Likely in an effort to spur sales, GoPro just announced a trade-in program that nets participants $50 or $100 towards a GoPro Hero5 Session or Hero5 Black, respectively, for any older GoPro camera.
Josh Constine got it right last year in his article called The GoProblem. “Action cameras are like tablets. Lots of people want ONE. But very few need to constantly update to the latest model,” he wrote about GoPro’s slowing sales. At the time GoPro’s stock was seemingly in a slump after popping post IPO. Now 14 months later, GoPro’s stock has yet to recover and is hovering around an all-time low.
GoPro saw incredible early growth partly in the fact it successfully created a new market. And then everyone interested in buying a GoPro camera, purchased one. Its previous models are still capable of capturing videos in incredible detail. The latest model even uses the same sensor as its predecessor though the software was reworked. So why buy another one?
At this point GoPro now has to convince perspective buyers that its latest cameras are not only capable of better video capture than past generations, but they allow for easier creation of videos. The Hero5 cameras are waterproof without a special case, sport better microphones and have a better user interface. But GoPro also reinvented how the cameras interact with smartphones and even created a cloud platform that automatically uploads captured content.
The program is only available for a limited time. But don’t fear if you miss out. The discounts are nearly as substantial as a good traditional sale.
