Ahead of the official opening of West Africa’s largest sports store in April this year, in Accra, Decathlon, a leading French sportswear and equipment company has kicked started processes to ascertain the needs of local customers in order to better serve them.

The interaction, which took place over the weekend at the Peduase Mountain, with fitness and sports enthusiasts, who usually climb up the mountain on weekends, forms part of the Decathlon Ghana’s goal of manufacturing technically suited sportswear and equipment for the Ghanaian market.

Kwasi Tabury, Chief Executive Officer of Decathlon Ghana, said, “The idea is to listen to our customers to understand their needs. When we understand their needs our designers and engineers will then come up with the products at one of our internal brands to meet exactly what the customer needs. So we want to master all the steps; from listening to producing the product and selling it in our retail shop.”

To breathe life into the company’s operations in the country, Decathlon intends to regularly engage various sporting disciplines on how it could produce to meet both the environmental and technical needs of the Ghanaian market.

“The interaction we are having here today is one of many others to be organised at various places in the coming days, because we want to interact and understand the people who do the sport,” he said.

This, Mr Tabury noted, is to ensure that every angle will be covered, as all stakeholders, particularly the customers will have their opinion heard, with one principal goal of providing long-term satisfaction to Ghanaian users.

“We are in Ghana because we believe that this market needs us. Our idea is to change the lives of people. Our products are of superior quality and our prices are very affordable. So we want to encourage people to do more sports because it is good for our health, and ultimately promotes better living.

We test all our products to make sure that it works for the market we are producing for. So we will make sure all our products suits the Ghanaian environment. Everything will be designed to make it perfect for the Ghanaian market,” he explained.

To achieve its overall goal of promoting sports and well-being among Ghanaians, Decathlon will also spearhead a campaign dubbed #sports4all. This will be achieved by organising various sporting events prior to and after the official opening of its first store.

The store will be located at the Junction Mall, Nungua, a suburb of Accra, on over a 1250 metre square of land, with more than 40 different sporting wear and equipment as well as space for people to practice sports.

Some of Decathlon’s innovative products include as Kalenji (running wear), Kipsta (team sports like football), Quechua (hiking and camping), Domyos (fitness), Artengo (rackets sports) and Inesis (golf), among many others.
Presently, the company operates in 50 countries worldwide, with over 1000 stores, including four African countries.

Decathlon brands are made from the finest technology. This ensures quality and relative affordability of about 25 percent less cost. Decathlon products’ also comes with warranty, ranging from two years to lifetime.