A Study on Efficiency to Support Digital Transformation of Small Business Retailers

This study aims to contribute the decision-making of small business owners and policymakers concerning digital transformation by examining the differences in internal and external operational performance of retail businesses acording to the levle of digital transformation. Specifically, the study employs data envelopment analysis to measure operational efficiency, which is the internal performance of 2,239 small retail businesses. Furthermore, the study utilizes two-stage cluster analysis to categorize business operational forms based on their digital transformation levels, and analyzes the difference in operating efficiency, sales, and net profit according to operational forms using Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA and one-way ANOVA. The results show that the higher the level of digital transformation, the lower the operational efficiency and the higher the sales. In addition, there is no significant difference in net profit between offline and card- based businesses and online and simple payment-based businesses, but it is higher than offline and cash-based businesses.