Sports Depo is a large chain of extremely large sporting goods and apparel stores known for its wide range of products that are displayed in an attractive and well thought out manner. Much of the fun visiting this big box style store is seeing exactly how retail merchandising is different in the land of golf, baseball and football – the football known to Americans as soccer.
Take for example athletic and recreational footwear: Sports Depo has the largest selection I have seen in any sports store anywhere, and I've been to the Roadrunner Sports Superstore in San Diego. There are shoes in five sections of the store: running and walking shoes, football shoes, team sport shoes, aquatic footwear and even recreational shoes. Sports Depo has nearly a hundred bicycles from beach cruisers to serious lightweight racers. There are lots of baseballs, baseball bats, and gloves as well as many tennis rackets and tennis balls. Visitors can try out any of these in the tennis and baseball hitting cage right inside the store. Football, badminton, basketball, running, fitness, aerobics, golf, and swimming gear and accessories are also well covered.
Sports Depo also has a huge selection in the center of the store reserved just for sports apparel. Puma, Nike and Adidas products are prominently featured brands, even newcomer to the Japanese market Under Armour has an expanding presence on the sales floor, but it's Mizuno that is the king of sports brands in Japan which is readily apparent at Sports Depo. There's even several aisles of nutritional supplements to select from.
Sports Depo in Uruma City is located on Route 85 just south of the intersection with Route 33 and is open from 10:00 ~ 21:00 daily.
Michael Flemming @michael.flemming
I'm a wanderer in Okinawa turning over every stone I can find. I write, photograph and blog about my favorite finds here in Japan's southernmost prefecture.
