Proceedings of Annual Tokyo Business Research Conference
15 - 16 December 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, japan , ISBN: 978-1-922069-67-2
The purposes of this research were 1) To study the level of competitive advantage of foreign bookstores in Bangkok and 2) To compare the level of competitive advantage of foreign bookstores in Bangkok by personal factors.
The sample was 384 consumers who purchased book from foreign bookstores in
Bangkok which were selected by conveniences sampling method. The research instruments were questionnaires and data were analyzed by statistical program.
Statistics for data analysis were percentage, arithmetic mean, and standard deviation. T-test and One-Way ANOVA were used to test the hypotheses. The research results were as follows: 1.Consumer moderately agreed with the competitive advantage of foreign bookstores in Bangkok, especially the dimension of cost leadership. 2. Consumer who had different age and occupation had opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstores in
Bangkok differently at the 0.01 level of statistical significance.
Field of Research: Strategic management
*
**
Reading is an important skill that helps improving and expanding the experience of those readers, and it also use as a leisure when readers enjoying with the books, papers and journal. In addition, it is generally accepted that most of the students have successes in education because of the reading ability. Therefore, reading is the key ability in order to gather any academic knowledge and expand reader‟s attitude. According to the survey of reading, the readers who are 6-year of age and above there are 81.8% of them who read the books after studying or working. In 2011, it is found that the reading rate is increased as following:
The small children whose ages lower than 6-years old have the reading rate increased from
53.3% to 58.9% and people whose ages over 6-years old have the reading rate rise from
68.6% to 81.8%. In the mean time, most of readers with age from 6-years old and higher are in favor of books/documents (99.3%) (National Statistical Office 2013).
In 2015, 10 countries in Asia will be established to be ASEAN Community that uses English as official language according to the ASEAN Charter no. 34 “The Working language of
ASEAN shall be Englis h”. So it causes the alertness and preparation for ASEAN Community.
Moreover, the numbers of travelers in Thailand were totally 26,735,583 in 2013, thus it cannot be refused that we need the books in the foreign language or the English books for the international language. As of this, it will increase the Thai readers accordingly (Population
& housing census, National Statistical Office 2013).
The bookstore is the shop that sells the various types of books in both domestic and foreign copyright. However, the bookstore can be divided into many types. Not only selling the books in Thai language, but also in the foreign language. So the competition is occurred among various bookstores that need to take action to gain advantage from the others.
*Mr. Phakkanit Sunantarod, Administration and Management College, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology
Ladkrabang, Thailand, Email : james_jink@hotmail.com
** Assistant Professor. Dr. Nuttawut Rojniruttikul, Administration and Management College, King Mongkut's
Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Thailand, Email: krnuttaw@kmitl.ac.th

Proceedings of Annual Tokyo Business Research Conference
15 - 16 December 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, japan , ISBN: 978-1-922069-67-2
According to the above reasons, the researcher is interested in studied the opinions toward competitive advantage of the foreign bookstore in Bangkok. It contains the strategy of competitive advantage: the cost leadership, the differentiation and the focus strategy for use as the guideline for developing the competitive competency of the foreign bookstores and could be useful for others to apply in the next research.
Competitive advantage is the basis structure of any work, to maintain and gain competitive advantage means the corporate or business can be superior to other competitors and archive their own goal in business
William, C. (2007) defines sustainable competitive advantage that Firms can use their resources to create and sustain a competitive advantage, that is, to provide greater value for customers than competitors can. A competitive advantage become sustainable when other company cannot duplicate it provides and has, for now, stopped trying. To provide a sustainable competitive advantage, firm‟s resource must be value (capable of improving efficiency and effectiveness), rare (not possessed by many competing firms), imperfectly imitable (extremely costly and difficult to duplicate), and no substitutable (competitors cannot substitute other resource to produce similar value)
Porter, M.E. (1998) says that successful competitive strategy needs many sources of advantages, with more advantage than other competitors it mean that business can bring success closer. Any business can gain competitiveness by different methods for example manufacture the highest quality of goods for the consumers, have the best service, manufacture with the least cost or focus on target groups. Whether any methods, business need to concern that consumers must receive superior value more than other competitors to gain advantage.
Slocum, J. (2008) says that Competitive Strategies must be based on some source of competitive advantage to be successful. Companies build competitive advantage when they take actions that enable them to gain an edge relative to their competitors in attracting customers. These actions may vary from making the highest quality product to providing outstanding customer service to producing the product at the lowest cost. Regardless of the action selected to build a competitive advantage, customer must perceive superior value than that offer by competitors.
The generic competitive strategic model provides a framework of three basic business-level strategies for a variety of organization in diverse industries. This model is call generic because all types of organizations can use it, whether there are involve in manufacturing, distribution or service as show in Figure 1

