Speaker 1: 0:00

Before I dive into this week's episode, I wanted to give you a bit of background. I haven't listened to all the running podcasts out there, but I have heard a few, and not many of them have retailers on board. Most running podcasts focus on the athlete or different training techniques, but I wanted to do something a little different this week and talk to someone about their journey into setting up a sports footwear shop. I was thrilled when Dominic Stead, the co-owner of Sporting Feet, agreed to come on the podcast. As you will hear, he's really passionate about his business and gives us a great overview of the sporting retail landscape. Our interview was an hour long, so I split it into two parts. So, as you will hear, this is part one. So, without further ado, let's get into the podcast. So you're thinking about running, but not sure how to take the first step. My name is Brian Patterson and I'm here to help Welcome brian's run pod, and today we're thrilled to have a real special guest who has been a cornerstone of the local running community.

Speaker 1: 1:27

After a successful 25-year career in media and advertising, dominic co-founded Sporting Feet in 2011 with shops in Putney and Richmond. His passion for sports has driven him to provide top quality footwear and personalized service to athletes of all levels. Dominic's once shared whether you are running or playing a sport, your feet are crucial. It's worth looking after them, and our job is to give practical guidance and provide effective footwear solutions. So a little bit different to compared to who we normally interview. We've interviewed coaches, people who have done running posts, that kind of thing. I'm really pleased to have um, uh, dominic on the podcast today. So, without further ado, um, let's um delve into dominic's journey from advertising to athletic retail. I thought you might like that.

Speaker 1: 2:30

Wow, thank you so thank you very much for agreeing to come on the podcast. Um, I'm I'm really, really, really uh thrilled and excited, um, because a little bit of a different bent on sort of a running podcast. And I know you said you're not sort of like a passionate runner but obviously you can give us a bit more of an insight into you know how you got into this space and maybe educate us about you know what people should look into when they're looking at their footwear. But I thought, as I do with a lot of people, is sort of go back to when you're looking at their footwear. But I thought, as I do with a lot of people, is, um, sort of go back to when you're at school. Were you, uh, a natural, uh, runner or athlete? Did you enjoy sports at school?

Speaker 2: 3:16

yes, I, I'm gonna say I was um yeah, I uh I've always loved.

Speaker 2: 3:21

That's kind of at the heart of one of the reasons why we started Sporting Feet in the first place, actually, but we'll come back to that. Yeah, at school I kind of did everything, played everything reasonable rounder football, running, cricket, tennis, you name it really anything. I could, anything with a ball, generally speaking, although obviously running, I was a pretty decent runner as well, okay, actually more of a sort of short distance runner at school, yeah. And then I kind of I really got a passion for tennis and football Right and played a lot more of those and got to quite a high level tennis wise, oh right.

Speaker 1: 3:59

Did you play a county level?

Speaker 2: 4:01

Yeah, I played county level, yeah yeah, I was really a double specialist, all right, um so, yeah, I must take a paddle, that's okay.

Speaker 1: 4:10

that's that's on my oh yeah, I know that's all the rage now, as most doubles.

Speaker 2: 4:13

I think I'll be quite good at paddles, so you just need to find a court near me, but I think it's quite an expensive sport. But it's an interesting, fast-growing one, isn't that? Yes?

Speaker 1: 4:22

uh, but yeah so anything.

Speaker 2: 4:23

Sport really has been a passion of mine and I guess, in terms of participation now, I'm a really lunatic golfer actually, oh dear, and I'm a football fan. So, for my sins, watford is my local team.

Speaker 1: 4:38

Oh right.

Speaker 2: 4:39

It's even ticket for Watford. So, yeah, I don't mind a bit of long suffering, but no, I don't mind a bit of long suffering, but no, I actually quite like the theme. Yeah, in some ways you get a bit more out of it because you know the smaller victories are your victories really.

