Create a way to sell movie tickets on Facebook.

Question

Create a way to sell movie tickets on Facebook.

Asked at Meta (Facebook) over a year ago

2.4k views

Product Design category

Asked at

2.4k views

How to answer Product Design questions

Interview Guide

Top Meta (Facebook) interview questions

What is your favorite product? Why?89 answers | 263k views
How would you design a bicycle renting app for tourists?62 answers | 82.5k views
Build a product to buy and sell antiques.54 answers | 66.8k views
See Meta (Facebook) PM Interview Questions

Top Product Design interview questions

How would you design a web search engine for children below 14 years old?36 answers | 42.9k views
Design a library for the future.25 answers | 23.5k views
How would you design a consumer application for a scooter sharing business?21 answers | 18.6k views
See Product Design PM Interview Questions

Invite members
Invite by email

Add another

Nitnan · Answer 1 · 2022-07-09T10:41:29+0000

Create a way to sell movie tickets in facebook

Alright, I assume that this is poduct will be within the facebook app and it is going to be mainly mobile and rolled out globally

Goal:

The goal of this app would be to provide movie lovers a good experience in booking tickets by enhancing it with other community based features already available within facebook

Competetion:

There are a lot of movie booking apps in the market which already allows the users right from booking tickets and ordering snacks while watching the movie

Our strength and Opportunity -

1. A great community experience with 3 billion users

2. Most of the ticket booking platforms monetise from the commision recieved from the theatres. Facebook being free we can easily get the theatre people adopted

Target Audience

1. Ardent Movie Lovers - People who love to watch 90% of the moview in theatres with good cine experience

2. Normal Moview watchers- People who less frequently go to the theatre 50% of the times

3. Theatre owners

I would like to focus on the "Normal Moview Watchers" for the reason they Contribute to majority of the crowd in facebook

Painpoints of the user

1. Wanted to understand more about the movie before release like the the music release date, artists involved, and other informal news

2. Not getting to know much about the movies true reception based on which they can make a decision to go to the movie. As most Youtube channels and media are paid and their reviews are biased

3. Unable to plan for a movie as a community along with friends , connections and other like minded people (It would interesting to watch Top Gun moview with a fans of tom cruise even though they are strangers to me to go)

4. Unable to understand the standard of the theatre, sometheatres may be unclean and audio effects are not to the expectation

Priorities I would like to prioritize painpoints 1 and 3

Solution:

1. Facebook to have a separate tab with a name Movies. Clicking that will show you the theathres you and movies they play

Impact - H, Cost - M

2. We would also show the movies that are about to be release and its details, along with an area for the discussion

Impact - M, Cost -M

3. While exploring a movie the user should be able to see the friends who have shared their interest in it by liking

Impact - H, Cost - L

4. Asking users while booking tickers, if they would want to notify friends, so that they will be notified about the movie plan details along with the seat selection.

Impact - H, Cost - M

5. Before the movie is released the users can form a group which is temporary to discuss about the plans for the movie

Impact - H, Cost - L

MVP: Assuming the featres for onboarding the theatres and movies is a separate app and it has already got completed, I would include the following solutions

1. It is needed for basic onboarding of users

3. This increase the community feel and we stand out of other competetion

4. Join as a community and watch the movie

Metrics:

1. Number of moview tickers booked per week

2. Number of tickets booked per users

3. Number of user who notify friends about their ticket booking

4. Number of users who booked the same show based on the request from friends

PM Team · Answer 2 · 2020-02-24T06:06:52+0000

So I started on with exploring the product: Movie Tickets, then the aspects of the Movie Watching activity, followed by understanding the user needs and finally discussed the features.

Product: Movie Tickets

Theatre/Play/Independent Show tickets
Cinema tickets

Activity: Movie Watching

Solo/Friends
Big Group
Couple Outing

Stakeholders:

Viewers
Facebook
Cinema Halls, Independent artists

User Needs:

Viewers (Content Consumers):
- Movie selection
- Easy booking
- Finding friends to accompany
- Dining and commuting
Creators:
- Getting publicity
- Easy ticket booking platform with high conversion rates

Features:

