Grow Amazon's Store Sales: Pick the Growth Lever, Target Shoppers and Success Metrics

You are a product manager at Amazon, and leadership wants to know how you would grow the company's sales. Explain which part of the business and which customers you would focus on, which ideas you would pursue and in what order, and how you would measure success. ```hint Break sales into levers Sales can grow through more customers, more frequent purchases, bigger baskets, or new categories and countries. For the part of Amazon you scope to, decide which lever still has the most room to grow before you brainstorm ideas. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - Does "sales" mean all merchandise sold in the store, including third-party sellers, or Amazon's total revenue, which also includes subscriptions, advertising and cloud services? - Which market should I focus on: a mature one such as the United States, or a growth market where many shoppers are new to buying online? - Over what timeframe, and is profitability a constraint or is top-line growth the only goal? - Is any product or customer group in or out of scope, such as Prime, groceries or business buyers? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - A scoped definition of sales and a breakdown into levers (customers, purchase frequency, basket size, new categories or markets) with a reasoned call on where the headroom is - A clearly chosen customer segment with concrete, Amazon-specific pain points that hold back their spending - A short list of solutions prioritized by reach, impact and effort, with the top one described in enough detail to build - A north-star metric, supporting metrics and guardrails such as margin, delivery reliability and proof that the growth is incremental - Risks and trade-offs, especially growth that costs profit or customer trust ### Follow-up Questions - Your top idea raises order counts, but most new orders are small baskets that lose money on delivery. What do you do? - How would you prove the extra sales are incremental rather than purchases customers would have made anyway? - How would your plan change in a growth market where many shoppers are buying online for the first time?