Speaker 1: 4:54

Yeah, so was that the case, I mean, when you went to sort of higher education? Because I know sometimes that you, you know, when you leave senior school, um, I mean, although I was, we we did a multitude of sports and I really enjoyed, uh, sports at school. You, when you go into university or something like that, it kind of you tend to leave it behind and there are other interests yeah, there's a lot of other distractions yes, no I carried on playing, represented the the uni at tennis.

Speaker 2: 5:25

Fact, that's how I met my business partner, jeff. So I owned Sporting Feet with a chap called Jeff Ross who lived in Witton, and, yeah, we met playing tennis at Lancaster, uni way back in the 80s all right did you do a, um sort of a business degree, or yes, in fact, yeah, we both did marketing as well.

Speaker 2: 5:49

So, the other, we met across both of those um, both of those things, really so, yes, it was actually a lancaster, as it is till today actually quite a um pioneering uni in terms of business, so at that time it was one of the only places you could go and study marketing all right yeah I'd actually gone to uni to study english literature but about six months in realized actually most much I like reading I'm not sure this is great use of my time and fortunately they had this um system where you studied three subjects equal way in the first year and if you did want to change providing you'd done well enough and they would take you you could swap your major over yeah, I thought that was good, actually, you know well ahead of its time because you know you don't really know what you want.

Speaker 2: 6:32

You don't know what you want to do in life, never mind necessarily what you really want to study when you go to uni and sometimes you realize you made a mistake and I think probably a lot of people drop out of uni for that reason. But having the option to to study something a bit more to your you know, um, you know, a bit more career-minded point anyway, and something new and interesting, that sort of you know, that was a really good move because it was just fascinating and I've always been fascinated by marketing and consider myself a marketeer, right as jeff, my business partner, that's kind of you know why I went into advertising media yeah, yeah I really believe in branding and you know, um, that kind of thing, yeah and uh.

Speaker 2: 7:11

So, yes, actually sporting feet, although we'll, we'll jump to that eventually. Um, you know, we we really wanted to build a brand, albeit not huge yeah, it's a, it's a really good little business, but it does have a very strong brand, and that was really central to our thinking when we started the business.

Speaker 1: 7:31

So, going back onto the sporting side, did you feel that university was well-equipped for you to pursue your sporting?

Speaker 2: 7:43

Not really. I think you had to have the passion yourself. I think if you had the passion, you know the facilities were there, but there wasn't a great deal of yeah, you know, kind of championing sport and and trying to get you to play sports really no, no maybe that's changed, but certainly in my day there wasn't a lot of that. You really, you know, you really had to follow that yourself. Yeah, and obviously for a lot of people they didn't because of all these other distractions, but I felt I still wanted to play sports.

Speaker 1: 8:11

I think they probably treat you like oh, you're adults now, so you have to make your own mind up and motivate yourself, as it were.

Speaker 2: 8:21

I think in my day you were even less of an adult, probably, than you are now.

Speaker 2: 8:26

So it's a bit of a shock to the system when you suddenly turn up at uni and there's no one there to tell you what to do and when to get up in the morning and all that kind of stuff. So actually sport provided a good you know bit of structure to me as well, which was, you know, good and stopped me drinking too much because I still wanted to play tennis to a decent level me drinking too much because I still wanted to play tennis, and to a decent level.

Speaker 1: 8:47

So, yeah, yeah, so, um, when you left university, you decided to go into um, into uh advertising. So did you work on the agency side, or were you, were you, on the?

Speaker 2: 8:58

so I'd worked on both. I worked on the media owner side to start with. So actually for itv all right okay eight, eight years initially. Yeah, partly because I didn't really understand what the job was when I first got the job.

Speaker 2: 9:10

So I was working for tv south television south all right selling, selling tv airtime um, they sort of painted it as a much more, you know, sophisticated job than that. But actually you know it's good fun and you know that was in the 80s and advertising was a sort of a good place to be really in the 80s in some ways I used to quite lucrative, quite good fun yeah, I used to sell space paid, so you didn't. You know it wasn't easy to get out of it, sorry I used to sell space.

