K2 SNOWBOARDS F/W 2025/26 PREVIEW

Retail Buyers Guide: Snowboards F/W 2025/26 Retail Buyer’s Guide
Brand: K2
Interviewee: CEO K2 Snowboarding Global

How was last season in the snowboard market?
It was amazing. A lot of snow. Insane pow days everywhere throughout whole Europe. Exactly what you looking for as a snowboardbrand. Global warming is a myth (not).

With the recent overall price increases, have there been any positive developments in manufacturing, sourcing, or logistics?
Our Investments in renewable energy and green logistics (our factory is powered by renewable energies only) are lowering energy and transport costs.

What are the major trends you’re seeing with product pricing in the snowboard market?
From K2 Snowboarding’s perspective, we’ve seen product pricing adjustments across the snowboard industry, including our own lineup, driven by rising production and logistics costs. Our approach focuses on balancing these necessary price increases with added value for riders at every level.

E-commerce Vs. physical retail, how are you balancing both channels?
Retail was, is and will be the backbone of snowboarding. We have seen certain brands focusing on e-commerce only and that didn’t go very well. K2 will always be a brand focusing on retail.

How are you supporting retailers to sell this category?
By running events in stores, supporting them with reasonable pricing and involving them in K2 events like the one we did in Seattle in October. We are simply emphasizing their importance.

What unique brand messages are you focusing on for the 2025/2026 snowboard season?
Face.Of.Freeride. That is and will remain our CI, we will focus on bringing the best freeride products to the market and tell people about it.

SNOWBOARD SPECIFIC

What trends or developments are you seeing with regards to board construction, shapes, and general innovation? How is this shaping your 25/26 range?
Our boards won a lot of prices, I feel we have one of the best board engineers in the game rn, we are bringing out a couple of new shapes this season like the Almanac and Embassy. I am confident to claim that K2 Snowboarding has the best performing boards on the markets atm as we have the best board engineer.

Anything new concerning sustainability and related products or construction you would like to highlight?
We developed our own Bio Resin for our boards that are partially biodegradable (we will push this further) and we run our factories exclusively on renewable energy sources. All the wood we use in our boards are sustainably harvested.

Are you using any new materials in your hardware for 25/26? If so, what and why? We’re interested in anything new in inserts / edges / cores / sidewalls / glue / resin/ wood types / base material / top sheet / wax / etc..
K2 uses the most expensive materials money can buy. We using Spaceglass in a lot of boards, our SpaceGlass material is a premium, lightweight composite that significantly boosts board responsiveness and durability, making it ideal for high-performance riding – though costly, it’s an investment in exceptional on-mountain precision and control.

Any new design or pattern approaches in your 25/26 gear? Any collabs on the line?
Keep your eyes open, we have big things coming!

Are you planning to focus on a special product range or type of customers? What’s your newest range?
As I have already mentioned earlier, our special product range are high end freeride boards and the target customer is a freerider. Our newest range is the Dopamine series, powered by Sage Kotsenburg. We always try to live up to our claim: Face of Freeride. Sage Kotsenburg will have his very own linbe of Snowboards next year.

Key Products:

Sages Antidote part of the Dopamine collection:
Maybe the best backcountry freestyle board that was ever developed.

Orton:
One of the most durable and most comfortable boots on the market.

Commonwealth:
The passport is one of the most versatile and fun freeride boards. Just for rider on the top end it was probably a bit too playful. So we took the same outline, put some high-tech materials inside and upgraded the passport too a more advanced, aggressive version: the Commonwealth.