IKEA · Metrics · Mid · 45 to 60 minutes

IKEA online purchases down 30%

IKEA is a global retailer that sells furniture and home goods through large stores and an ecommerce site. Answer this product management case and get it graded line by line against a weighted rubric.

metric diagnosis
funnel analysis
prioritization
hypothesis-driven thinking
stakeholder judgment

The situation

You are the PM responsible for IKEA's online purchase experience. The VP of Ecommerce asks you to prepare a recommendation for next week's operating review because completed online purchases have fallen 30 percent over the last two months, while add to cart volume has stayed roughly flat. Leadership is concerned because ecommerce is an important growth channel, but the business is also under pressure to improve delivery economics, so any fix that raises cost needs a strong case. Several teams have different explanations. Marketing suspects new competitive pressure, operations thinks delivery expectations may be part of the issue, and engineering notes that the site has shipped several buying flow updates in the last quarter. Customer support has seen some complaints, but there is no clear pattern yet. You need to decide how to diagnose the drop, what the most likely causes are, and what to do first. The tension is that a shallow answer could waste scarce engineering time or recover revenue in a way that hurts the cost goal.

What to produce

Write a 1 to 2 page product diagnosis memo.

Your answer must

List the most important clarifying questions and assumptions, and explain why each would change your approach.
Show how you would break the problem down by segment and funnel step, including the first analyses you would run.
Develop 2 to 4 plausible root cause hypotheses, clearly separating product, operational, and external causes.
Recommend the first actions to take now versus later, with a clear prioritization rationale tied to impact, effort, and risk.
Define the primary success metrics and guardrails you would use to judge whether your actions are working.

Constraints

Assume you have one web squad for the next two sprints and no preapproved budget for broad delivery subsidies.
Use existing ecommerce, CRM, and support data for your initial recommendation, you cannot wait for a long research program before making a call.
Your recommendation must balance conversion recovery with the business goal of keeping delivery costs under control.

Format

Use five sections: problem framing, key questions and assumptions, diagnostic plan, hypotheses, and recommended actions with metrics.

How IKEA actually played it

A root cause analysis answer for a 30 percent fall in IKEA online purchases. It narrows down by region, platform and funnel step before proposing fixes.

Segment the drop before guessing causes
Walk the funnel from visit to purchase
Separate external causes from product causes

Built from Root Cause Analysis: IKEA online purchases down 30% by Sreerag Panat.