Trust in a used phone

A product design question from a product manager interview, set at Punarphone, a fictional recommerce company.

The question

Skills this case tests

A starting structure

Clarify the drop-off → buyers and sellers → find the real objection → ideas on both sides of the marketplace → v1 → metric and guardrail

How to approach this case

Before proposing anything, find out why people leave. Ask for conversion compared with similar marketplaces, what drop-off research says and where in the funnel buyers stop. Remember this is a two-sided marketplace: whatever you promise buyers, sellers have to deliver, so ask who the sellers are and how they work. Segment buyers by experience with used phones and by why they are buying, since a reseller and someone buying their first used phone worry about very different things. Walk the journey from search to listing page to delivery to the first week of use, and note where doubt creeps in. Rank pain points by how many buyers they stop. Test each idea against the seller side and against returns. A strong close names a conversion metric for the chosen segment, a guardrail on returns and seller health, and the trade-off you accept.

The full method for product design (product sense) questions · A worked example answer

After the mock interview you get scores on five skills, what to fix with quotes from your answers, and the ideal path for this case.