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Inside Function18: Golf retail's digital success story with Shopify · Leaders on Shopify with John Readman

• John Readman: So welcome back to Leaders on Shopify. really pleased to say we've got Ben from Function 18 with us today. and we're going to be talking all things selling golf gear online and on Shopify and his journey in e-commerce. So thanks for coming on, Ben. for those who don't know who function eighteen are and what they do, what's function eighteen, what are you famous for, Ben | Function18: Well, we're a men's specialist men's apparel golf wear retailer. We're pure online. have been for 18 years. We've been in business for 20, but we came from a business that had golf stores before that. So we were in the golf industry previously dealing with lots of brands on hardware and apparel footwear accessories, every category really in store. We had a lot of stores. at one point over 40 but they were all at golf clubs it was a difficult business model because the tight margin we saw the potential in an emerging golf fashion specialist. There were a couple of retailers who were doing that online at that time. But it was really early days. And we saw the potential of moving into that apparel, slightly higher margin, something we were really interested in and a market that was strong at the time. There were people like Ian Poulter and players on tour like that who were really setting the world alight with their trousers. John Readman: Make it making gold fashionable. Yeah, Ben | Function18: it was just a bit more interesting up until that point it had always been black pants and black tops and yeah just no real consideration for what what you would wear it was an afterthought really and golf had been quite John Readman: I know. Ben | Function18: staid for a long time it had been a very traditional sport no change no growth so yeah we wanted to try and get on board with that really We wanted to try and mess with the traditions a little bit. John Readman: And so did you and when you went online, did you then just phase out the the the the sort of traditional shops or was it a clear cut? We're stopping doing that and now we're gonna do that. Ben | Function18: Yeah, no, we had to phase them out. We had stock in there and responsibilities with the brands that we dealt with. And yeah, we phased them out. I we got, it took some time and it wasn't easy, but yeah, we were lucky actually that we got some good advice with our first web developers. They were an agency who I knew quite well. We had a good relationship. John Readman: You can name check them if Ben | Function18: They were called JP74. So they were local Lancashire business. they were quite early into that web development space and they were doing work with DNAD and yeah, their designer, Andy was a friend of mine. Andy still works for us 20 years later. So the relationship with the graphic designer was the kind of conduit and... that's how the business kind of started online. We had some pretty quick success with it in that we found it quite easy to get sales with the brands that we had good relationships with already. So we were lucky that that side, the brand building relationship, trade relationship John Readman: and and was that Ben | Function18: was already in place. That helped us quite a lot. John Readman: And was that sort of key? Because you probably already had the contracts in place to distribute certain products. And I bet Ben | Function18: Yeah. John Readman: in certain brands there probably wasn't even a clause about whether you could sell it online or not. It was just you've got the ability to sell it and then you're almost Yeah. Ben | Function18: Yeah, it was a completely different world. the brands didn't really understand the online space or want to. So yeah, they were quite happy to just get the business from wherever. There were some big retailers in golf at that point. Direct Golf were doing a big number online. Online golf was a big thing. American golf was probably emerging, but they bought online golf. no online retail was just getting going. And golf was one of the forefront, I would say. generally. John Readman: you've been through over twenty years then, you've seen quite a lot of change. how many different platforms have you been to? Cause you're now on Shopify and you're here, but what's been the journey to where you've got to today? Ben | Function18: Yeah, well, we were. Initially on OS commerce, what was the very first thing? but that was just a platform that our agency kind of put us in touch with and put us onto. I guess it's always something when you're working with an agency, it's what they're familiar with and what they are happy developing for. So yeah, that was the first iteration. We went onto Magento not long after that. I mean, probably within 18 months, we'd outgrown that and we realized we needed something else so Magento was the next move and then when we left we left JP 74 just after three or four years maybe five but yeah that relationship just ran its course they had different projects on different you know they weren't really an e-commerce agency at that point we ended up with a freelancer for a long time who was very good Yeah, I Magento inside out was really easy