Strategy question

Due to COVID-19, the sales of greeting cards in retail stores have dropped. What are some of the strategies to increase sales?

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

Retail growth strategy under a structural channel or behavior shift.

Clarify the real cause: reduced in-store foot traffic and a shift to digital greetings, not necessarily lower demand for the sentiment.
Propose expanding into e-commerce with the physical store as a pickup point.
Propose a print-on-demand personalized card offering.
Propose bundling cards with small gifts to increase basket size, plus hybrid digital-and-mailed options.
Prioritize the online and digital channel shift first, since it addresses the root cause directly.
Define success as total category revenue including the new digital channel.

Correctly diagnoses the root cause as a channel shift, not necessarily lower demand for greeting cards themselves.
Proposes a channel-level fix, e-commerce and pickup, rather than just discounting in-store cards.
Adds a bundling strategy to lift basket size, a practical retail lever beyond category-specific fixes.
Picks total category revenue across channels as the metric, not just in-store sales.

Assuming the drop means people don't want greeting cards anymore, rather than considering the channel shift.
Proposing only in-store fixes when the disruption was fundamentally about reduced physical store visits.

How would you decide how much to invest in digital versus reviving in-store sales?
What would you measure to know if the online shift is cannibalizing in-store sales?