The Efficient Usage of E-Commerce Applications by SMEs in the Retail/Wholesale Industry: A Four-Nation Comparison

SMEs in the wholesale and retail industry are impacted by enormous changes in their business processes. Ecommerce-related developments have reduced the importance of physical branches and changed the demands by customers for products and services. This paper analyzes the differences among SMEs in the distribution sector in four countries based on empirical data collected via a survey. Best practice cases such as Germany or Denmark in performing e-commerce in an efficient way are identified by using a data envelopment analysis (DEA). Leading SMEs in the sample have implemented consequently a wide range of e-commerce applications, resulting in a higher satisfaction rate, while less efficient ones are characterized by unfocused usage.