to communicate with and work with. So that was the next stage. We had a lot of good years on Magento, But it's a behemoth, it? You know, it's a huge, thing. And we managed to get it to a state where it was working for what we needed it to. What we did always have issues with was downtime though. We would always have something, some piece of work we do would break something and ultimately. No, no, no, I'm sure. John Readman: Yeah, you're not the first person who's ever said that. You update a pr you update a product page over here and then the whole thing stops working. Yeah. Ben | Function18: Yeah, yeah. So it was complex, but again, you don't know any different, you, when you're working through this journey and everything seems like a progression. Magento seemed like a big step up for us. and with a good developer, you could do whatever you wanted. It just probably was too complicated. then we made the move to Shopify, which was... in COVID, which was a horrible time to be going through a project like that. But we were working with Space 48 on that move. I really liked the guys there, You know, I've always felt that I could get good, solid, honest advice from them if we asked questions. So we embarked on that project in 2020. yeah, Shopify was the right move for us. I'm sure, you know, in the first couple of years, probably there were people within the business that maybe didn't think it was the perfect fit. You know, it was a step backwards in some regard, but... John Readman: what do you mean in terms of like customisation or flexibility? What sort of thing? Ben | Function18: Yeah, I know the designer and flexibility around, I mean, it's great being able to launch apps, but if you're very conscious about how your website looks, which is what we are and our brand image, then yeah, we found it really difficult to put apps on the site that are going to look how we want them to look and keep that, keeping that consistency across the apps is, John Readman: That sort of high end feel and luxury feel. Yeah, yeah. Ben | Function18: Yeah, mean, it's been just, it was matching fonts. It should be really simple things from a design point of view. But you can install some apps and you can't use certain fonts with them. You know, it just seems a bit ludicrous, especially when your fonts are things that are built into Apple devices by default like Elvetica and... John Readman: Yeah. Ben | Function18: So yeah, that was that was frustrating. I mean, there's workarounds, but then there's always that caveat conversation of whatever we do as a workaround. If they have updates, then that could break what we've done. So. John Readman: So have you got a list of apps then that don't work with the right fonts that we can share with people? Ben | Function18: Well, it's kind of just, we, we trial things and it can be quite a quick conversation to, install it, try it yourself, see what flexibility you've got. And then I just know sometimes it's just not going to fit the brand. John Readman: Yeah, and then on Shopify now, how much are you doing yourself in house versus agency support? How do you run the business now from a sort of Shopify and day to day point of view? Ben | Function18: Yeah, well for a long time we were working with agencies. We're now not, I mean, there's like a reconciliation piece there really. That's all it is. at a stage of just not putting the investment into the development that we have done over the previous years. So, but we've got the site to, you know, we're using Instant a little bit for... product page design and blocks on the site. So we don't need a developer for that We've always used Shogun Shogun's another page builder tool which we've found really easy for our designer to work with. So yeah, once we'd got the theme and the apps and the mechanics of the system stuff in place for our business, we feel now that we don't really need the dev support that we've invested in over the years. so yeah, just gives us flexibility. we've always needed that flexibility and we've wanted to take ownership of things ourselves. So. John Readman: Yeah, and I think conversations with other brands when you actually sort of add it up that sort of total cost of ownership, especially a lot of people think online's easy and online's got high margins compared to the high street, it's tight margins because it's so competitive. And actually if you can reduce your cost to serve in your technology, then that's gonna help you run your run a better business. Ben | Function18: yeah, you've always got to be very tight. We've, we've come from, I mean, we've had 20 years of growth and initially it was really steady growth, but we've done it all without any investment from a, like a cash chunk. You know, it was all, John Readman: Yeah. Ben | Function18: because we took the business from a failing business from a store point of view and had to manipulate it into something else. So, yeah, we're, we're used to. doing things on the cheap. That sounds terrible way. Terrible way of putting it, because we don't certainly don't project John Readman: Ha ha ha ha Ben | Function18: that. no, we are very conscious about costs and we run on very fine margins. So you have to, be very careful about what you spend. Yeah, flow is king. John Readman: Yeah. And