Corporate Strategy

Introduction

Tesco came into the Taiwanese retail market in 2000 carrying the title of the top retailer in the

UK and one of the top 10 global retailers. Tesco has had a great and successful experience in

building retail branding, so its market entry was believed to be a huge threat to existing rivals,

e.g. Carrefour, RT-Mart and Costco. However, after five years, Tesco Taiwan failed its

original intended aim to open 22 stores and had opened only 6 stores resulting in September

2005, with Tesco exiting the market. The exit involved a contract with Carrefour to swap all

its Taiwan sites for stores in the Czech Republic and Slovakia owned by Carrefour, the deal

was concluded in June 2006. (Tran, 2005; Chen, 2006)

The academic literature is full of positive stories about retailer internationalization, but

actually, in reality many retailers struggle internationally (Burt, Dawson and Sparks, 2003).

Ten research propositions linked to retail failures were identified in this study and grouped

into four major categories ranging from choice of target market assessment of type of

competition, organizational failure and management failure. No specific mention is made of

the consumer perspective related to retail branding. Moreover, an understanding of consumer

needs and desires is essential to manage retail brands successfully (Birtwistle, Clark and

Freathy, 1999). In addition major