Speaker 2: 9:37

I was at um haymarket oh, there you go well yeah, I was selling tv um and then after eight years, basically what happened was itv was kind of consolidating. So they realized when I first turned up we had 125 people selling um itv airtime for just nine percent of the population, television south. What happened over the next five to ten years was you really? They realized, well, you don't need 125 people just to sell. Now you could have 125 people sell the whole lot, probably yes.

Speaker 1: 10:08

That's gradually what happened cost of cutting and the rest of it.

Speaker 2: 10:10

I survived it all, but it just became a tougher, really a very tough environment. Yeah, big sales house, which was not a lot of fun, to be honest. No, again, it was reasonably well paid, but it was a bit brutal.

Speaker 2: 10:24

Yeah, you know, again it was reasonably well paid, but it was just, it was a bit brutal yeah, and um, because essentially I was a salesman, yeah, I, uh, I took the opportunity to jump across to the other side and became a new business and marketing manager for a media agency, right, yeah, yeah, and that was the best move I ever made, really, because that was just such such a more interesting job.

Speaker 2: 10:43

And if you were and yeah, there was a bit of luck involved in all these things, as always, but we were quite successful um, and so I was, you know, contributing quite a bit to, you know, the business, the business, winning business, yeah, and if you're on that side, you're very much on the commercial side of the business.

Speaker 2: 11:01

So you sort of rise up through the ranks and I became the joint md of that agency in its various guises by the end. So that was a good job, you know. And then I was involved not just on the new business side but on, you know, running clients and working with other agencies and so on. So it was a good job and I enjoyed it. But, uh, yeah, you know, I just sort of reached the end of the line in a way at one point and and I'd always felt I'd kind of wanted to run my own business, right, so so did that kind of spark your sort of entrepreneurial yeah um in fact I, when I left the agency, I took a job in a much higher risk startup media owner job which, if I'm honest, I always felt probably wouldn't work.

Speaker 2: 11:48

But it was such a good opportunity and we had a good go at it and it was such a good opportunity to run a business where actually you had to look at cash flow statements on a weekly basis, never mind on a monthly basis, never mind on the businesses I came from that you never needed to run a cash flow statement with all the money coming in. So it really taught me about business, one of the reasons why I took that job because I just felt, even though I was the joint MD of quite a successful media agency, that agency in a way ran itself. You know you, you wasn't, you were never not going to make money. It was a question of how much money the agency without wishing to sound, you know, too arrogant, it just you know it just was that model really yeah, um and um, so you were sort of guiding it rather than really running it at that sort of level.

Speaker 2: 12:43

And so I, you know, I just felt I didn't really know how to run a business and, yeah, if I was gonna ever run my own business. I better better learn, and so I was able to do that. We had two years. It was good fun. We did quite well, but not quite well enough, and I had lots of experience of running, you know, working with shareholders and yeah they're raising money and, uh, as I say, running cash flow statements and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2: 13:04

So I really did start to understand how business ticks yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:08

So did that really prepare you for what you're doing now, which is retail, or was it definitely yeah, yeah definitely in the sense of running a business yeah and my business partner, jeff, had also been through a sort of similar journey, I suppose, and he'd worked in the exhibition space for big companies like EMAP and then he'd gone on with another chap to run a smaller business with a couple of exhibitions that also did quite well and they sold that business.

Speaker 2: 13:41

But he was very much involved, you know, with running that business and particularly from the sort of finance and upside um. So we made good partnership really, um, and I think that's one of the successes of our business actually, that there's two of us. I sometimes really feel for entrepreneurs when there's only one of them, because when there's two of us, I sometimes really feel for entrepreneurs when there's only one of them, because when there's, you know, when there's two of you, you can obviously split the responsibilities, sort of concentrate, hopefully, on the bits that you're both best at, yeah, but also you've got someone else to debate things with and, you know, brainstorm things with, um you know, bounce ideas bounce ideas off.