you've also when you've been growing and scaling the business, you've been probably in like Google Ads and SEO and Facebook and everything right from the beginning. What's worked well for you and how have you sort of seen that change over over time? Because that's that's sort of getting the traffic to site is key when you sort of and I suppose what's good for you is you've got established brands. So you're selling established brands that people will be Ben | Function18: Yes. John Readman: looking for. But it's also Ben | Function18: Yes. John Readman: highly competitive. So what what's been working for you in the past? What what changes have you seen around driving traffic to the site? Ben | Function18: Well, we used to get just quite a lot more natural direct traffic SEO stuff would be a bit easier. Obviously with the Google results page, the way it's changed, I think that that is all just. been flipped on its head over the last couple of years. But you know, we've got more people to compete with than we ever had. I think the change to PMAX for Google Ads, which probably and actually meta as well the kind of tools that those platforms are giving a smaller retailer. do help us more. mean, even Shopify, think he's probably set up for a smaller retailer. I don't know the stats, but I would assume that the bulk of the businesses that they have on that platform, maybe only have 50 products in their catalog. I mean, we're not huge, but we're into the 6,000 plus skews. I actually don't think Shopify and Google meta, think there really are, in the last couple of years, they've been really going after the smaller retailer, giving them the tools to be able to get on Google Ads because it used to be such a minefield that you had to go to an agency that knew what they were doing. and I just don't think you need to do that anymore. it's still really difficult for a small retailer to make some money because... They don't have the inventory that a brand like us do. You and I know that PPC is about efficiency as much as it is about getting sales. John Readman: the challenge we see a lot is Google's costs are just going up. If you actually take certain keywords and look over time, Google is a for profit business It's been quite interesting. I think for the first month ever Meta make more money from advertising than Google. Right. So that's quite interesting in a shift in behaviour. and is that Meta's just got better advertising or is how users are discovering a brand has changed? I don't know, Because Meta's seems to be moving more into that sort of UGC world. But yeah, you're absolutely right. We've seen loads of shifts and I see a world where the value agencies offer and think as an a as a former agency guy and a guy who's come from the ancient world actually see more and more people, even bigger brands moving in house. Because if what you were talking about is like the ad platforms are putting more and more AI to help people do stuff, and then you've got access to more and more AI to help you do stuff. So actually the value a brand has to bring is more about expertise, strategy, best practice, rather than the doing, because the the doing can be taken care of by the platforms or by AI that you've got. Ben | Function18: I think the agency model was always going to change because that is the disconnect with working with an agency. They don't have the knowledge and the strategy that experience that we, brand or retailer have. And John Readman: Yeah, yeah. Ben | Function18: the difficulty is always kind of coaching them into that. There's always a period of them having to understand the industry to be able to sell in it. John Readman: Yeah. And yeah, and it does Ben | Function18: Golf is quite niche in that you need to communicate with a golfer, you need to be able to speak their language and most marketing agencies can't do that. John Readman: And yeah, I don't know any golf I don't know many golf specific digital marketing agencies who only work with golf brands. So Ben | Function18: No. John Readman: and it's one thing understanding Google, but it's this is actually something we've been talking a lot about is the what the brands who are winning now are the ones who really understand the different personas of their customer, right? And and then communicate that. Yeah. Ben | Function18: Yeah, they build a community for the customer. it's a little bit different when you're a multi brand retailer like us, Yeah, you're right. You know, if you're, if you're a cycling retailer, you need to understand, you need to be able to play in the mindset of a, of a cyclist because all your marketing John Readman: Yeah. And Ben | Function18: communication it won't resonate, it? And it won't land and you won't get the engagement on any of your ads if you're not talking to those customers in the right way. John Readman: Yeah, and one thing that I witnessed this mainly through my my children's friends. my I've got two girls as you know, and that they don't play golf, but all their mates who are boys at school are really into golf. And when I was sort of eighteen at school, people weren't really that into golf in the same way like everybody's into golf. What do you think has changed there and has that had an impact on your business? Are you actually seeing