Pickleball Paddle Product Development:
Background:
Potenza, a mid-sized American pickleball paddle company, wanted to design a unique foam core structured pickleball paddle. Potenza immediately contacted Fulei. They hoped Fulei could help them find a suitable factory to develop this new pickleball paddle. Fulei found a suitable factory within 3 days that could produce paddles with similar structures for the client. After repeated sampling and confirmation, this new pickleball paddle finally shipped successfully after 96 days.
Raw Materials
Raw Materials
March 17, 2025 – The client found our website through Google search. They contacted our procurement specialist that same day. They told us they wanted to use this brand new material to make new paddles.
March 20 – After communicating with the client and confirming product dimensions and paddle production requirements, Fulei immediately contacted pickleball paddle factories we had worked with before. This factory had already started making paddles with this new foam core last year. However, since they hadn’t made the foam core structure the client requested, the factory said they needed to make samples for testing to see if they could meet client requirements.
The project’s difficulty was that this new structure was quite unfamiliar to the factory. We needed to ensure the produced paddles could pass American USAPA certification. Therefore, we had the factory simultaneously prepare foams of different densities and weights to make samples for testing.
The first edition
The Second edition
The final edition
March 25 – The first sample came out. Fulei went to the factory and checked paddle product details with the production manager. We discovered that even using lightweight foam for the paddle core, the paddle weight still couldn’t meet USAPA standards.
Solution: Add 4 more symmetrical holes in the foam core to reduce weight.
March 28 – The factory made finished paddles using the improved foam core. Weight met standards now. However, pickleball elasticity was affected, and the sound was quite loud when hitting balls. Fulei immediately went to the factory and met with production to discuss. Finally, we tried adding a new foam strip in the middle of the foam to reduce hitting sound.
April 5- We got new samples again. All previous problems were successfully resolved.
April 8 – We showed the client the paddle structure and appearance through video. The client acknowledged our efforts.
April 16 – The client successfully received samples and took them to the court for testing. They were very satisfied with the paddle’s elasticity, control, feel, and weight.
April 19 – The client took samples to USAPA testing institutions for certification.
May 24 – The foam pickleball paddle successfully passed certification.
May 28 – The client placed an order with us for 2,000 foam core pickleball paddles.
June 24 – Bulk production completed and successfully passed Fulei’s quality inspection.
Summary:
Fulei used our supply chain advantages to quickly find suitable suppliers. Through suppliers, we successfully developed new structured paddles. We helped clients achieve innovative pickleball paddle core design.