Redesign eBay's Homepage: Goals, Visitor Segments, Modules and Success Metrics
Company: eBay
Role: Product Manager
Category: Product Design & Strategy
Difficulty: medium
Interview Round: Other
You are a product manager at eBay, and you have been asked to design a new homepage. Explain what the homepage should achieve, who visits it and why, what is not working for those visitors today, what the new page would contain and in what order of priority, and how you would decide whether it beats the current homepage.
```hint Design around why people open the page
Visitors arrive for different reasons: to search for something specific, to check on items they are bidding on or watching, to browse a hobby, or to see whether eBay is worth trying. Decide which of these jobs the page must serve first, rather than starting from promotions.
```
### Clarifying Questions
- Is the redesign for the mobile app, the website, or both?
- Is the main goal more purchases per visit, bringing lapsed buyers back, converting first-time visitors, or growing particular categories?
- Should the homepage serve sellers as well as buyers, or do sellers keep their own starting point unchanged?
- How much of the page may be given to promoted listings and other advertising?
### What a Strong Answer Covers
- A goal for the homepage that fits eBay's marketplace: new and used items, auctions alongside fixed-price listings, and enthusiast categories.
- Segments of homepage visitors, their distinct jobs on the page, and a reasoned choice of whom to design for first.
- Concrete modules and their order on the page, prioritized by impact and effort, including what first-time and signed-out visitors see.
- Success metrics that capture purchases and return visits without simply moving traffic away from search, plus guardrails.
- How the redesign would be tested and rolled out, and risks such as relevance, page speed, ad load and seller fairness.
### Follow-up Questions
- How would the homepage work for someone visiting for the first time, with no history to personalize from?
- After launch, homepage clicks rose but site-wide purchases stayed flat. What would you conclude, and what would you do next?
- How would you decide how many promoted listings to show on the homepage?
Overview: A product design question asking an eBay product manager to design a new homepage. It tests setting a goal for a marketplace with auctions and used items, segmenting visitors, prioritizing page modules for returning and first-time buyers, and measuring success without simply shifting traffic away from search.