Where did the evening go?

A root cause analysis question from a product manager interview, set at QuickKart, a fictional quick commerce company.

The question

Skills this case tests

A starting metric tree

Daily orders = app opens × add-to-cart rate × checkout completion × payment success

How to approach this case

Before any data, pin down the metric: are cancellations netted out, is the 12% national or concentrated somewhere, and did it drop in one step or slide over four weeks? Quick commerce is two-sided, so build the tree on both sides: demand (app opens, add-to-cart, checkout, payment) and what the app can promise at that moment (stock, store availability, delivery time). Find the leaking funnel step first, then cut that step by city, store and time of day before category, because a 10-minute promise tends to break locally and at particular hours. Rule out seasonality and weather with last year's numbers rather than by assumption. A strong close sizes the loss in contribution terms, weighs each fix against its cost per order, and names a leading indicator you would watch every day.

The full method for root cause analysis 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.