You’re a PM at eBay. If the checkout conversion rate is low, what steps would you take to address it?

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You’re a PM at eBay. If the checkout conversion rate is low, what steps would you take to address it?

Asked at Ebay in the past year

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Abhijeet Das · Answer 1 · 2025-06-25T19:51:35+0000

Checkout conversion rate at e-bay is low -

Since when the issue exists? Last 1 week
Is it specific to any geography? Assume India
Is it specific to any platform? Web/ Android/ iOS No
Is it specific to any category of products?
Is it specific to a set of users? New v/s Returning

Looking into the order placement flow -

Search -> PDP -> Check price -> Add to cart -> Checkout -> Apply offers -> Select payment mode -> Payment initiated -> Transaction successful -> Purchase complete

Here, check out conversion rate means, % users who complete a purchase out of the users who clicked on checkout.

Add to cart -> Initiate checkout

Initiate checkout -> Shipping details

Shipping details -> Payment details

Payment details -> Purchase confirmed

We need to evaluate the dropoff rate for each funnel.

Hypothesis -

Product related -

UI issues
Page load error
Time taken to complete the overall process
Significant rise in checkout price from cart value
Out of stock

Payment related -

Payment method not found?
Payment method temporarily down?
Payment failure?
Payment details not saved?
No e-wallet option?

User behaviour related

User just wanted to compare price and got better price somewhere else
User changed mind to buy later
User wanted free shipping

Need to get data for arriving at the root cause. Based on that, will finalise the solutions to be priortised (Hig impact, Low effort)

Assuming there are multiple causes, a list of possible solutions could be -

Product related -

Revisit the entire flow and fix any bugs, if present
Replace any heavy componenets which might be taking more time to load
Real time update on stock/ price on checkout page
Prefill the shipping details with option to edit, if required
One step checkout
Clearly display shiiping and return policies to remove the perception of hidden charges

Payment related -

Increase payment methods
Introduce e-wallets
Introduce option to save card details securely and mark default payment option
Retry payment option in case of failure
One tap checkout for return buyers

Behavioural related -

Email/ App Nudges to complete transaction offering discounts
Introduce offers to complete transaction right away
Introduce loyalty points which can be redeemed during a later transaction
Show fast selling items notification

Measure metrics and iterate -

Checkout conversion rate
Cart abandonment rate
Revenue per user
Funnel wise drop rates

Summarsing the above discussion, in order to find the reason behind the drop in checkout conversion rate, we need to instrument the funnel, check drop at each rate, identify friction points, do relevant product/payment/trust fixes, test again for impacted metrics and keep iterating.