Speaker 2: 14:18

Yeah, supporting food is very much a product of both of our thinking Right? So, yeah, we came together. We were in a sort of similar situation. I was working as a consultant at the time, having sort of exited that business, and then it gave us a bit of time to really research this. We're both passionate about sport. Jeff has a very similar profile. You know tennis, um golf, um football.

Speaker 2: 14:44

So we wanted to do something in the sports space and actually, being marketeers, we quite fancied having a crack at retail because it's so tangible. So, you know, your customers are coming in the door every day, so you don't have to just pay a market research company to go out there. And you know research what your customers think about you. You're seeing it every day, um, so there was an appeal in that. But when we, you know, bear in mind we we were doing this in, you know, around 2010. We launched the business in 2011. Yeah, we wrote a proper business plan because we had to put it's not cheap business to to get into. You know, if you're gonna never mind the property costs, you know you've got to have some stock. You've got to pay for that. Yeah, and that's the problem with our kind of model, in a way, you've got to pay for it before, yeah, before you can have it, um, and then you've got to sell it.

Speaker 1: 15:36

You know, you've got to, especially if you're coming from nowhere.

Speaker 2: 15:38

So yeah, I think there was an advantage in that and it's a way then we could look at it in a different, slightly different way, um, and think some of the things that we did early on have always, you know, proven to be great decisions and proven to be right. But we were also not arrogant enough to think that we didn't need to learn quite a bit about retail. So we did our homework and also we started. You know you have to start slightly smaller. You have to be careful. You know what you spend your money on, what you start a business you can spend your money on. You know flash looking shop and if you don't get enough money in through the door, it's gone Because you haven't got enough money to pay the bills and through the door it's gone because you haven't got the money to pay the bills.

Speaker 1: 16:23

so, you know, did you? I mean, I think probably the first thing that comes to mind is um, I mean, you're, you're, you've now started a shop which is in retail, but did you have, would you have, any hesitations about the, the online market, and how you know the, the impact that could have?

Speaker 2: 16:40

Not really. I mean yes and no. The thing is we picked it and we were going to launch a general sports shop. That was the idea we thought to ourselves isn't it a shame that these great individual sports shops that used to be on every high street? They don't exist anymore? And when we did our research, we worked out why Because everybody needs more choice these days, which has a lot to do with the internet. You know, push a button, you can get, get everything you might want and get it quickly. Yeah, um, so you can't. You know, you couldn't possibly afford to have a massive shop where you had a huge amount of choice in everything you sold.

Speaker 2: 17:13

So we luckily had the brainwave that why don't we just concentrate on feet? Then we do feet. You know, actually most sports need foot. That means we can cover more than just. We didn't just want to do running. We knew running would be our lead sport, but we just we didn't want to just do running. That was one of our points of difference there still is. We wanted to, you know, cover more sports than that. Because we knew, as we started doing our research, that you know, footwear, what you wear on your feet, it does make a difference, and it does make a difference in every sport and if you play enough of a particular sport, you've really got to have the right kit, and that starts with footwear, yeah, and that's consistent across the board. So that meant, okay, that's interesting, we can, we can go across categories if we focus on feet. And then the more we did our research into it, we realized that actually feet were really quite interesting and we could add quite a lot of value. Um, you know, through understanding feet a bit more, um, understanding fitting a bit more, understanding the sort of injuries that people get yeah um across sport, you know, not just in running, and that and it's, and it's in the name

Speaker 1: 18:15

usps it's in the name a big fan of.

Speaker 2: 18:19

I've always been a big fan of. It does what it says on the tin. Yeah, our name, you know it does pass that that test. Um, and uh, yeah, you know, you should really know what we do by looking at our name. Really, uh, I think so. Anyway, um, yeah, that's part of the branding as well, but yeah, we.