younger customers coming through? and Ben | Function18: Yeah, that's definitely shifted. The demographic has changed. mean, golf for a long time was very old. I think the average age of a male golfer was 65, going back John Readman: Yeah. Ben | Function18: 15 years. A female average age of a female golf was actually 10 years older, 75. It was a retirement sport, it was a dying market. But yeah, in the last 20 years, mean, the base of our customers are 35 to 45 have been since we started But that 18 to 24 category is growing. That's where we've seen probably the biggest shift. I put that down to... the sports people of the world and people being very transparent about their lives. And golf has always been a sport that people played So was something that professional footballers always did. Footballers could always play golf. It was the only sport they were allowed to play because they had plenty of John Readman: 'Cause they have the time and the money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ben | Function18: time in the afternoon and they couldn't play and get injured. So actually now when you get the likes of Harry Kane or Gareth Bale, they're very open and honest about how much they love playing golf. Carlos, Arthur Carras, know, Wimbledon champion. He mentioned it in his winning speech that he's, going to go and play golf. so, yeah, I think it's transcended John Readman: And and do you is it do Ben | Function18: and kind of thing that nobody, we can't talk about. can't, we can't be honest and admit that we've got loads of time on our hands to play golf. It's now a sport that they're all talking about and proactively yeah that's great for our game. I do believe golf, was born into the sport as the son of a golf professional but I've had a very... I had a different relationship with golf because of that, but I still believe golf is the ultimate sport. mean, mentally it's exhausting. Physically, it can be exhausting if you're playing at the highest level. I'm not saying that 18 holes on a Sunday is physically exhausting, but if you're playing four rounds of golf in a Czech tournament championship, that is mentally and physically impossible to me. Even someone who's played all my life, it's the pinnacle of sport for me. You need every skill. John Readman: Well, I I I I think as you know, I play golf but I'm not very good. And I've I do have however have a very good pair of new golf shoes. but and again, the last pair of golf shoes I bought was probably twenty years ago and it was the black and white foot joys and there wasn't much choice. You can buy some for I I got my I got kibosh by the the wife and kids. I was like I sh I might wear my golf shoes out. Right? They're that they're like a cool pair of shoes. They are a really cool pair of shoes. well I think they are. My f my family Ben | Function18: Yeah, well, no, you're right. This is moved completely. You know, the fact that we've got an Adidas Originals Golf collection, you know, I know, know I've wanted to head designers John Readman: Air Jordan stuff and all of this. Ben | Function18: at Adidas Originals and he for years and years will never do, we will never do Originals Golf. We will never do it. It's not Adidas Originals. It's not our thing. you know, Oasis festivals just doesn't the two don't just don't marry up. But now we have that, you know, we've had that for a couple of years now. John Readman: are you seeing is that attracting is that shifting people or is that helping attract people? What 'cause there's more and more things. Ben | Function18: Yeah, it's definitely helping to track people. I mean, we see it a little bit less in our business because we are, we tend to be geared up for a serious golfer. I don't want to alienate people, but you know, the brands that we stock are not really entry level. The more the brands that you would go to once you've played the sport for a while and you're, you're invested. go, right. Okay. I want to, I want to spend a bit more money. some of our products are not premium you know there's a lot of brands that we stock that are not in that high price point market but yeah I think once you get a bit more serious into the game you would come and look at us we're not really catering for the starter which is actually over the last couple of years where a lot of the growth in golf has come from The game of golf is oversubscribed at the moment for 10 years before Covid, really. For 10 years it was on a steady decline every year. John Readman: Well, golf clubs were closing down or they were becoming a venue for events and funerals and wakes and it it was more the golf club house was becoming a venue. And now there's waiting lists at golf courses, like the good golf courses, you can't get in. There's there's one near me and they've got a four year waiting list to get in. So Ben | Function18: Yeah. Well, the one thing about golf in this country is we've got limited space in the UK. So there was a period in the nineties where loads of golf courses cropped up on farmers' land and they thought this is the boom John Readman: Yeah. Ben | Function18: we're going to have. And there's a lot of those on the outskirts of Leeds. But yeah, was, there was a time when it was, there was way too many options with golf courses and pay