Assessing technological innovation change on efficiency of top E-commerce site in the US market

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has fueled the shift towards a more digital world and incremental online shopping behavior changes. It also highlights how decision-makers can leverage the potential of digital transformation in retail and related areas to support business adaption and enhance their competitive ability. This paper measures the top eight e-commerce sites' technological innovation efficiency in the US market from 2016 to 2019 using the data envelopment analysis (DEA) Malmquist model. The proposed model considers total assets, total equity, portfolio investment, and total liabilities as input factors, while total revenue and net income as output factors. This paper aims to provide comprehensive managerial implications to the e-commerce industry for assessing technological evolution effects with other competitors. The results show that the best performing e-commerce site is DMU2-eBay, followed by DMU4-Target and DMU1-Amazon. In contrast, DMU5-Groupon and DMU7-Costco showed the worst performance during the research periods. The current study assists e-commerce practitioners and investors in determining key performance indicators, aiming for effective strategies, and expediting the industry toward sustainability development.