Wondering when you should buy a snowboard/skis to get the best price and value?
Buy at the end of a snow season
Ski/snowboard shops have sales towards the end of each season. This is because they want to clear their inventory before the next season’s gear comes out in a few months. You may find snowboards for up to 50% off, which makes them an incredible bargain.
What about next season’s gear? Should you wait?
In my opinion, it’s not really worth it. Here’s why.
1) It’s not guaranteed that the snowboard model you want won’t get changed or scrapped by the company. In fact, you may find the updated model to be worse than the previous season’s model.
2) Another downside of buying brand new early season gear is that there may not be many independent reviews on the snowboard/skis, making it hard to gauge how good the new design actually is.
3) How often is revolutionary additions made to a current snowboard line? Rarely. Chances are, you’re paying twice as much for the exact same snowboard as last season, except with some very minor changes that you may not even want.
Don’t be afraid of old, last season’s gear either. If you’ve found a great board for what you want to do and the independent reviews and feedback are great, go for it! You may find it actually performs at the same level as current season gear or better.
A good snowboard is a good snowboard. Period. Whether it’s this season, last season or 3 season’s ago, it’s still a good snowboard.