and play and all those things. And now driving ranges, you know, I'm quite close to the Trafford Centre in Manchester. They're building a huge extension on there at the driving range. there and for years and years that was a business that was just on the decline. But John Readman: Yeah. Ben | Function18: And that speaks to what life's like for everybody at the moment. People are a bit nomadic, aren't they? They are a bit less tied to things and... John Readman: Yeah, exactly one of our clients, he does this like membership where you can buy a membership with him and you can go and use lots of different clubs. It's like a sort of voucher scheme. And that was quite good because people didn't want to commit to one club, but they were happy, they wanted to go and play at clubs that you had to be a member of, and this thing sort of got them in. So I agree with you, golf's hard. And I I'm an it I I'm a really impatient player and I just want to whack ball Ben | Function18: It's a cruel sport. If anyone watched the open, know, the finish to this year's open, it just is testament to how cruel it can be and how close it can be and how many permutations there can be to pick the winner. Yeah, it's a brutal sport and I've played a lot of sport and if I'm being honest with myself, I went to sports like cycling and running and and because you don't have the complexities that golf has, you literally, if you train harder and you run more and cycle more, John Readman: You get better. Ben | Function18: you get stronger and you get better. And yeah, when you get into the racing and the tactics, you can really get into that. And that's where you can get the marginal gains. But yeah, golf is not like that. You can practice solid for 12 months and get worse. John Readman: Yeah, it. You're really selling it. and yeah Ben | Function18: Yeah, it's a challenge. That's what we like as well, isn't it? That's what that is the benefit of golf. It is a challenge. John Readman: and it's proven being outside's good for your mental health and I think the whole body connection and everything. but we've done really well because normally on these podcasts we we spend loads of time talking about AI. We haven't talked about AI at all, but but I'm gonna change that now because One of the things in e-commerce we can't hide from is the use of AI, whether that be in ad optimization, whether that be in image creation, whether that just be internal tools and systems. So what have you been playing with? What's worked, what's not worked, what's your view on AI fitting in with your business? Whether it's inside Shopify, outside Shopify, what are you using? What's working? Ben | Function18: Okay, well really we're a creative business. That's where we start. We start with creative. So yeah, we've adopted tools to... manipulate images and work on that and create stuff there. Video is a little bit more difficult. I think just the time and effort going into prompting and nailing down video seems harder at the moment, but we've had some good success with working with images. So that's good because it saved us time and investment on photoshoots really, which are things we've done over the years enjoy doing them. I enjoy the John Readman: So Ben | Function18: people I work. John Readman: there's no no more cut no more company trips to Portugal to take the photos. Ben | Function18: No, we did a lot more studio work than that, which was happening quite locally. AI is a great facilitator for product shops and for things that, we use it quite heavily for that at the moment and will continue to. I don't see that changing. But I also think, you know, with AI, the number crunching, reporting, the power that is in that, writing summaries from, you know, compiling 20 different spreadsheets and the ability that AI has got to look over those and draw up a holistic view of it all is mind blowing, really. so that's what we tend to use it for. I know we've dabbled at using Asposco a little bit, which is what that is, isn't it? It's pulling data from John Readman: Yeah. Ben | Function18: lots of different sources and we're just starting that journey. John Readman: what what are the other sort of apps since 'cause you've been on shopping for a while compared to maybe some people listening, what other sort of go to apps that you rely on that help you run your business? Ben | Function18: the big ones that stand out? We've used, Clayvoo a lot. Clayvoo is a big thing on our site for handling category pages and merchandising, really on-site merchandising Klaviyo is one that we've always had, know, the tools in Klaviyo just keep growing, think that's a really powerful platform. else are we using? I mean, honestly, instance is great. And the tools that that gives you as a, smaller business, it's just great to be able to cut out the link between a graphic designer and a developer. If you've got a designer who John Readman: Yeah. Ben | Function18: can build something and publish it on the site without the need to communicate with the development team or a developer is brilliant, huge flexibility with that. There's lots of smaller things, but there's so much choice, isn't there, in the app world? You know, it's just, yeah. John Readman: Well, there's it it's overwhelming. It's overwhelming is like