Supervisors: Sascha Steinmann & Birger Boutrup Jensen
Discussants: Pernille Smith & Irene Pollach

Abstract
In the context of online retailing, online reviews play an important in defining the social presence and usefulness of online platforms from consumers’ perspective (Kumar & Benbasat, 2006) as well as attracting more consumers (Mudambi & Schuff, 2010). Online review system has been proved to have positive effects not only on profit but also on online retailers’ image and reputation (Chevalier & Mayzlin, 2006; Zhu & Zhang, 2010; Floyd et al., 2014). As a result, it is extensively important for online retailers to build their own online review system for their website.

However, what makes a good review system or what online features should be included in the system is still not yet well-defined in this research domain. Motivated to fill in this open research gap, this whole doctoral project will attempt to answer the question of how online retailers can design a credible as well as profitable online review system. Specifically, throughout this doctoral project, several experiments will be conducted with different online review features included to see if different design features affect the consumer behaviours, thus, also have impacts on the profitability of the online retailers or not and how the sales differ in different systems.

At the end of this doctoral project, the expected outcome will be to determine what design features online retailers should put more focus on in their review system in order to have a credible online review system. In addition, another topic that cannot be ignored is how to motivate consumers to write more credible reviews will also be addressed.

Everyone is welcome!