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World desk4 min

E-commerce Products Work Better When They Start With Customer Goals

Build around the progress customers need in a particular situation—not just a feature list. See how e-commerce teams can connect customer insight to product and service decisions.
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E-commerce teams make better product decisions when they start with the progress a customer needs in a particular situation—not with a feature request or a demographic label. “Solve one real problem” is a useful focus for discovery, not a rule that a product can have only one feature. The goal is to build the capabilities and surrounding experience that help customers get something done.

What it means to solve a real problem

A customer “job” is the progress they want to make in a particular circumstance. It includes the functional outcome, and may also involve social or emotional concerns. Demographics can describe who a customer is, but they do not necessarily explain what that person needs in a specific moment. One customer may want different things from the same product in different situations. Microsoft Research discusses differing approaches to defining jobs and emphasizes being deliberate about the objective and circumstance: Microsoft Research’s overview of Jobs to Be Done.

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This changes the starting question from “What feature should we build?” to “Why would the customer choose this, and what are they trying to accomplish?” The answer may lead to a product change, but it may also point to a better purchase flow, service, or way to connect channels.

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Why a feature request is not the whole problem

A requested feature describes a possible solution. To understand whether it is the right one, look for the situation that prompted the request, the outcome the customer wanted, the alternatives they considered, and the friction or anxiety they encountered. Those are useful prompts for discovery, not a single prescribed interview script.

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A move is more than a property search

In a condo-sales example, a developer initially focused on appealing physical features for people downsizing. The deeper issue was a major life transition: customers also needed help deciding what to keep or discard and managing the move. Addressing those needs meant supporting the transition, not just adding more to the condos. The case is described by Clayton Christensen, Taddy Hall, Karen Dillon, and David S. Duncan in Harvard Business Review’s “Know Your Customers’ Jobs to Be Done”.

The milkshake competes with more than other shakes

Harvard Business School’s milkshake example shows why context matters. Commuters bought shakes to make a drive less boring and to stave off hunger. In that situation, thickness and the ability to consume the drink cleanly with one hand mattered; a faster, easier purchase and pickup also helped. Parents buying shakes faced a different circumstance and job. For the commuter, alternatives included bagels, bananas, and doughnuts—not only competing milkshakes. The HBS account of the milkshake example illustrates how understanding the job can change both product attributes and the buying experience.

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Apply the customer’s broader goal to e-commerce

A customer’s experience does not begin and end on a product page. Consider the broader goal, then map where a product, service, purchase step, or channel helps or gets in the way. That can reveal opportunities in discovery, ordering, fulfillment, replenishment, or support.

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McKinsey’s 2023 discussion of next-generation commerce argues that e-commerce can become an add-on instead of being organized around wider customer needs. Its Grainger example includes factory-floor vending machines connected to automatic replenishment, along with order history, around-the-clock service, advanced search, and e-procurement. McKinsey reports that these digital initiatives account for 75 percent of Grainger revenue. That is a company-specific figure reported in the article, not a prediction of what another retailer’s program will deliver. Read McKinsey’s article on next-generation commerce.

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Compare solutions against the job

When several solutions could help, compare them by how well they serve the customer’s situation—not merely by category or feature count. A practical discussion can cover:

  • Functional outcome: Does the option help the customer accomplish the task they came to do?
  • Social and emotional concerns: Where relevant, does it reduce anxiety, effort, or an unwanted trade-off?
  • Effort across channels: Can the customer continue smoothly through their preferred ways to discover, order, and get help?
  • Delivery trade-offs: What cost, operational work, and service commitments come with the option?

These are useful comparison dimensions drawn from customer-job and product-development discussions, not a validated scoring formula. The aim is to make trade-offs visible rather than to imply that every customer need has a simple numerical score.

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Turn customer evidence into a roadmap

Once a team has evidence about the situation and desired outcome, translate it into a small set of customer outcomes. Prioritize work by the value it is expected to deliver, then test whether the chosen solution helps in practice. An MVP can provide the minimum functionality that adds value, while follow-on work responds to what the team learns.

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McKinsey’s product-development article describes practices such as cross-functional teams, short iterations, frequent demonstrations, a centrally prioritized backlog, MVPs, and reassessing where teams are assigned as priorities change. It gives examples of teams of five to ten engineers and iteration cycles of two to four weeks; these are examples, not universal prescriptions or guarantees. See McKinsey’s discussion of agile product development.

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This approach does not make features unimportant. Feature increments can be the right way to deliver value. The distinction is whether a feature advances a customer outcome in a real context or exists mainly because it was easy to request, build, or count.

What this approach can—and cannot—promise

Jobs to Be Done is a way to frame discovery and product decisions, not the only valid product strategy. The cited cases illustrate how attention to context can change what a team builds; they do not prove that focusing on one problem automatically causes e-commerce success. A focused customer problem gives a team a clearer basis for choosing and evaluating solutions, while outcomes still depend on the quality of the solution and its execution.

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