Speaker 2: 18:37

just you know it's not. The truth is the business has been a success because that essence is true. You know it does make a difference what you wear on your feet and if you get it wrong, you know, in any of the sports particularly running, but in any of the sports you will have problem, you'll get injured. You'll end up spending an awful lot more money if you just got it right in the first place. So great question about the internet. But one of the reasons we chose Footwear was obviously because we thought you'd go across categories and the more we thought about it we thought it's not internet-proof. But it's a pretty good start area and may always be, because there's no substitute for trying this stuff on.

Speaker 1: 19:17

Well, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2: 19:18

I mean you've anticipated.

Speaker 1: 19:20

My next question Is that with, or what I was going to say? Is that basically, you know, with, the internet is very much a kind of one-dimensional? So okay, you're choosing from the colour or the brand and maybe the size, but you can't put your foot in a screen?

Speaker 2: 19:37

No, no, I mean, we don't underestimate the importance of online and in fact, you know I'll probably come back to this as one of the challenges we face. But when we, when we went into covid uh, look at the whole covid situation yes, you know, thank goodness we had a website. You know that that is our savior in some way, the fact that we were established in a, you know, a hungry, smaller business but we had a website those two things saved us in many ways. I know a lot of companies a bit like us didn't, because actually there wasn't a great commercial payback in having a website. If you're a relatively small business, you don't do quite enough business to probably in some ways merit it. But again, from the marketing, we just had to have a website really, and it'd be kind of interesting to have one and it would be interesting to sort of learn about that as we went.

Speaker 2: 20:26

So you know, I think, even though our business is all about face-to-face, there's no doubt that the website plays an important role in that and in fact I spent quite a bit of time on that the back half of last year. I spent quite a bit of time on that, the back half of last year, redesigning our website, working with an agency who are very skilled in that area, you know. So spending, you know, quite a bit of time and resource on it and money on it. Yeah, try and make it better, because if you're going to have it, you may as well contribute to the business. That's been a really interesting exercise and it is contributing more to the business. And the tribute to the business. That's been a really interesting exercise and it is contributing more to the business and the two things work together, so we're actually generating quite a lot of business in store from our website.

Speaker 1: 21:07

Yeah, and vice versa. So on that, yeah, when, during that sort of covid time, um what, what was those first few months? What was it like? I mean, did you, was it really scary?

Speaker 2: 21:17

yeah well, it was scary in the sense when we, you know, when Boris told us we all had to close on Monday, you know.

Speaker 1: 21:25

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:26

That was scary. It was wow. We spent this time building up this business and we might lose it because we're literally being told to shut the shut the shops.

Speaker 1: 21:35

You know, there's no, there's no.

Speaker 2: 21:37

No, it's very clear. They're going to be closed from Monday. So, um, where we were lucky, you know, and you know there's always a bit of luck in these things as well, isn't there? There's a lot of hard work, there's luck as well. Where we were lucky is that this category running, you know was something that people were still encouraged to do. That's right. Have a walk, run very true cycle, yeah. So, thank goodness, you know, I felt my heart went out at the time to lots of other retailers that didn't have that options like there's, suddenly the demand for your product has literally not only shut the doors, but the demand has probably stopped as well. So, you know, luckily for us, the doors shut, but the demand didn't stop and we had a website, so we had to shift really quickly into a much more direct way of working and it was fascinating, you know, and I do think the government, you know, helps whether we need needed to be locked down.

Speaker 2: 22:30

That's not another debate yeah, yeah but you know that was what happened and, um, you know we had to deal with it and luckily for us, we had a website. Not so luckily for us, we had a very low customer database and we had their email addresses so we could communicate with them, right, uh, and luckily for everybody wanted to run and I think the running industry to this day is still benefiting from that big increase in demand that happened during COVID. A lot of people took up running in COVID and they've stuck with it and so you know the industry has sort of grown since then. You know it's always been a good industry and a growing industry. You know from the data I see, but also from our point of view. But there was a big, big jump during COVID. So, yeah, we went from. We just had to do it a different way, but there was a demand for it and it was interesting.

