Product design for a new mobile shopping app: scope a category, segment and first version
Company: Google
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are asked to design a mobile app for shopping online. The prompt gives no other detail, so it is up to you to decide what the app sells and to whom, find the problems those shoppers run into today, choose what goes into the first version, and explain how you would know the app is succeeding.
```hint Narrow the store first
Shopping online for groceries, clothes and electronics goes wrong in very different ways. Pick a category and a type of shopper for whom buying online still fails often, and design for them rather than for every shopper at once.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Does the app sell one category, such as fashion or groceries, or a broad catalog like a general marketplace?
- Are we the retailer that holds the inventory and handles delivery and returns, or a marketplace that connects shoppers with many sellers?
- Which country or market is it for, given that payment habits, delivery expectations and return norms differ widely?
- Is the business goal to pull shoppers away from established shopping apps, or to grow spending among customers a retailer already has?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A deliberate scope (category, market, business model) and a goal the design serves.
- A segmentation of shoppers with a reasoned choice of one target segment.
- Pain points traced along that segment's shopping journey, from discovery to delivery and returns, and prioritized.
- Solutions ranked by impact and effort into a focused first version, with what is deliberately deferred.
- Success metrics with guardrails, and the main risks.
### Follow-up Questions
- Large shopping apps already offer huge selection and fast delivery. Why would someone install yours, and how would you win the first shoppers?
- A feature in your first version lifts conversion but also lifts the return rate. How do you decide whether to keep it?
- Which single metric would you report to leadership every week, and how could it look good while the shopping experience gets worse?
Overview: A product design question for a product manager: design a mobile app that improves online shopping. It tests how a candidate scopes an open prompt by choosing a category, market and shopper segment, finds and prioritizes pain points, defines a focused first version, and picks success metrics with guardrails.