Proceedings of Annual Tokyo Business Research Conference
15 - 16 December 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, japan , ISBN: 978-1-922069-67-2
Figure 1: Competitive strategies
Uniqueness
Perceived by customer
Low Cost Position
Industry wide Differentiation
Overall
Low-Cost Leadership
Particular Segment only Focus
Generic strategies consist of low-cost leadership, differentiation and focus. These strategies can use in both small and large business.
Wheelen, T. (2012) defines that "Low-Cost Leadership Strategy" is the applicable strategy that relies on company's ability to make their cost of products and service lower than those which competitor(s) is/are selling to customer(s). This strategy is based on crucial assumption that cost advantage over competitors will make unit price lower, even selling at the same price, the profit still run. If it is sold at lower price than it formerly was and with a large amount of volume, there would still be profitable. Moreover, the market share can also be expanded.
The company can create its competitive advantage through competition by applying low-cost strategy, satisfying customer needs with products and service, basing on average total package, and selling to the mass market regardless of market segmentation: one single product for all every customers. In other words, it is a marketing strategy without market share or called mass marketing as stated above. Generally, once this strategy is applied, products and service must be at the same standard. So there's no need to consider the difference in customer needs. The important principle of cost leadership is to lower the increasing product development as much as we can, as well as to benefit from economy of scale. Then experience effects will create profitability to the company.
Wright, P. (1994) defines that Differentiation Strategy is method to build competitive advantage which may be done by creating unique style of product(s) and service for sale which is/are different from those created by competitors in customer viewpoint, aiming at satisfying customer needs in such a way that customers are willing to pay premium price which is more expensive than any other special attributed products. The company is therefore needed to conduct a research to know what distinctive characteristic(s) of customer needs is/are and use such thing(s) as the main theme(s) to differentiation.
Product differentiation can be done in many dimensions, upon benefits or value that customers need as ground basis such as differentiation in quality leader, style leader, technology leader, and service leader, etc. By this way, customers will not mainly stick to the price but will rather have brand loyalty, that is, when customer is once satisfied with the product, that customer tends not to choose any other product from other companies.

Proceedings of Annual Tokyo Business Research Conference
15 - 16 December 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, japan , ISBN: 978-1-922069-67-2
William, C. (2007) defines that Focus-based strategy, especially "Focus Strategy" is the third strategy that company design to help defining scope of operation by emphasizing on specific niche within the industry, which is different from previously mentioned: cost leadership strategy and differentiation strategy, because both strategies are emphasizing on mass target market or industry wide market.
The focus-based strategy that emphasizes particularly on specific niche refers to a group of buyers, a narrow market of some product lines, regional market, or any particular specialty & middlebrow market, etc. The fundamental concept of focus-based strategy or focus strategy is to use company's existing expertise to focus only on single market instead of diversifying to the wide market, of which, the company has not succeeded.
According to the study on competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok, researcher has studied concepts theories and any researches involve in competitive advantage. In part of competitive advantage, researcher has reviewed the concept of competitive advantage of business by Porter, M.E. (1998). To gain competitive in business, they need to concern three strategies include low-cost leadership, differentiation and focus.
3. The Methodology and Model
Research Objectives
1) To study level of competitive advantage of foreign bookstores in Bangkok
2) To compare level of competitive advantage of foreign bookstores in Bangkok by personal factors .
Hypothesis : Consumers with different personal factors have different opinion toward the competitive advantage of foreign bookstore.
Theoretical Model : The researchers offered a conceptual model constructed based on literature review representing the relationship between personal factors and competitive advantage as shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Conceptual Model
Independent variable Dependent variable
-
Personal factors
-
Gender
Age
-
Nationality
-
Education
-
Occupation
-
Monthly Income
Competitive advantage of foreign bookstore