the volume of apps and also now with people vibe coding stuff, people are just spinning up apps all the time. And one of the bits I was actually in Toronto with Shopify at the dot dev conference and one of the bits of feedback they were saying is the apps that are winning at the moment the ones that actually got real human beings who can actually answer the phone and talk to people how to use them. rather than just a faceless sort of bit of tech. Ben | Function18: the reporting app world is that's something that I've been kind of introduced to as they emerge, you know, like the analytics pieces and the MCP connectors and all these different things that can pull information into a Claude or a chat GPT and... you can write prompts from there and you can ask questions and that is so powerful I think you know it's like having a PA isn't it it's like having somebody John Readman: Yeah. Ben | Function18: especially she can talk to I mean I do think we're putting a hell of a lot of trust in them getting things right and reporting back the right information we're still in that world of having to check things But if you want to get top level information, it seems quite easy to get that even out of meta. I'm testing that with Claude and the MCP connector there and asking it questions about creative and how that creative is performing. know, asking it questions about when things are hitting levels of ad fatigue and it's not giving perfect results. John Readman: Yeah, that well on based on some feedback from some of our e-commerce agency partners and some of our clients on As Bosco, in the next few weeks we're actually going to be putting the creative into As Bosco. So then you can join up what creative drove what product sales, but more importantly what profit at a product and the creative level to see exactly that and which creative are we still spending money on that actually haven't driven any actual sales or profit. And everything else. But what other online brands do you sort of look up to do you think are doing a really good job? Not necessarily in the golf space, but you're like, Yeah, really rate what those guys are doing. Ben | Function18: Well, as a cyclist, one that we always looked at was Rapha. We always thought Rapha did a fantastic job from a brand perception. You know, they had a clear story. The messaging was always consistent. That's probably one that stands out in sportswear. I mean, stores wise. pro directs we thought were great as a multi brand retailer, really slick operation. into lots of categories, we like the way that they they conduct themselves and the assets they produce. you can tell that they spend a lot of money on that. You can tell that they're a big team, the creative So yeah, you know, we deal with brands that are like that, you know, the likes of Adidas and they're doing a lot of this for their own direct to consumer now. And for years it was really difficult, but now we know that because they have their own direct consumer model. They understand how important it is to have assets for the online space and to be able to market the product. So yeah, we're getting things that they're using themselves, which isn't ideal in a, Instagram organic world, you know, it wants unique content, doesn't it? But actually for, for John Readman: Yeah. But I suppose that you could take that and change it with a bit of AI and make it unique potentially. Ben | Function18: You can, yeah. guess the legalities of that, you know, they've signed off on the model and yeah, the licensing John Readman: Yeah. Ben | Function18: for image rights is a gray area there, isn't it? yeah, John Readman: Yeah. And Ben | Function18: to populate the site and to put email campaigns together and all those things, it's really helpful that those brands are doing that. John Readman: Yeah. And with that, 'cause I suppose when you first started a lot of the golf brands weren't doing any D to C at all. And is that just I know that's what I mean. So is is are Ben | Function18: Yeah. Overall, that's it now. Yeah. John Readman: they eating your lunch or is that just increasing demand or is it a bit of both? Ben | Function18: I think he's a bit of both. It was very difficult to take out the effect of that. it's continual frustration of ours when direct to consumer sites are actively driving orders and business, you know, like through first order signups, discounts on first orders. If you go on adidas.com, you can get a discount. You know, you'll find a way of getting a code on your first order. so that's frustrating, but we do know we can offer a better level of customer service than those guys. You know, it is a different experience shopping with us. it's the thing that brands want because they see the high profit margin in those direct consumer sales. If they're out the middle man, or the wholesaler then yeah, of course they're going to want that business, but it is damaging to the wholesale business and We've got brands like John Readman: I'm ready. Ben | Function18: Nike who completely wanted to get rid of all their wholesale business. They had an approach to kind of... not focus on that and maybe that's with JD or you know Foot Locker on the high street there was definitely a change in their strategy whereas Adidas's CEO has always been no