ORIGINAL COMPANY-CONTEXT PRACTICE
Coordinate grocery substitutions with customer decisions
Original practice scenario: Design a hypothetical grocery fulfillment workflow where a picker proposes a substitute, the customer may respond late, and the original item becomes available again.
Written for independent practice using company context; this is not a verified question from a company interview.
A REASONED APPROACH
Model answer.
Model the order line as a versioned decision workflow with a clear fulfillment cutoff. Stock availability, customer preference and picker action are related events rather than interchangeable truth.
Work through it
- Assign an order-line identity and record the proposed substitute, its price basis and the line version against which approval is requested.
- Accept a response only if it still matches the active proposal and cutoff; make repeated responses idempotent and expose conflicts to the picker.
- Record the actual picked item separately, reconciling it with the accepted decision and payment adjustment before finalizing fulfillment.
Tradeoffs to discuss
- Waiting longer for customer input improves choice but can delay picking; defaults need a disclosed policy and an explicit unresolved state.
Common pitfalls
- A late approval must not overwrite a newer rejection or an already completed pickup.
- Handle quantity changes and price differences directly rather than assuming a substitute is always one equivalent unit.