Consumer Decision Making Based on Cutting-Edge Digital Technologies and Sustainable Retailing Models

Applications are invited for a self-funded, 3-year full-time or 6-year part-time PhD project, to commence in October or February.

The PhD will be based in Portsmouth Business School and will be supervised by Dr Zeeshan A Bhatti and Dr M Awais Shakir Goraya.

The Faculty of Business and Law offers funding to attend conferences (currently £550), training (currently £450), and a work-based placement (currently a maximum of £3,000 tied up to the period of 12 weeks).

The retailer of current times finds it a subtle challenge in dispensing technological facilitation over Omni-channel retailing framework for attracting and retaining consumers. It not only stands as an elusive challenge for retailers, it probably is unimaginable to anyone’s thought that with the ever-changing dimensions of cutting-edge digital technologies, how the modern retailing would look like? Would the new technologies bring about the excitement and enjoyment to consumers’ shopping journey? Or will they fetch more complexities for businesses? Despite the fact that extant literature has presented various insights to the operations and mechanisms of omni-channel and cross channel integration (Li et al., 2018a; Zhang, Ren, Wang, &; He, 2018), the impetus to know consumers’ decision making under the influence of cutting-edge digital technologies is still infancy in the academic and practitioners’ bodies of knowledge.

To address the perplexing nature of consumers’ decision-making and the inception of new technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and even digital taste/smell interfaces, this project will work in the following two phases/aspects:

1. Consumer centric.
2. Retailer centric.

Considering both aspects, we believe that sellers can revamp their existing businesses by integrating various new age technologies. With the integration of new technologies such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and even digital taste/smell interfaces, there exist a potential evolution of making retailing business more engaging, immersive, informative, and, ultimately exciting and enjoyable.

Therefore, there exists a call for future research with the below listed research thoughts:

1. How do cutting-edge digital technologies enhance the consumer experience?
2. How immersed consumes are in their shopping experience with new technologies? and
3. How much persuasive consumers get with such shopping experiences such as; how much do they choose to spend, and on what?

Fees and funding

Visit the research subject area page for fees and funding information for this project.

Funding availability: Self-funded PhD students only. 

PhD full-time and part-time courses are eligible for the UK Government Doctoral Loan (UK and EU students only).

Bench fees

Some PhD projects may include additional fees – known as bench fees – for equipment and other consumables, and these will be added to your standard tuition fee. Speak to the supervisory team during your interview about any additional fees you may have to pay. Please note, bench fees are not eligible for discounts and are non-refundable.