Proceedings of Annual Tokyo Business Research Conference
15 - 16 December 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, japan , ISBN: 978-1-922069-67-2
Scope of Research
In this research, the researcher aims to study the competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok
Population and Sample Group
The population used in this research was consumers who purchased foreign book from bookstore in Bangkok. The sample was 384 consumers and convenience sampling method is used as data collection method.
Research Instrument
The questionnaire was the main measurement tool used in this research to collect the responses consumers who purchased foreign book from bookstore in Bangkok. The questionnaire consists of both close-ended questions and open-ended question with below details.
Part I is the personal factor-related questionnaire for consumers who purchased foreign book from bookstore in Bangkok including gender, age, nationality, educational level, occupation, and monthly income.
Part II is the competitive advantage questionnaire for consumers who purchased foreign book from bookstore in Bangkok and is the questionnaire in type of Rating Scale according to
Rensis Likert‟s 5-Scale scaling method.
Part III is the open-ended question for respondents to express their other opinions and suggestions that should be additionally improved and developed for foreign bookstore in
Bangkok.

Proceedings of Annual Tokyo Business Research Conference
15 - 16 December 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, japan , ISBN: 978-1-922069-67-2
4. The Findings
Table 1 Personal Factors
Personal Factors Frequency Percentages
1.
Gender
Male
Female
Total
2.
Nationality
Thai
Other
Total
3. Age
Under or equal 25 years old
More than 25 to 35 years old
More than 35 to 45 years old
More than 45 years old
Total
4. Education
Below Bachelor‟s Degree
Bachelor‟s Degree
Above Bachelor‟s Degree
Total
5. Occupation
Student
Government/Government Enterprise Officer
Private Company Employee
Total
6. Monthly Income
Less than 10,000 Baht
More than 10,000 to 20,000 Baht
More than 20,000 to 30,000 Baht
More than 30,000 to 40,000 Baht
More than 40,000 Baht
167
217
384
369
15
379
87
152
71
30
44
384
219
96
38
31
384
30
321
33
384
108
140
131
100.0
28.5
36.9
34.6
100.0
22.7
39.6
18.5
7.8
11.5
43.5
56.5
100.0
96.1
3.9
100.0
57.0
25.0
9.9
8.1
100.0
7.8
83.6
8.6
Total 384
100.0

Proceedings of Annual Tokyo Business Research Conference
15 - 16 December 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, japan , ISBN: 978-1-922069-67-2
From Table 1, the result shows that most of the consumers who have been the respondents of the questionnaires were female with age under or equal 25 years old, education level of bachelor degree, occupation of government/government enterprise officer and monthly income more than 10,000 to 20,000 Baht
Table 2 : Arithmetic mean (
Sequence of opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore.
Competitive Advantage
X
S.D. level of agreement
Low-cost leadership
X
) Standard deviation (S.D.), level of agreement and
3.56 0.700 Agree
Rank
1
Differentiation 3.49 0.678 Moderately agree 2
Focus
Total
3.26
3.44
0.651
0.518
Moderately agree
Moderately agree
3
Table
2 represent that consumer‟s opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok in overall is in moderately agreed when consumer agreed with low-cost leadership the most, following with differentiation and focus.
Table 3: P-value of different opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore divided by personal factors using t-test and One-way ANOVA analysis
P-Value
Competitive
Advantage
Gender
0.753
Nationality
0.049
Age
0.000**
Education
0.154
Occupation
0.000**
Monthly
Income
0.012 Low-cost leadership
Differentiation 0.079 0.001** 0.089 0.248 0.000** 0.234
Focus 0.516 0.117
Total 0.951 0.016
Note **statistical significance level of 0.01
0.096
0.001**
0.587
0.133
0.001**
0.000**
0.207
0.174
The result from table 3 shows that the consumers, who are different in age and occupation have different opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok at statistical significance level of 0.01 and consumers, who are different in gender, nationality, education, and monthly income have no different opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok.
Table 4 : P-value and comparing mean (
X
) of consumer’s opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok on different age using LSD. p-value Competitive
Advantage
Age
X
Group
Under or equal 25 years old
More than 25 to 35
3.52 years old
More than 35 to 45
3.37 years old
More than 45 years
3.29 old
3.23
Note **statistical significance level of 0.01
1
2
3
4
1 2 3
- 0.005** 0.000** 0.012
-
-
-
-
-
-
0.103
-
-
4
0.502
0.472
-

