We collaborate with the Reverse Logistics researchers at the Universities of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam and Cranfield.
Former:
Dr Sally-Ann Kryzyaniak
Contact details
product-returns@soton.ac.uk
Please join our LinkedIn group
Funding
The South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership (SCDTP)
The Thematic Cluster Pathways (TCPs): sustainability, environment & resilience (SER).
See: https://www.southcoastdtp.ac.uk/thematic-cluster-pathways/sustainability-environment-resilience/
Deadline of studentships application:
- The application of studentships commencing in 2021/22 has now closed. Assuming the same deadline for the year 2022/2023.
- Funding - South Coast DTP
- Funding Eligibility - South Coast DTP
- Before completing their online funding application form, students will need to have submitted an institutional application form for the chosen Masters or PhD programme. Students do not need to be in receipt of an offer of a place at that institution, but their application must have been submitted.
Electronics & Computer Science (ECS)
Southampton Business School (SBS)
- Postgraduate Fees and Funding | Southampton Business School | University of Southampton
- China Scholarship Council (CSC)-University of Southampton PhD Funding
- Each year there are a number of CSC scholarships available across the University. To be considered for a scholarship within the Business School, students should identify an appropriate research area and contact SBS directly to enquire about funding opportunities in that area. We recommend that students make their application to us by early January stating that students wish to be considered for a CSC scholarship. Students can find further information about CSC scholarships at Southampton here.
The possible topics:
Topic 1: the benefits and challenges of implementing sustainable returns strategy
Most retailers list sustainability as an important aspect of corporate social responsibility and have a set of programmes to approach sustainability across their productions and forward supply chains. Many of them exclude product returns from their sustainability strategies or only consider the impacts of end-of-life products. This is plausible that they have only started paying attention to the financial impact of returns in recent years. Unfortunately, a rapid increase in returns and the activities of sending products back and forth have harmful effects on the environment, reflected in increased transportation, wasteful packaging, and increased greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, many returned products cannot be resold and go to waste. There is an urgent need to implement sustainable operations and reverse logistics in returns.
Our current product returns project identifies a clear gap in implementing sustainable strategies on product returns across the retail industry. While various recommendations have been proposed for reducing the environmental impact of product returns and embedding the returns to the corporate sustainability omissions, the cost and benefits are unclear and lack scientific evidence. That is, the scientific understanding of returns and their degrees of (un-)sustainability is still at an early stage. For example, the study by Jack et al. (2019) has suggested that organisations should encourage manufacturers to redesign their products for easy disassembly, repair, recycling that would benefit the returns management. However, retailers are uncertain about the costs and benefits of implementing sustainable strategies.
Therefore, future studies could build a simulation model to quantify (1) the financial benefits (e.g., the savings on refurbishment cost) and (2) the amount of reduced wastes and energy-saving if a number of sustainable approaches have been implemented in product return, in contrast to the circumstance where non-sustainable approaches are employed.
We believe that having such further research not only makes theoretical contributions in the field of sustainable returns’ operations and circular economy but also could motivate organisations and policymakers to implement sustainable strategies on product returns in practice.
Topic 2: the environmental assessment methods of product returns
A growing body of literature recognises the importance of developing sustainability management in operations. Several environmental assessment methods (e.g., Material flow analysis, Life-cycle assessment) have been well-established to assist practitioners in making more sustainable decisions in their forward supply chain. These include material flow analysis (MFA), life cycle assessment, Economic Input-Output Life Cycle Analysis, and material flow cost accounting. However, there is limited research in building a systematic assessment approach to evaluate the environmental impacts of returns or reverse supply chains more generally. It is plausible to use the forementioned methods in reverse supply chains to evaluate the impact of returns.
For example, the assessment of MFA can quantify and evaluate energy use and substance flows, and their effects on the environment within a well-defined framework. It is extrapolated that within a reverse supply chain, MFA may help practitioners to map, quantify, inspect, and evaluate the environmental influence of the flows (e.g., materials of package and carbon emissions) that are associated with the returned items at each stage of a reverse supply chain. Meanwhile, practitioners can use the MFA method to compare the different returns-process options (e.g., disposal vs. refurbishing) by calculating the quantity of their environmental impacts. That is, the findings generated by MFA provide scientific evidence that assists practitioners in making more sustainable decisions.
Thus, a research project to explore the effectiveness of different assessment methods on measuring the environmental impact of returns throughout the reverse supply chain is worthwhile. This could help practitioners find new solutions for reducing returns’ negative impact on ecological sustainability and the possibility of placing future resources at risk. In other words, having environmental assessment methods is crucial for practitioners to embed circular economy values within their reverse supply chain’s operation.
Other possible research directions on sustainability:
- Case study: the influence of sectoral differences (or product categories) on the developmental progress of sustainable returns strategy.
• The electronic industry seems to have well-established sustainable management and plans on returned products. This might be because the martial of electronic products are relatively valuable and durable, in contrast to other industries, such as the apparel industry. Therefore, a comprehensive understating of sectoral differences would help practitioners establish more appropriate sustainable plans on product returns.
The importance of integrating product returns, forward supply chain and productions on sustainable strategies.
• Our current product return project finds that product waste can be caused by the under-developed order system or the unsustainable operations in the forward supply chain. For example, inaccurate records of product stock or product barcodes result in wrong orders, which cause subsequent waste in returns. Further research that examines the links between the production line and product returns is needed.
Topic 3: Consumer behaviour of fraud returns
Key words: prospect theory, risk-seeking, the utility theory, agent-based modelling
Fraud returns is rapidly becoming prevalent for modern retailers because of liberal returns policies. Kind (2004) highlighted that fraudulent returns could erase 10%-20% from a retailer’s profit margin. Our current returns project investigates the influence of return policies and various interventions on different types of fraud returns. We suggest that fraud behaviour could be related to how people perceive risk. Applying the prospect theory, it assumes that offenders try to maximise their utility, that is, their fraud behaviour depends on costs (risk) vs. benefits. Further investigation and experimentation on how individuals perceive the risk (cf. benefits) of involving in fraud returns is recommended.
The data collection could be via survey with various experiment settings which offer different scenarios by asking individuals to make discrete choices, and then identify when they switch their choices while facing different gains and losses. For example, if there is an 80 % chance of getting a refund when returning a product dishonestly, but the chance of getting caught (with various interventions and types of fraud) is 20 %, what would participants do (quit or engage with the fraud returns). By doing so, the experience can quantify the costs and benefits, and then translate that behaviour into an agent-based model. Further modelling work could determine the extent of different types of interventions in great detail.
Jack, L., Frei, R., & Krzyzaniak, S. A. C. (2019). Buy online, return to store: the challenges and opportunities of product returns in a multichannel environment.
