Ratification of retail location factors: a case study of shopping centers in Bangkok

Facility location ranks high in terms of its priority and strategic consequences. This research aims at comprehensively and systematically identifying retail location factors from all possible primary and secondary sources. The preliminary investigation identified 228 location factors that are generally applicable to any industries. The obtained factors were subsequently scrutinized based on significance and relevance to the retail industry by peer reviews. The review process resulted in the ranked list of 95 retail location factors. A structural equation model of retail location factors was developed and validated by the confirmatory factor analysis. The proposed methodology reduced an initial list of 228 location factors to 4 significant groups of 32 retail location factors. Analysis of the 4 resultant factor groups reveals that they may be categorized into location-specific and non-location-specific retail location factors. The research findings apparently indicate that both categories of factor groups are vital to location decisions. This explains why a retailer fails and the other succeeds even though their locations are nearby.