Proceedings of Annual Tokyo Business Research Conference
15 - 16 December 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, japan , ISBN: 978-1-922069-67-2
The result from table 4 shows that the consumers, who are less than or equal 25 years old have opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok differently from consumers who are more than 25 to 35 years old and more than 35 to 45 years old at statistical significance level of 0.01. Other comparisons have no different opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok.
Table 5 : P-value and comparing mean (
X
) of consumer’s opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok on different occupation using LSD.
Competitive
Advantage
Occupation
X
Group p-value
1 2 3
Student 3.55 1 - 0.000** 0.727
Government/Government
Enterprise Officer
3.22 2 - - 0.000**
Private Company
Employee
Note **statistical significance level of
0.01
3.58 3 - - -
The result from table 5 shows that the consumers, who are students have opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok differently from consumers who are government/government enterprise officer at statistical significance level of 0.01 and consumers, who are government/government enterprise officer have opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok differently from consumers who are private company employee at statistical significance level of 0.01. Other comparisons have no different opinion toward competitive advantage of foreign bookstore in Bangkok.
The consumers have the opinion toward the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstores in Bangkok in overall as “Moderately Agree” level. The cost leadership is agreed in the first rank “Agree”, the second rank is the differentiation and the third rank is the focus strategy both are in “Moderately Agree”
The consumers, who are different in genders, have no different opinion toward the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstore because of the equality. This means that both men and women can receive the equal right and opportunity for the information and making a decision. Thus, the opinions of the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstore are no different. As of this, it conforms to Gestalt therapy (1951) that is stated “The study is caused from the combination of stimulus, initiated by the perception and then analyzing each part of study. The perception is the interpretation to the stimulus in each part e.g. ear, eye, nose, tongue and skin. However, the interpretation needs to use the experience. So each person has the different effects from the same stimulus, it depends on the experience.
The consumers, who are different in nationalities, have no different opinion toward the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstore, although the nationality identifies to the different cultures of the consumers. As of this, it is because the foreign books are written in
English, Chinese or Japanese that are the favor languages and the foreign bookstores in
Bangkok sell the no different books when comparing to the others. So the foreigners and Thai people have the same opinion to the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstores. In this case, it does not conform to the research of Jung, K. and Kau, A.K. (2004) as the research
“The culture effects to the consumer behavior, the different nationalities in South East Asia”.

