They honour their name and also treat their clients/friends extremely well. The success of Golfriend’s, a company with several shops on the Costa del Sol, is due to the large variety of its products, its good prices and the excellent service it offers golfers.
“We opened the first shop (located between Marbella and Estepona) in 1999, four years ago we renovated it and expanded it a little, and now we’ve grown quite a lot,” explains the owner of Golfriend’s, Antonio Valle. “We’ve acquired several shops – including the one at Atalaya – we’ve reached an agreement with Golfino, so we are now present in Sotogrande and San Pedro de Alcántara, and we also have a small shop at Magna Marbella.”
To what do you attribute Golfriend’s success? What makes you stand out from the competition?
What we always aim to do is provide good service, offer a great variety of products and ensure that all the brands we have work well.
What is that clients seek most: price, quality, a good combination of both…?
The first thing they look at is price, but apart from that they also value service hiighly, and we always try to find a balance between service and a good price.
What is the best selling product in Golfriend’s shops?
We are specialists in equipment, so we sell quite a lot of golf clubs. However, when we carried out the renovation of the main shop we also made a major commitment to quality clothing, which is selling well.
Over the last 15 years that Golfriend’s has been operating on the Costa del Sol, what changes have you noticed among the clientele?
Unfortunately, we’ve observed that the Spanish market has dropped off a fair bit, but foreign tourism has increased. We have clients from throughout Europe, as well as Asians, Americans… Thankfully, tourism is helping us quite a lot.
Who buys more, the tourist or the golfer living in the area?
The tourists.
Can they find better prices here than back in their home countries?
Yes, they take advantage of the products we offer, the currency exchange... but lately what is noticeable is that we depend a lot on tourism.