Speaker 2: 23:24

I think our connection in the communities really helped us as well. So, because we're a small business, we picked up the phone. So anybody who rang either of our two shops, their number was directed to my mobile number, their call was directed to mine and I spoke to them, and the first when we had to close, we thought, oh my goodness, what's going to happen? And the truth is we just got loads of phone calls and loads of web orders, um, yeah, and the two things work together and back full circle, probably when we start talking about ai and how technology affects things. But you know, we would do. I was doing virtual gate tests, um, over whatsapp and over zoom and all sorts of things, um, you know, for new customers, to test them and help them find shoes.

Speaker 1: 24:11

What do you mean? Virtual gate tests?

Speaker 2: 24:15

Well, so people would send me videos. I'd tell them what to do and they'd send me a video, and then I'd tell them what kind of shoe they needed.

Speaker 1: 24:22

All right, and we see that's really innovative.

Speaker 2: 24:24

Yeah, get them to measure their feet and then I'd tell them what size they need and, generally speaking, it worked. Wow, because we're experienced you know, it wasn't a shot in the dark and mostly it worked, and so I was doing that and Jeff, my business partner, was out delivering all the product, and I think that did us quite a lot of good in terms of goodwill as well, because people can believe it. It's got a lot of good in terms of goodwill as well, because people can believe it.

Speaker 2: 24:47

You know we're out literally delivering. Obviously that wasn't really sustainable to do that because we actually had more demand than we thought we would get, which is obviously great news. So it was just the two of us in the first lockdown and it just sharpened us up. You know, we realized what was good about our website wasn't what wasn't quite so good about our website. We didn't really have any relationships with couriers and that kind of thing because we didn't need it. So we had to had to start doing that. Um, so you know we couldn't just deliver every, every shoe. We were getting orders from scotland, you know oh right, of course, yeah we could deliver that, but not ourselves.

Speaker 2: 25:23

So we had to sharpen up on. Yeah, it was interesting and you could really see the. We sent out an email to our database every week, you know, promoting what we had, and you know we took a bit of a hit on the pricing because we just thought, you know what? We've still got bills to pay. That was the problem. You know you shut the door on a Monday, but any business works like this. Really. You've got bills that have rolled up from a few weeks ago, so you've got to have money coming in to pay those things.

Speaker 2: 25:53

So, anyway, some of it was furloughed in terms of staff and we had good relationships with our landlords. So we were able to negotiate quite good rental conditions, but not zero no, of course not. Even though you were shut, you know as best you could probably do in most cases. So, anyway, it was just a fascinating learning exercise. I think we were the fundamentals of the business, was strong enough that we got through it, and we learned quite a lot about um, online and direct selling, direct in the process as well. So we had to transform the business kind of overnight, but, uh, we were able to do that. We had all the pieces ready to to do that, so it was kind of fascinating, but it was hard work do you think that?

Speaker 2: 26:39

my phone was ringing 24 7 yeah, do you think the same?

Speaker 1: 26:44

do you think some businesses made the mistake that they weren't able to adapt, or they they kind of didn't feel that they could?

Speaker 2: 26:52

I like, I say I think we were lucky that we're in a category where there was a demand for what we did. I think some people, the ones that struggled, were the ones that didn't have a website. You know, they had only, yes, the foresight to build one in the first place, and then, certainly, you know, how are you going to, how you're going to sell products if you the doors are shut? Um, so the website was absolutely integral to that. You know, even if we were making sales over the phone, we were talking, we were showing people the website, looking at shoes together on the website. You know, it was fascinating really, but, um, suffice to say, it was too much work for the two of us. When the second lockdown came around, kept on one of our full-timers and so the work was split between three of us, which was a lot better. I remember that first lockdown. The weather was lovely, wasn't it?

Speaker 2: 27:36

Yeah, the kids were sort of basking in the garden. These two of them were sunbathing and I was on the phone all day. In fact, my son was also not furloughed. He was also not furloughed. He was in the next room working full-time as well. So we were a bit missed. We were. Yeah, he couldn't get out to enjoy it in the same way. I get outside in the garden, the foam ring, get back in, sell someone another pair of running shoes. But it was a nice problem to have right.

