Flipkart Homepage: Reframing Cohort Personalization
Tested cohort assumptions before committing to separate homepage experiences.
- Homepage strategy
- Experimentation
- Customer discovery
- Personalization
- E-commerce
Saurav Mahapatra
Lead Product Manager at Tide
From their time as
Product Manager
Flipkart • 2019 - 2021
Overview
Saurav tested a proposal to build distinct Flipkart homepages for customer cohorts. The test supported targeted discovery modules instead, contributing to stronger engagement and conversion.
The Story
Saurav worked on Flipkart's homepage after pandemic restrictions lifted and demand rose sharply. Leadership proposed separate homepage experiences for budget-conscious, enthusiast, and luxury shoppers.
He examined whether the proposed cohort split reflected meaningful differences in purchase behavior. The data showed that budget-conscious and enthusiast shoppers bought different products, but their underlying paths to purchase were not different enough to justify a full homepage split.
Saurav ran an A/B test on a portion of the homepage rather than committing to a major platform change. The test did not show a significant gain from separate layouts, but it did reveal micro-patterns, including a stronger response to recommendation-led content among enthusiasts.
He reframed the work as a discovery problem. His proposal was to keep a shared homepage structure while tailoring modules for discounts, new launches, and exclusive brands by cohort.
He used the experiment and conversations with the area lead to align stakeholders around the narrower build. The changes went live and contributed to stronger engagement and conversion.
Ownership Snapshot
Broad role
Product manager for Flipkart's homepage experience.
Goal
Improve product discovery across customer cohorts.
Direct ownership
Tested the homepage hypothesis and proposed a narrower personalization approach.
Team execution
Partnered with leadership, engineering, and teams running homepage experiments.