Eighty percent can be enough for retail
March 14, 2025
Jondo is a South African sunglass maker and a new entrant into the crowded American market for tinted eyewear. From its Mooresville, NC location, the company looked to expand its green grass pro shop by exhibiting its wares at the 2025 PGA Show in Orlando, FL.
I met Morne Botha, Jondo’s CEO, who discussed his company’s approach to fitting and sales relationships.
He stressed that Jondo does not aim to serve every possible customer. That is intentional.
“Fitting sunglasses have a lot of different things to take into consideration,” he said. “Just like a shoe fitting, we look at length, width, and the bridging. Some ears are closer to the front than others, there’s ear alignment, there’s eye alignment, the bridge. So, it’s quite a difficult one to just pick off the shelf and have a perfect fit. Some faces are a bit more flat or round, so you need to get that fitting right, too.”
Botha continued, “What we’ve done is look at data with optometrists, and looked for the most common frames, size, curvature in the lens, and then arrive at 80% of that collected data, that’s the sort of frame that you need. The 20% that are left out are really oversized and small heads.”
“It’s finding what sells, especially making sure it’s the technology and performance that we want, but at the same time we need to align that with a deal with the wholesaler. We know we don’t want to give them stock that won’t sell. We’d rather give them 80% and know that they can sell all of them,” he said.
Botha noted that Jondo’s performance-oriented eyewear is limited to 26 models. In addition, the company offers stock protection to its resellers as a signal of its confidence in its product lines.
Jondo’s try-before-you-buy program also works well for them, he said. “We give wholesaler and retailers and tell them, take two demos, and when your member or guest walk in, lend that demo out, take it for a test drive, come back and tell us what you think. Our sell-through by doing that has been just unbelievable. The proof is in the pudding. We don’t want people to buy our product and not be 100% happy. So that’s been working really well.”
As with other performance eyewear, these glasses are a bit of an investment, selling at $260 SRP retail. The sunglasses come in a hard case with a lens cloth and soft carry bag. “People enjoy the process of unboxing that experience that comes with it,” Botha said.
Flightscope
The rangefinder business is booming for golfers, as companies search for the right mix of user options that attract the most buyers.
FlightScope I4 rangefinder
FlightScope is well known for its launch monitors, but for 2025 the company hopes that golfers will also adopt its new I4 rangefinder.
At the 2025 PGA Show Demo Day I met J. Beck Wheeler, a former minor league baseball player. His background is well suited to help his employer. FlightScope products are used for baseball and softball as well as golf.
The new I4’s data displays go well beyond a laser-based distance measurement from golfer to the flag. As Wheeler explained, the new device can also gather additional useful data from the FlightScope app that golfers can install on their now-ubiquitous smart phones.
First, the device provides live environmental data. “The I4 is going to pull local weather conditions, it’s going to pull the air density, altitude, humidity, and air temperature, as well as the wind speed. The user-selectable wind direction is also incorporated into the ‘effective play-as’ distance. That will give you the best representation of the golf club that you should pull from your bag for any given shot,” he said.
The app also gives the rangefinder access to personal shot analytics. “You can enter your carry distance or launch conditions within the FS golf app. The Smart-Club gapping will generate a report for you to give you personalized club recommendations displayed on the I4’s LCD screen,” Wheeler said.
Under the Rules of Golf, however, proper access to all this information depends on what kind of golf is being played. The I4’s rangefinder settings can be set to comply with the Rules.
The tournament conditions limits restrict the rangefinder to distance only. Slope data, which produces predicted distances based on elevation changes from one spot to the next, cannot be used. Like many other rangefinders, I4 comes with a visible slope indicator light to assure your competition you are not cheating.
The club recommendations and weather factor data the I4 can provide is also intended solely for practice or casual rounds.
At Demo Day Wheeler said the I4 was going through a pre-sale period, with units being shipped after Feb. 17. The units are now available for order at FlightScope.com ($499 SRP).