Proceedings of Annual Tokyo Business Research Conference
15 - 16 December 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, japan , ISBN: 978-1-922069-67-2
According to the research, it is found that the culture is one of the main factors to effect to consumer behavior.
The consumers, who are different in ages, have generally different opinion toward the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstore at 0.01 statistical significance level. Hence, it can be stated that the consumers whose age not more than 25-years old have different opinions from the 25 to 35year‟s consumers at 0.01 statistical significance level because most of the consumers with age lower than 25-years old have low income or cannot generate the revenue by themselves, so this consumers‟ group pays mainly attention to the price and cost. According to the research, it is found that the consumers are agreed to the cost leadership as the competitive advantage. So it conforms to the theory of generation stated by
Mannheim, K. (1976) that the people who have the similar age, influenced by the social environment on the basis and experience of that era, it becomes the different basis of each era. As of this, it conforms to Kamraj Sundhu‟s research in topic of behavior of the books buying from the retailer, it is stated that age is related to the consumer behavior significantly.
If the age ranges are different, the consumers have the different opinions on the various floor space and the stimulus within the bookstores
The consumers, who are different in educational level, have no different opinion toward the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstores. The consumer education can identify to the social level that the high degreed consumers are likely to have more information for deciding to buy some books, but the consumers have the various purposes to buy the foreign books whether for study or entertainment. So the type of bought books depend on the interest, it conforms to Bloom, P.N.
„s research (1976) in the topic “How Will Consumer Education Affect
Consu mer Behavior?”. In this research, it is stated that the consumers get the various information and the high educational consumers can receive more information, so it is easier to make a decision. But the information access is easy now, thus the different consumer education is not affected to the consumer behavior.
The consumers, who have different occupations, have generally different opinions toward the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstores at 0.01 statistical significance level. It can be said that the consumers who are students have different opinions with the government officer, government enterprise officer, and the consumers who are government officer, government enterprise officer have different opinions with the private company employees.
As of this, it is because each occupation has needs and interest in different products and services e.g. use for study in case of students, use for entertainment in case of worker or the specific books for the relative books. So the opinion about the strategy of competitive advantage is different. The public servants and state enterprise employees have the least opinion to the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstore when comparing to the other occupations because this occupations are related to the government business or mainly work in the country. So the government officer and government enterprise officer, who buy the foreign books, are not interested or have not much opinion about the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstores. Conforming to the research of Sundhu, K. (2013) is to study the consumer behavior from the retailers that the occupation is significantly related to the consumers‟ behavior. The students focus on the lighting within the stores, the shelves and the reading venues, these ar e different to the private employees who focus on the officers‟ communication, the other products in the stores and coffee shops.
The consumers, who have different monthly income, have generally no different opinion toward the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstore because the book‟s price is not too high. Normally, the income indicates the spending ability. Since the foreign books‟ price is

Proceedings of Annual Tokyo Business Research Conference
15 - 16 December 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, japan , ISBN: 978-1-922069-67-2 not too high, so the consumers who have the different income have no different opinion. It conforms to the research of Tinne, W.S.
(2011) about the factors to stimulate the consumer behavior in the convenience stores. When the population‟s income is increased, this population in Bangladesh will be more interested in the western culture and have more purchasing power accordingly. However, the main motivation occurs from the price strategy, the bookstore characteristic and promotion.
Recommendation from this Research
Referring from the research, it is found that the cost leadership is agreed most to be the compet itive advantage of the foreign bookstores in Bangkok. In the researcher‟s opinion, the foreign bookstores should pay attention, support, promote or stimulate on the strategy of cost leadership to gain the competitive advantage in the future and to meet the bookstore‟s targets.
According to the result on comparing the different opinions toward the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstores in Bangkok, when focusing on the personal factors, it can be summarized that the consumers who answer this survey with different age and occupation had different opinion at 0.01 statistical significance level. The 25-years old consumers and lower have the different opinion with the elder. In case of the students, they have the different opinions of the competitive advantage with the government officer and government enterprise officer, and the consumers who are the government officer and government enterprise officer have the different opinions with the private company employees. Therefore, the foreign bookstores in Bangkok should apply this research to other business strategy.
Suggestion for Future Study
For this research, the researcher pays attention to the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstores in Bangkok only. So if other researchers are interested in the competitive advantage, they should apply this result as a guideline to their researches.
This research should additionally be studied in the other relative or affected factors about the competitive advantage of the foreign bookstores by applying this result to the next research, for example, the innovative strategy or the efficient strategy.
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15 - 16 December 2014, Waseda University, Tokyo, japan , ISBN: 978-1-922069-67-2
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