Speaker 1: 28:00

So moving on to, uh, the actual shoes. So yeah, I mean, I know um you're not specifically a running um, you know you do cater to all sports, but on the running side, do you think the technology has really changed a lot in the last sort of? You know, I just find the last sort of 10-15 years in terms of of what's of what's available yeah, in the times that we've been operating, I'd think I'd say the shoes have changed significantly.

Speaker 2: 28:33

Um, they've got more expensive yes, without yes, I know yeah, um, but the technology is, you know, I think that is much better and there's been lots of, lots of developments. Um, like cushioning was the first, really, um, working with brands like asics, who you know, one of the success of their businesses, they had the gel cushioning system from day one, you know day one, and they, yeah, um, they patented that. So most companies had to develop their own because, you know, nike's air and asics is gel. That was patented, so you couldn't just copy them, you had to develop your own oh right okay.

Speaker 2: 29:13

So you know a lot of a lot of development in that area. Um, the foams that are used in the shoes now become much lighter and more responsive. I think um hoka, the hoka brand, has had a lot to do with that, developing lighter weight shoes with really good high levels of cushioning. You see now all the brands developing different foam systems that supposedly give you more energy return. They're certainly a lot easier to run in, lot easier to run in. Um, you know now, and the latest development is obviously all the carbon fiber, yeah, plates and the carbon plates and the nylon plates in the in the shoes, which is interesting. A lot of the time we find ourselves having to sort of educate customers, kind of what you things for. So people are, these carbon shoes are very expensive and their and their shelf life isn't usually great, right that?

Speaker 2: 30:07

isn't always communicated to them. You know that isn't always communicated. So you find people running in these things every day, yes, you know, doing all their training in a shoe like that, which is it's not not the right thing, um, and also there's no great research at this point about the long-term effects of running in that kind of footwear. So you know, we caution a bit of, be careful with this kind of thing, um, and you know, horses for courses, really use them. If you really want a carbon or a nylon plated shoe, great.

Speaker 2: 30:34

But you know, use it, use it for the race, don't use it for the training yeah because it's not up to the job and it'll probably, you know, probably you'll get injured running it as well because, like I say, there's not really any great research as to the long-term effects of those shoes. Right, and also, you know, they're just different. Those shoes are different, um, and what we, what we know, having done this for 13 years, 14 years or so, as it is now, is that people get injured if they run run in the wrong shoes. Uh, if they don't fit quite right or they're the wrong type of shoe in terms of the level of support or not, that they have the size, the width, all of these things get any of that wrong. Enough of particular sport, particularly running it. It will cause you problems.

Speaker 2: 31:29

We see a lot of young customers coming in who bought their shoes online and it's kind of okay. If you're going to run 5k once a week, mike, get away with it. If it's not perfect. The minute you start signing up for a 10k or a half marathon and start training for it, it doesn't matter what age you are, how fit you are. People come in with problems and so you know it's our, it's our role to try and fix them and we right, we love that challenge and it's normally not that difficult, you know, but it requires a bit of time and care. Uh, yeah, and those are the things that we do.

Speaker 1: 31:57

what a truly inspiring episode it was. The episode explored the journey of dominic, co-owner of sporting feet, and offered a unique insight into the sports retail landscape, emphasising the importance of the right footwear for runners. Our conversation highlighted the challenges faced during the pandemic, innovative coping strategies and advancements in the running shoe technology, all while stressing the value of expert advice and personalised service in the athletic retail. Here are some key points about the episode Dominic's transition into advertising and retail, his founding and mission of Sporting Feet, the importance of proper footwear and injury prevention, the challenges and adaptations in retail due to e-commerce, how COVID-19 affected business operations and innovations in running shoe technology. Also, he had some expert tips on selecting the right footwear and also how retailers are very much integral to an athlete's journey. Well, that was part one and I really do hope that you tune in next week to part two of my fascinating chat with Tom Ekstedt.