With the present economic trends of globalization, the retailing businesses, along with many other businesses, have extended their operations beyond the national boundaries. Meanwhile, the competition scenario within retailing industry has now evolved from competition between individual companies to that between supply chains. Thus, retailing companies need to consider the relevant factors determining their performance from a holistic view. This paper studies and compares the decision factors related to supply chain network design between international and local retailers in Taiwan. By comparing the different views from local retailers and the international retailers, the authors try to obtain a general understanding of the differences regarding the importance of the factors to the two groups of retailers. This research outcome could be used as a guide by the retailing industry in their supply chain network design in this particular region, and also as a fundament for further research in a wider range.

In recent decades, as pointed out by Maharajh and Heitmeyer (2005), many circumstances have propelled the globalization of retailing industry. Many renowned retailers in UK as well as in other developed countries have extended their operations to a global context. For example, Tesco, Wal-Mart, etc., have opened their operations outside the boundary of their own countries.

As a consequence of globalization, the competition among retailers is becoming intensified (Bianchi and Mena, 2004; Bernetti et al., 2006; Ho, 2008; and Kotzab et al., 2008). For surviving well in the marketplace, besides a good strategy to keep customer loyalty and acquire more new customers, a retailer also needs to have a competent supply chain network to reduce the cost and increase the competence of the whole supply chain. As many researchers have pointed out, with the globalization of the economy, the competition is no longer among single companies; it is now the competition between different supply chains (e.g., Christopher, 2005; and Kotzab et al., 2008). The wellbeing of a supply chain network will affect heavily the profits of its individual members (Ellram et al., 1999). In general, decision factors for supply chain network such as location, transportation, inventory, demand, and product variety have been identified by various researches in the literature (e.g., Cohen and Lee, 1989; Cohen and Moon, 1990; Mourits and Evers, 1996; Voudouris, 1996; Chopra and Meindl, 2004; Tsiakis et al., 2001; Lau and Yam, 2005; Ma and Davidrajuh, 2005; and Johansson and Johansson, 2006). However, compared with other subjects in the field of Supply Chain Management (SCM), there is less research on supply chain network design; especially, the current literature on retailing business does not seem to focus on factors for supply chain network design. Hence, a survey exploration of the factors important in supply chain network design for retailing sector in Taiwan will be meaningful for both research and practice.

Business Strategy Journal, Supply Chain Decision-Making, Globalization, Retailing Industry, Supply Chain Network Design, Local Retailers, Retailing Business, International Businesses, Department Stores, Domestic Products, Research Implementation, International Retailers, Descriptive Statistics Analysis, Principal Components Analysis.