How to design a successful eCommerce system for Amazon, eBay, FilPCart and Walmart (by Amazon TPM)

Summary

In this video, the speaker outlines the design of an e-commerce platform like Amazon, focusing on essential functional and non-functional requirements. The discussion includes capacity estimations, high-level database designs, and API structures necessary for user interactions such as product searching, ordering, and reviewing. The speaker emphasizes the importance of low latency and high consistency, and provides insights into scaling the system for millions of users through load balancing, caching, and optimized database strategies. The detailed approach aims to equip viewers with the knowledge needed for system design interviews.

Takeaways

• 😀 The video discusses designing e-commerce websites like Amazon, including functional and non-functional requirements.
• 🛠️ Functional requirements include product search, order placement, viewing order status, and reading/writing product reviews.
• 📉 Non-functional requirements emphasize low latency for recommendations and search results, and high consistency during order processing.
• 📊 Capacity estimation reveals Amazon's 300 million users performing approximately 1,000 searches per second.
• 💾 The storage estimation for product data suggests needing around 100 terabytes to store information for 10 million products.
• 🗄️ The user database will use SQL for structured data, while product data will be stored in NoSQL databases like DynamoDB or MongoDB for flexibility.
• 📝 An order database will also utilize NoSQL, allowing orders with multiple items to be stored as arrays within a single document.
• 🔍 API design includes services for getting recommendations, searching products, adding to cart, placing orders, and checking order status.
• ⚖️ To scale the system, load balancers, multiple service instances, and a master-slave database architecture will be implemented.
• 📈 To ensure performance, caching, message queues, and archiving old data will be used to manage user search history and order records.

Q & A

What are the key functional requirements for designing an e-commerce platform like Amazon?

The key functional requirements include the ability for users to search for products, view recommended products on their homepage, place orders, check the status of existing orders, and read/write product reviews.

What non-functional requirements are critical for the e-commerce system?

Critical non-functional requirements include low latency for displaying recommendations and search results, as well as high consistency for order placement and status checking to ensure users receive accurate information.

How is capacity estimated for the Amazon-like e-commerce platform?

Capacity is estimated based on the number of active users and their search behavior, with calculations indicating the system should handle about 1,000 searches per second based on 300 million monthly active users.

What database design is suggested for user information?

A SQL database design is suggested for user information due to its structured nature, featuring a schema that includes user ID, username, password, first name, last name, and timestamps for user activity.

Why is a NoSQL database recommended for product information?

A NoSQL database, such as DynamoDB or MongoDB, is recommended for product information due to its unstructured nature, allowing for more flexibility and efficient storage of product details using JSON documents.

What API services are defined in the system design?

Defined API services include the Get Recommendation Service, Search Service, Add to Cart Service, Place Order Service, and Check Order Status Service, each handling specific user interactions.

What role does the load balancer play in the system architecture?

The load balancer distributes incoming traffic evenly across multiple servers to prevent overload on a single server, ensuring the system can scale effectively as user demand increases.

How does the system handle scalability for millions of users?

Scalability is handled by implementing multiple service instances, using a standby load balancer, employing Elasticsearch for efficient searches, and utilizing a master-slave architecture for the product database.

What caching strategies are proposed to improve performance?

Caching strategies include storing user recommendations, reviews, and recent order statuses to allow for quick access and improve response times for users interacting with the platform.

How does the system ensure accurate order processing?

The system ensures accurate order processing by checking against an inventory database before placing orders, confirming that products are available and payment is successful before finalizing the order.