Strategy question
One of the largest e-commerce stores in India — Blipkart — wants to launch an e-pharmacy section. What should be their strategy to enter the market?
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What this question tests
Tests market-entry strategy in a regulated vertical, requiring awareness of regulatory and trust barriers beyond typical ecommerce categories.
How to approach it
- Assess the landscape: e-pharmacy is regulated with prescription verification and licensing, and is dominated by specialized players like Netmeds and PharmEasy.
- Assess the entrant's advantage: existing logistics, customer base and payment infrastructure, but no pharmacy licensing or prescription-verification systems.
- Recommend entry via partnering with or acquiring an existing licensed e-pharmacy player rather than building licensing infrastructure from scratch.
- Sequence entry with non-prescription OTC and wellness products first using existing ecommerce infrastructure, then integrate prescription capability through the partner.
- Define success as OTC category GMV growth, cross-sell rate from core ecommerce customers, and prescription order volume post-integration.
What a strong answer includes
- Recommends partner or acquire over build-from-scratch specifically because of regulatory licensing complexity, a differentiated strategic call.
- Sequences OTC-first as a lower-risk entry before full prescription capability.
- Names the entrenched competitors' trust advantage in this vertical as a real barrier to a generic launch.
Common mistakes
- Proposing to build full prescription and licensing capability from scratch without acknowledging regulatory complexity and time cost.
- Ignoring existing entrenched competitors' trust advantage in this specific vertical.
Likely follow-up questions
- How would you evaluate build versus partner versus acquire for entering this regulated space?
- What regulatory risks would most concern you in this launch?
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Learn the skill behind it
Chapters of the AI PM course that teach what this question tests.
- Chapter 4: Discovery and strategy for AI products
- Chapter 9: Prove it paid off: outcomes, economics, and pricing
- Chapter 14: Get the job: the AI PM interview loop