have the distribution and marketing budget to sell them by the bucketload to the masses. This would instantly undermine all the current big brands because their bread-and-butter are the eg. 10-6 all-rounder and inflatables. It is hard from the perspective of us enthusiasts to appreciate how unimportant the type of boards we lust after are to the global SUP market. In the UK, inflatable sales outnumber hard boards 10-1. A substantial proportion of these sales would instantly switch to a hard board if a super-cheap, light, durable construction were invented, since inflating iSUPs is a pain and there is the safety issue of them possible going pop when you are far from shore. I know some people who claim they are not far away from creating such a hard board construction, which would mean new boards could retail at eg. 600 Australian Dollars, and dings would be a thing of the past.

It seems to me unlikely that in a few years time we will all be spending the equivalent of a month's salary or (considerably) more on a fragile board hand made by some unnamed bloke in Thailand and then shipped around the world at vast expense to turn up on your doorstep with a ding in it and paint that blisters or chips off at first use. The current situation is just nuts, and it won't be long before someone finds a better, cheaper, way to do it. The majority of my friends - who are all in good full-time paid jobs - can't afford to buy new boards at retail at all. So if the prices are going up again this year, then either the growth of the sport will start to level off or another way will be found IMO.

To me a a lot of the changes are to drastic not to be planed and give them something to improve on the following year. You only have to watch the marketing video that say what they have learned from the previous year to then two year later back on what they were saying, Mistakes seam to be to simple to be missed.

In reality the prices of boards have been to low up to now and this is just catching up with us and having the boards made the other side of the world and go through multiple distributers and shiiping is never going to get cheaper its just a shame that a lot of these boards are coming out with such poor quality, it wouldn't cost any more to ship a good quality board after all!

The Aussie and the SA Rand have had very similar depreciations against the USD over the last couple of years, so we're in the same boat. Your Kiwi was looking good there for a little while, but that's retraced in the last couple of months. We've hardly moved against the Euro though, but not sure how many boards are priced in Euro or imported into Oz from there (BIC springs to mind). I'm sure there will be some importers out there figuring it out, trying to get boards landed cheaper.

PS - possibly an ignorant question for which I apologise in advance however, given that a number of the large players manufacture out of Asia, does that not dilute the exposure to the US$?

SUPing, on the currency pricing, I suppose it depends on the currency stipulated by the contract. My understanding is that it's typically US$. It wouldn't make much difference if it was written in Chinese Yuan because that's managed on a fairly tight peg with US$. And if it was Thai Baht, the AUD has had a similar depreciation.

For Australian paddlers, the way we've been able to receive the benefits of the mining boom (which led to the spike in our terms of trade) was to be able to access cheaper imported boards. Now that it's unwound, reality is setting in. On the positive side, local alternatives are looking better, as you say AndyR.

+1 SUPing on it being the last thing you think about once you're out there.

I got red thumbed on the last same subject we speak about before this one. But I still think to get the fresher ant cheaper carrot is to home grow it rather than to buy it on the market