Instacart Delivery: Map Failure Points Across an Order and Rank Fixes

You are interviewing for a product manager role at Instacart. The interviewer asks you to lay out the problems Instacart is likely to face across its delivery experience, and then to explain how you would decide which of those problems to tackle first. "Delivery experience" is not defined for you, so settle its scope before you start listing problems. ### Clarifying Questions - Does the delivery experience begin when the customer places the order, or earlier, when they browse and pick a delivery window? - Should the problems cover only customers, or also the shoppers who pick and deliver orders and the retailers whose stores they shop in? - Is there a goal the prioritization should serve, such as repeat ordering, cost per order or shopper supply? - Are we looking at standard scheduled grocery delivery only, or also faster delivery options and restricted items such as alcohol? ### Part 1 — Map the problems Identify the problems that can hurt the delivery experience. Organize them so the interviewer can see where in the life of an order each one occurs and who it hurts. ```hint Walk the order lifecycle Split an order into stages from checkout to after the bags arrive, and ask at each stage what can go wrong for each party involved. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - A clear structure over the order lifecycle rather than a flat list - Problems for customers, shoppers and retailers, not only customers - Problems specific to grocery, such as stock-outs, substitutions, perishables and frozen items ### Part 2 — Prioritize the problems Explain how you would decide which problems to work on first, then apply your method to produce an ordered short list. ```hint Score with evidence For each problem, think about what you would measure to estimate how often it happens, how much damage it does when it happens, and how much of it Instacart can actually control. ``` #### What This Part Should Cover - A stated goal and explicit ranking criteria - The data you would pull to size each problem - An ordered short list with the reasoning behind the order - How the leading problems would be tracked once work begins ### What a Strong Answer Covers - The marketplace view: a fix for customers that makes things worse for shoppers or retailers is not a win - Telling frequent-but-minor problems apart from rare-but-severe ones, and causes apart from symptoms - Metrics that tie each problem to repeat ordering and cost, with guardrails - A sense of which top problems lead to fixes Instacart can actually ship ### Follow-up Questions - Your top problem is items being out of stock when the shopper reaches the shelf. What would you build first? - Customer satisfaction improves, but shoppers start declining more orders. How would you investigate? - How would your ranking change for a customer who orders every week compared with someone placing a first order?