Amazon Fresh - Build a Product

Question 1

What is the framework for defining a product for Amazon fresh?

Answer 1

PAUSE - take 1-2 minutes to write down your thoughts
1. Amazon Vision
2. Brainstorm 3 user segments we can pick from
3. What needs and pain points might these customer have?
4. Feature ideation 2 - 3 features and prioritize
5. Prioritization Framework
* Feature Vision
6. How does the feature work
* Frontend
* Backend
* Business teams involved
7. Tradeoffs
8. Metrics

Question 2

What is the Vision of Amazon?

Answer 2

“serve consumers through online and physical stores and focus on selection, price, and convenience.”

Question 3

Customer Segmentation: For defining an Amazon Fresh product, what 3 customer groups should we use to define a customer segment?

Answer 3

List out 3 user segments:

1. Stage of life -
   
   1. Kid
   2. Young Adult
   3. Mature Adult
   4. Elderly
2. Profession -
   
   1. Student
   2. College Student
   3. Young Professional
   4. Mature Professional
   5. Retired
3. Cost Sensitivity
   
   1. Highly cost sensitive
   2. Moderately Cost Sensitive
   3. Low Cost Sensitivity - high budget

Question 4

Needs/Paint Points: What are the needs & pain points for an Amazon Fresh customer segment?

Answer 4

1. Convenience
2. Broad Selection
3. Price
4. Time to receiving goods
5. Ease of purchase

Question 5

Ideation: What are 3 solution ideas?

Answer 5

1. Whats my community loving?
   
   1. Featured recommended product that people in their community is loving.
   2. “What’s everyone else eating”
2. What’s for Dinner - by Amazon Fresh
   
   1. Recommended Recipe based on the items in your cart.
   2. “Have Amazon help you with what to cook”
   3. “Create this meal again”
3. Auto Essential by Amazon Fresh
   
   1. Perishable food reminder
   2. “You might want to replace your essentials”

Question 6

What is a good prioritization framework for choosing the best feature to work on?

Answer 6

Prioritization:

• Impact
• Confidence
• Effort

Question 7

Whats the framework for describing the solution - “Whats everyone in your community eat”?
* Focused recommendation with a deal”

Answer 7

1. Front end
   
   1. How will the user interact with it?
   2. What will it look like?
2. Back End
   
   1. What will we need backend to support it?
3. Business Teams Involved
   
   1. Vendor Management
   2. Deals Team
   3. Buying Team
   4. Tech, Product Management
   5. Data Science

Question 8

What kind of vision can we develop for Amazon Fresh - focused recommendation?

Answer 8

“Whats my community loving” by Amazon Fresh
Taking the Recommendation section to the next level

Question 9

List some tradeoffs that we might face with an Amazon Fresh focused Recommendation.

Answer 9

• Very data intensive, especially if done by region
• May take valuable real estate on the Amazon Fresh homepage
• Evaluate results - don’t want to get bread constantly

Question 10

How would you design the Front End for “Focused Recommendation” ?

Answer 10

Draw it out!

• Focused Recommendation - simulate the experience of a friend recommending a new product to you.
• Showing you one - three recommendations, and visible reviews.
• Ideally we have a deal attached to it - low the barriers to trying something new.
• Double pane that shows one of two options for “Why” its a recommendation..
• “Because you bought this” or “Because this is your repeat item” .. why don’t you try this?
• This is “Trending in your community”, you should try this
• Recommendation algorithm that takes the “best fit” recommendation based on “Trending” or
  “Because you repeatedly buy this”

Question 11

How will the Back End work for Amazon Fresh “Focused Recommendation”?

Answer 11

• Back-end ML Algorithm
  
  • Takes into account:
    
    • Number of reviews on a product
    • Number of reviews on a product in your general community
    • Geography - 1-6 zip codes
    • Number of purchases in your general community
    • Product type
    • Product Price
    • Promotional?
    • Prioritize newness

Question 12

What business teams are involved in bring in the Amazon Fresh “Focused Recommendation” to life?

Answer 12

• Data science team
• Amazon Deals team - responsible for negotiating deals for certain products with big brands
• Product Management
• Buying Team
• Vendor Managers - sales, promotions, customer experience
• Do we have the inventory to support this product being “recommended”?
• Do we like this recommendation? Content Management

Question 13

How might we test this feature?

Answer 13

• Prioritize a major urban area for an A/B/C test

A of the original homepage (our control)
B of the “Trending in your community recommendation”
C of the “Because you repeatedly buy this?

Question 14

What metrics should we focus on?

Answer 14

1. Click-through rate
   
   1. How many customers are we seeing click the recommendation
2. Add to Cart conversion
   
   1. How many customers end up adding the item to the cart
3. Purchase Conversion
   
   1. How many customers end up purchase the item recommended
4. Cart Abandonment Rate
   
   1. What percentage of customer abandon the recommended time in the cart