Design E-Commerce Platform – Frontend System Design
Problem Statement
Build the frontend for an e-commerce website like Amazon or Shopify stores.
Requirements:
- A product listing page with search, filters (brand, price, size, rating), and sorting
- A product detail page with an image gallery, variants (size, color), price, stock status, and reviews
- A cart that persists across visits and works for both guests and logged-in users
- A checkout flow with shipping address, payment, and order confirmation
- The site must be fast, SEO-friendly, and fully responsive
Describe your approach to rendering strategy, component structure, cart and checkout state, the API, and any optimizations you’d consider for performance, conversion, and security.
Clarifying Questions
| # | Question | Interviewer’s Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | How big is the catalog? Hundreds of products or millions? | Assume millions of products across many categories. |
| 2 | Where does the product data come from? Can you describe the API? | Please design the API. |
| 3 | How important is SEO? Do product pages need to rank on Google? | Very important. Most traffic comes from search engines. |
| 4 | Can guests check out, or do they need an account? | Guests can check out. Logged-in users should keep their cart across devices. |
| 5 | Do... premium content. Premium Keep reading with PremiumGet the rest of this guide plus every premium question, solution, and system design deep dive.
     4.9/5 from our users |