Dealer package bookings in OLX India's Cars category fell 20% quarter on quarter. How would you investigate?

Introduction

Used-car dealers are OLX India's most valuable paying customers. They buy category packages, Featured ads and Boost to Top to keep their inventory visible in the Cars category. The scenario: revenue from dealer packages in Cars fell 20% quarter on quarter, while the number of car listings and buyer traffic in Cars stayed roughly stable. Leadership wants to know why before the next quarterly earnings call. This is a hard root-cause question because the cause may sit outside OLX's own app: OLX India is part of CarTrade Tech, which also runs CarWale, BikeWale and AI tools such as SuperDost and VAYA that route buyers and sellers across platforms. I'll follow a structured approach and keep both product and business explanations on the table.

Step 1

Clarifying Questions (3 minutes)

• Is the 20% decline in bookings or recognised revenue?

• Hypothetical answer: Bookings (new package purchases and renewals).
• Impact: Recognised revenue may lag; we focus on purchase behaviour.

• Did prices or package structure change?

• Hypothetical answer: No list price change, but a 10% discount for annual packages ended at the start of the quarter.
• Impact: A pricing effect is possible and must be sized.

• Is the drop across all cities and dealer sizes?

• Hypothetical answer: Worse among mid-sized dealers (10–40 cars in stock) in the top 8 cities.
• Impact: Small and very large dealers behave differently, a clue in itself.

• What changed in the wider CarTrade ecosystem?

• Hypothetical answer: Cross-platform lead routing through a matchmaking tool expanded, and a used-car partnership brought quality-assured inventory from a large organised player onto OLX.
• Impact: Two strong candidate external-to-OLX causes.

• How do dealers measure value?

• Hypothetical answer: Leads (calls and chats) per rupee and sales from those leads.
• Impact: We should look at dealer-perceived lead value.