Business Context

FreshCart is a same-day grocery delivery app operating in 12 cities. The GM for the consumer business says the team is overloaded with dashboards and wants a tighter KPI set because order growth has slowed even though app traffic is up.

Metric Scenario

In the last quarter, monthly app visitors increased from 4.8M to 5.6M (+17%), first-order conversion fell from 9.4% to 7.8%, 90-day repeat purchase rate stayed flat at 31%, and average orders per active customer declined from 2.6 to 2.3 per month. Revenue still grew 6% because AOV increased from $41 to $45, but contribution margin per order fell from $6.20 to $4.90 due to higher delivery incentives. The leadership team currently tracks 25+ metrics, including installs, page views, coupon redemptions, orders, GMV, NPS, and on-time delivery, but there is no agreed North Star metric or hierarchy of leading vs lagging indicators.

You are asked to define or refine the KPI framework for the consumer business ahead of the quarterly planning cycle.

Requirements

1. Propose a North Star metric for FreshCart's consumer business and explain why it is better than the current metric set.
2. Define 4-6 supporting KPIs, separating leading indicators from lagging indicators.
3. Specify exact metric definitions, denominators, and time windows to avoid ambiguity.
4. Explain how you would diagnose whether the current slowdown is driven more by acquisition quality, checkout conversion, retention, or unit economics.
5. Recommend which metrics should be reviewed weekly by product, marketing, and operations leadership.

Data Available

• app_sessions: session_id, user_id, session_start, city, traffic_source, device_type
• orders: order_id, user_id, order_time, subtotal, discounts, delivery_fee, contribution_margin, delivered_on_time
• checkout_funnel_events: user_id, session_id, event_time, step_name
• promotions_redemptions: user_id, promo_id, redemption_time, discount_amount
• customer_profiles: user_id, signup_date, city, acquisition_channel