wholesale he's massive for our business he's telling a story he's giving us visibility we can't cut that off so it's a balancing act I think it's like the it's like marketing mix isn't it you need to do a bit of everything John Readman: then you've gotta sort of keep testing and learning and repeat what seems to be working. And Ben | Function18: Yeah, but I don't agree that adidas.com or nike.com should be actively discounting. I don't think they should be. I understand that there's e-commerce directors and people in those businesses that have to hit a number, but I don't think that. John Readman: They do value in the brand, yeah. Ben | Function18: Well, they are. Yeah. I mean, you should be, if you go on those sites, you shouldn't be going looking for a discount. Should you? On the high street you wouldn't get that so it seems strange that they operate in a different world than the online space. John Readman: And and one thing we when we're talking to brands and we talk about it was the talk of the town in Toronto was agentic commerce. was one of the talkers said, he said it's a bit like teenage sex. There's lots of people talking about it, but not many people doing it, right? And in terms of like everybody's getting excited about people are gonna have agents going on to Chat GPT or Claude and actually buying things. Do you see people writing a Claude script or a bot or something to go and do their shopping for them? Or is it more about it Yeah? Ben | Function18: I certainly do. mean, maybe not in every retail space or industry, but I think in ours, it's so price driven. we are very particular about how we look as a store and what the experiences of shopping with us. But actually, I don't think that's the norm really in golf. think there's that. functional Amazon-esque, know, it's not a great shopping experience from an apparel perspective, but actually you get what you want. You know, it's delivered quickly. I think the psyche of our kind of customer is a little bit more inclined to take the easy route, and yeah, agentic commerce would probably tick a box It's a complete change to how we operate and... it can only erode margin because it's just basically, race to the bottom on price, isn't it? John Readman: Well, I suppose it depends 'cause I might put a query in rather than what's the cheapest, I might put what's the best, or what's the best quality, Ben | Function18: You're mine, yeah. John Readman: or what's gonna last me the longest. And then 'cause again, I think shoes are an interesting one always. If you buy a cheap pair of shoes, they wear out and break really quickly and end up buying three or four pairs of shoes, that's something my father was very adamant about. One thing you should spend some money on is shoes. so I suppose it depends where you show up in that. And I and I think if you've got the right quality content. Ben | Function18: Yeah, it does. Yeah. I mean, it would be the same if you were buying a bike or You know, there is a point where the quality it's substandard, isn't it? You know, don't get the quality you want and that's price related. With apparel, I don't think it's quite like that. You know, we spend a lot John Readman: But then that's more about look and isn't People want a brand 'cause it looks a certain way. Ben | Function18: They want a brand and we expect we pay a lot for a brand because we can show it on our chest and our brand mark and the quality is often not any different, but people buy into the brand, They buy into that sense of community. John Readman: And what it says about them or what it says about the pro that wore that brand as well, which is then they're sort of almost joining that club 'cause they wanna be like Ian Polter Yeah. Ben | Function18: That's why I quoted Rafa before because that is absolutely that, you know, in cycling, you were, you were either a Rafa guy or a ASOS guy, but it's just, the product is good, but is it three times as good because it's two or three times more expensive? John Readman: Three times the try and surprise. yeah, a very sh a very difficult conversation. Yeah. Ben | Function18: We justify it with comfort, we? Which is the same as a golf shoe, you you want something that's comfortable. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what agentic commerce is going to bring John, but it is going to change things quite. I mean, that is what AI is doing, is changing things very quickly over a very short space of time. we're changing the way we look at staffing, we're changing the way we look at agencies, we're changing the way we do everything. And it's all a bit unknown at the moment because I think AI is doing a good job. It's not doing a perfect job, It's not there yet. But we're all kind of waiting for what's coming next. What can it do next? John Readman: it's just fascinating the energy and rate of change and I think it's being in e commerce, we've seen a lot of change over many years, but it has been over many years. It seems like if someone had said to me this time last year, would you be feel comfortable putting your whole product catalogue into an AI and getting different variants, I'd have said, No, it's not ready. now there's apps out there where you can just plug your product category in and go, right, give me different versions in different colours and whatever, or different scenarios. And you feel comfortable doing that now. And you still obviously check everything, but there might come to a world soon where you've Yeah. That's the worry. That's the scary. