Estimation question

Assume you are the placement coordinator of a Tier-1 engineering college and it's the first day of placements. Inside the campus, there is a cafe. Estimate how many people have purchased coffee on that particular day.

Practice this question out loud. An AI interviewer asks it, follows up like a real interviewer would, and scores your answer. Type or speak.

What this question tests

Situational estimation combining foot traffic, conversion behavior, and time-of-day patterns rather than a single guess.

Clarify scope: total coffee purchases at the campus cafe across the full placement day, assuming standard operating hours of roughly 10 hours.
Estimate total foot traffic on placement day: assume 2,000 students on campus, plus recruiters and staff, adding another 200, roughly 2,200 people total.
Estimate what share passes near or visits the cafe: assume 40 percent visit at some point during the day given it's a high-traffic placement day, about 880 people.
Estimate purchase conversion: assume 50 percent of cafe visitors actually buy coffee, given some just wait or buy other items, landing around 440 people.
Adjust for repeat purchases: assume 20 percent of buyers purchase more than once during a long day, adding roughly 90 extra purchases.
Sum to a total: roughly 530 coffee purchases for the day, stated as a rough estimate built from explicit assumptions.

Builds the estimate through a clear funnel, foot traffic to visit rate to purchase conversion to repeat rate, rather than a single flat guess.
States each assumption as an explicit number, inviting the interviewer to challenge any one step.
Accounts for repeat purchases, a detail many candidates miss on a long, high-stress placement day.

Estimating total footfall and treating it as equal to total purchases, skipping the visit and conversion funnel.
Ignoring repeat purchases, which are common on a long day with recruiters and students needing caffeine multiple times.

Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.