Discovery:
1. Movies Tab: Enlists ongoing movies. Can be filtered according to the genre, reviews and trending among friends or public in general
2. New movie release notifications based on past user behaviour
3. Find friends who are interested/going for this movie: Notifying friends/requesting them to join for a movie
4. Pair-Up: Get matched with a movie partner with similar tastes
Booking:
1. Solo: Select the movie, then select the preferred theatre based on location, 2D/3D screens, seating, commute, dining facility
2. Group: Select the members OR create an event inside an already existing FB group. Ask members to select 'free' slots on a personalized calendar. An algorithm selects the best fitting time-slot based on everyone's individual calendar and location.
3. Integration with mobility apps such as Uber, Lyft for easier commute and dining apps such as Swiggy, Zomato, Eats for meal booking. Very helpful for late-night movie slots.
Confirmation:
1. QR code/Hall ticket.
2. Notifications an hour, half-hour prior to the show stars.
Feedback:
1. Movie reviews: during the commute to the restaurant or during the meal waiting time (for diners). A day after through a simple 5-star scale displayed in the news feed.
2. Ride and Meal reviews: Soon after the ride/meal ends through an in-app notification.
For content creators:
1. Advertising their plays /theatres on the movies tab. This can be chargeable
2. Option to share the same to friends/public over interactive stories, posts, messages
3. Easy payment integration and booking support

Metrics:

Discoverability: Interaction of the user with the movie notifications
Bookings fulfilled by facebook over total bookings done
Number of 'find friends' requests generated
Number of events created by independent artists. CTR of the same.
Bookings across different user segments: solo, couples, groups

stashbag · Answer 3 · 2020-12-30T23:07:33+0000

Clarifications

Why are we building this product / what is our goal?
- We want to make movie watching social. We want our users to use the FB community to make movie selection and watching more fun
What does selling tickets mean?
- Will be facilitate it by connecting our users to ticketing companies? —> Yes, we are facilitate ticket sales.
- Who will manage payment - Would it be done via FB or would users go to the merchant site? —> Will be managed by ticket seller merchant
- Are these tickets for physical locations (theaters) or are they for virtual movies? —> TBD.
- What geo are we focusing on ? —> Lets limit it to the US

Given the clarifications I am going to focus on designing a product who main goals are

To allow users to view and learn about new movies from their network / community, and,
Plan for movie events with their friends and family (coordinating dates and buying tickets)

The product would focus on creating a movie experience leveraging FB’s strengths or community, chats, reviews, peer to peer payments, events and also allow users to buy tickets

Users Personas

Some of the User personas (non-exhaustive) listed here

Avid movie goers: Go for all movies, love to read reviews, have strong preferences on genres. High frequency of movie watching covering mainstream and indie movies.
Social movie goers: Go for movies mainly as a part of social gatherings, infrequently watch movies, primarily watch mainstream movies
Parents: Organizing movies party for children for birthday parties. Low frequency but tend to book for a large groups
Couples: Going for movie for date night
Families: Parents and children going to watch a movie together

From the above users, to narrow the scope, I am going to focus on the casual movie watcher. Reason for choosing

Open to recommendations / learning about which movies to watch
Looking to plan movies with friends / families

User Journey using the 5E framework.

Below is a sample user journey from consideration to purchase and post purchase.

Entice

Read movies reviews
View movies experiences of others

Enter

Plan a movie night
Decide to book for self and group of friends / family

Engage

Planning the movie night via FB for friends / family
Conduct polls on when to watch the movie
Plan dates and show times
Search for dates / options
Book movie tickets

Exit

Send booked ticket details to others
Post details on the event ( location, time)

Extend

Write movies reviews
Share pics / posts on the movie event (before / after)

Use Cases / User Needs

From the above needs we can list down key user needs

REVIEWS: Read movie reviews to determine whether to go for a movie
PLANNING: Create Events / groups to plan for movies, lock down date and time, run polls, collect payments from others
SEARCH: Search for available movies based on decision
BOOK: Book movie tickets, make payment, get confirmation, manage refunds
SHARE: Share pics and post around the movie event

From the above use cases (each contain sub-features) I am going to focus on building out Movie Search and Booking features first. Reviews can be sourced from other websites, Planning needs can be served through Events / Groups / Messaging as well as polls for locking down date/time. In short, all of these features already exist and can be repurposed. In subsequent versions of the product we can make a more seamless interaction between the different FB services / products such as Events, Groups, Messaging, Polls, Newsfeed to deliver a more seamless experience for the users.

