Online customer experience on the agenda at free public lecture

Professor Prithwiraj Nath will present his research into online retailing as part of his inaugural lecture as Professor of Marketing at Leeds Beckett. It will take place on Wednesday 20 January from 6pm at the University’s Rose Bowl.

In his lecture Professor Nath will outline the key challenges facing internet-based retail start-ups, including making their website a destination of choice for customers, encouraging shoppers to browse their site for longer and increasing the probability of purchase. He will also look at how e-store start-ups can attract prospective buyers and improve their customers’ browsing experience using two tools: interactivity and personalisation.

Speaking ahead of the lecture, Professor Nath explained: “A recent industry report suggests the browser-to-buyer conversion rate is as low as three per cent for e-stores. New e-retailers that enter the marketplace every day find this situation more challenging because they have limited product offerings, no established brand image from their previous ventures, and customers do not know them. In my inaugural lecture I will show how these retailers can tailor their offerings based on buyer characteristics and build a dynamic web interface that can maximise their sales.”

After studying Physics at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, India, Professor Nath completed his PhD in Marketing at the Indian Institute of Management, also in Kolkata. He was Assistant Professor in Marketing at Xavier School of Management in Jamshedpur, India, before moving to the UK to work at the University of Nottingham. In 2010, he was appointed Associate Professor in Marketing at Norwich Business School at the University of East Anglia. He joined Leeds Beckett University in March 2015 as Professor of Marketing and he also serves as Associate Director of The Retail Institute.

In his current role, Professor Nath is involved in several industry-based projects and leads research on the theme of ‘Consumers of the Future’. He particularly wants to understand how consumers make buying decisions in an ‘online’ retail context. His current research centres on the use of big data in digital marketing, with a focus on the retail and banking industries.