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Ben | Function18: we don't do it. We don't check everything. That's the point. That's we haven't got the time to do everything. And that's why we're using AI in the first place because we haven't got the time to do everything properly that we want to do. There's lots of things that John Readman: Yeah. Ben | Function18: AI has helped us kind of discover we need to be doing and we get started with that. But I think it's very difficult to be so thorough and follow it through to the very end and sense check everything. But again, that's why I think agentic shopping will be a thing because lives for most people are stressful and they haven't got enough time. And this is a way of making things happen John Readman: I think golf balls maybe, but I think if it was an expensive polo shirt, probably not. Or certainly I don't think people are buying golf clubs gentically yet. I think Ben | Function18: Yeah, but what you would let it do is give you five options and you just pick one. John Readman: Yeah, you might do, and then it get or get it to monitor but I've written my own flight tracking price monitoring tool in Clawed, because it's like this really complicated set of flights that go to India. and I'm getting it to give me an update every week on the price movement and they're getting it to predict when's the best time to buy the flight, Years ago, that wouldn't have just I couldn't have done that. And then Sky Scanner built the first UK unicorn from doing something similar. I've actually built in a potentially more functionality with my own little Clawed thing. but that sort of monitoring of stuff Ben | Function18: I mean, these, adoption of these AI tools has happened pretty quickly. I was a free user of chat GPT and a free user of Claude and it didn't take me long to be putting subscription details in and using, I'm not saying I use the tools anymore than I did when they're on the free things, but quite, we quite quickly get into habits of using them and relying on them John Readman: Yeah, it becomes a different way of working and the amount of time you spend doing stuff I'll give you a really useful case. So I've just come back from this conference in Toronto and you're trying to connect and meet loads of new people. And I just started taking photos of people's badges because we didn't even have time to do the whole let's connect on LinkedIn thing. And then that evening I went into Claude and I said, Can you look at my photos? Can you then pull all the contact details off the badge? Then go onto LinkedIn, get me the LinkedIn URL. and then send them a great to meet you today message on LinkedIn and connect with them. And it's like that would have been a morning of fanning about on LinkedIn trying to find everybody and connect with them. Ben | Function18: in certain roles, if you've got a way of even thinking that way, like it's a creative thought process, an entrepreneurial skill to be able to even think that way, isn't it? go, okay, I could get Claude to do this for me. Yeah. John Readman: Yeah. We were the we were discussing that over dinner the other night is it is the one job Claude isn't going to replace is entrepreneurs. Ben | Function18: No, no, well, it's aimed at them, I think. John Readman: Right. If if any it's gonna it's gonna turbocharge the curious entrepreneur who wants to answer questions and do stuff. They're gonna find more AI tools to sort of help. so yeah. Yeah. Ben | Function18: Yeah, no, I agree. think that's who it facilitates most. I mean, it doesn't hurt. John Readman: the other part of that dinner conversation was it's gonna be like the industrial revolution for the factory worker where it all became a lot of autonomized stuff is what's happening to maybe some of the white collar workers with AI. this has been fantastic. We could talk forever, Ben. If people want to find function eighteen or find you, where do they need to go? Ben | Function18: function18.com pretty straightforward or they can email John Readman: Yeah. Ben | Function18: me at banettfunction18.com if they really want to. I'm a busy boy but I do like to hear from my customers and yeah if anyone's got questions. John Readman: Yeah, and what what are the what are the best Yeah, and what what are the what are the best sellers? What do you sell the most of? Ben | Function18: What we're doing really well with Nike we have for a while now. I mean it's a powerhouse isn't it? Adidas has been a strong brand over the last couple years as well. You know the Originals collection is great, we love that stuff. It's rocking the boat which is what golf needs. We're all about mixing, getting rid of the old traditions and kind of stirring things up a bit. You you talked about footwear before and it becoming like trainers and athletic and that for years was frowned upon in golf, but now it's, where it's at really. John Readman: it's been excellent having you on. Thank you for taking the time. we need to go for a game of goal for a cycle. Ben | Function18: thanks John.