Solutions

Search: Allow users to search for movie listing within Facebook without leaving the app
- Add Supply
  - Work with Aggregators: Add inventory from suppliers such as Fandango / Rotten tomatoes to get ticket inventory and movies ratings via their APIs
  - Select vendors: Pick a handful of nation wide theater chains (AMC, Regal, Cinemark) and get their movie inventory online. Digitize their inventory
- Add Search and filters
  - Add search and filtering of inventory based on different criteria such as movie, date, time, availability, avg rating
For search I would go with Aggregators such as Fandango so that we can use their API to show current listings. Fastest way to get things off the ground. Working with the movie theater chains is likely to be time consuming and they might have not the tech infrastructure to support high scale bookings
Book: Allow users to book tickets via FB
- Booking Interface:
  - Add names of friends who have signed up for the movies to the booking. When booking is made send an e-ticket is sent to those friends.
  - Payment collection would be handled by the vendors and payment can be made via Facebook Pay
- Cancellations and refunds
  - Show e-tickets to users; Cancel tickets for entire group, Cancel individual tickets
  - Get refunds
For Booking the main work we need to do is make it easy for users to do group bookings (for their party), receive e-tickets, and manage refunds. For payments we will use FB pay and the merchants/movie theater website to manage ticket sales (payment collection, receipts, refunds)

Metrics

The primary metric I would track is

Weekly Number of tickets sold

Secondary metrics

Number of groups per booking
Engagement / Avg time spent on planning movie
Posts on FB before / after the movie
$$ value of payments cleared w-o-w

Summary

I would focus on building an holistic experience of movie going covering (reviews, planning, booking, payments) to bring parts of an offline activity onto Facebook. The features I would prioritize are movie search and bookings. Eventually we can work on making a seamless experience and more effectively connecting the different FB services to make the movie experience more seamless.

Deepika Roy · Answer 4 · 2020-03-25T16:39:34+0000

Initially, I have a few questions and certain assumptions that I have made
1. Are we going to build a brand new feature for Facebook that will enable buying and selling movie tickets?
2. Are we going to enhance the existing feature of Films to enable buying and selling of movie tickets?

i. Currently, once the user ticket, they will land on other ticket selling websites with whom Facebook has partnered with

ii. I will consider that we will enhance the exiting feature

1. Will Facebook only sell movie tickets or will also sell tickets for other events
2. Users: Ticket buyers, Ticket Sellers, Movie Critics and Reviewers
3. Ticket Buyers would like to buy movie tickets
4. Ticket sellers would like to sell movie tickets
5. Movie Reviewers will be the movie viewers who may or may not have purchased tickets on Facebook, but still can provide their review comments, in case if they have an account

i. I will assume that they can provide review comments only if they have purchased the tickets on Facebook (to ensure that the reviewer have actually watched the movie. Though we may have other ways to get that piece of information, but we would not go for that as of now)

Select User Group (There are certain features that need to be developed for all the User Groups as those go hand in hand)
1. Facebook
2. Buyers/Viewers --> Those who want to watch movie
3. Sellers --> Cinema Halls/Theaters

User Needs and Prioritization

Buyers/ Viewers
User Needs/ Features	Impact to the User	MVP	Revenue Potential	Level of Effort	Priority
User shall be able to browse movies (running currently, upcoming with NO advanced bookings, upcoming with advanced bookings) based on certain filter criteria (like location, type of theater, time window, language, genre, date etc)	5	Yes	5	2	5+5-2=8
User shall be able to book and cancel tickets for the movies	5	Yes	5	1	5+5-1 = 9
User shall be able to choose seats of their choice and select different price categories	5	Yes	5	1	5+5-1 = 9
User shall be able to make the payments for the tickets online	5	Yes	5	2	5+5-2 = 8
User shall receive the soft copy of the ticket along with QR code	5	Yes	5	1	5+5-1 = 9
User shall be able to book/buy add-ons (drinks/ food items) along with ticket purchases	2	No	2	1	2+2-1=3
AI based chatbot to help the users to buy tickets and add-ons using voice technology	5	No	5	5	5+5-5 =5
Integrated transportation arrangement based on user preferences, car pooling	5	No	5	5	5+5-5 = 5 5

Facebook
User Needs/Features	Impact to the User	MVP	Revenue Potential	Level of Effort	Priority
Monetize on selling of tickets	5	Yes	5	2	5+5-2=8
Monetize on advertisements from other vendors	5	No	5	4	5+5-4 = 6
Predict the optimum price of the tickets using Dynamic Pricing using AI technology	5	No	5	5	5+5-5=5

Sellers
User Needs/ Features	Impact to the User	MVP	Revenue Potential	Level of Effort	Priority
Users need to be able to post the movies running currently in their theaters and upcoming ones	5	Yes	5	2	5+5-2=8
Users need to be to sell tickets for various seats under different price categories	5	No	5	4	5+5-4 = 6
Users need to be able to quote different prices on different days based on demand	5	Yes	5	1	5+5-1 =9
Users need to be able to sell add-ons along with tickets	3	No	2	1	3+2-1 = 4
User need to be able to get the amount transferred to their accounts after the buyers have completed the transactions through 3rd party payment gateway	5	Yes	5	2	5+5-2 = 8