Design Amazon - Online Shopping System
Let's design an online retail store.
Amazon (amazon.com) is the world’s largest online retailer. The company was originally a bookseller but has expanded to sell a wide variety of consumer goods and digital media. For the sake of this problem, we will focus on their online retail business where users can sell/buy their products.

Requirements and Goals of the System #
We will be designing a system with the following requirements:
- Users should be able to add new products to sell.
- Users should be able to search for products by their name or category.
- Users can search and view all the products, but they will have to become a registered member to buy a product.
- Users should be able to add/remove/modify product items in their shopping cart.
- Users can check out and buy items in the shopping cart.
- Users can rate and add a review for a product.
- The user should be able to specify a shipping address where their order will be delivered.
- Users can cancel an order if it has not shipped.
- Users should get notifications whenever there is a change in the order or shipping status.
- Users should be able to pay through credit cards or electronic bank transfer.
- Users should be able to track their shipment to see the current state of their order.
Use case Diagram #
We have four main Actors in our system:
- Admin: Mainly responsible for account management and adding or modifying new product categories.
- Guest: All guests can search the catalog, add/remove items to the shopping cart, as well as become registered members.
- Member: Members can perform all the activities that guests can, in addition to which, they can place orders and add new products to sell.
- System: Mainly responsible for sending notifications for orders and shipping updates.
Here are the top use cases of the Online Shopping System:
- Add/update products; whenever a product is added or modified, we will update the catalog.
- Search for products by their name or category.
- Add/remove product items in the shopping cart.
- Check-out to buy product items in the shopping cart.
- Make a payment to place an order.
- Add a new product category.
- Send notifications to members with shipment updates.

Class diagram #
Here are the descriptions of the different classes of our Online Shopping System:
-
Account: There are two types of registered accounts in the system: one will be an Admin, who is responsible for adding new product categories and blocking/unblocking members; the other, a Member, who can buy/sell products.
-
Guest: Guests can search for and view products, and add them in the shopping cart. To place an order they have to become a registered member.
-
Catalog: Users of our system can search for products by their name or category. This class will keep an index of all products for faster search.
-
ProductCategory: This will encapsulate the different categories of products, such as books, electronics, etc.
-
Product: This class will encapsulate the entity that the users of our system will be buying and selling. Each Product will belong to a ProductCategory.
-
ProductReview: Any registered member can add a review about a product.
-
ShoppingCart: Users will add product items that they intend to buy to the shopping cart.
-
Item: This class will encapsulate a product item that the users will be buying or placing in the shopping cart. For example, a pen could be a product and if there are 10 pens in the inventory, each of these 10 pens will be considered a product item.
-
Order: This will encapsulate a buying order to buy everything in the shopping cart.
-
OrderLog: Will keep a track of the status of orders, such as unshipped, pending, complete, canceled, etc.
-
ShipmentLog: Will keep a track of the status of shipments, such as pending, shipped, delivered, etc.
-
Notification: This class will take care of sending notifications to customers.
-
Payment: This class will encapsulate the payment for an order. Members can pay through credit card or electronic bank transfer.


Activity Diagram #
Following is the activity diagram for a user performing online shopping:

Sequence Diagram #
- Here is the sequence diagram for searching from the catalog:
- Here is the sequence diagram for adding an item to the shopping cart:
- Here is the sequence diagram for checking out to place an order:
Code #
Here is the high-level definition for the classes described above.
Enums, data types, and constants: Here are the required enums, data types, and constants:
public class Address {
private String streetAddress;
private String city;
private String state;
private String zipCode;
private String country;
}
public enum OrderStatus {
UNSHIPPED, PENDING, SHIPPED, COMPLETED, CANCELED, REFUND_APPLIED
}
public enum AccountStatus {
ACTIVE, BLOCKED, BANNED, COMPROMISED, ARCHIVED, UNKNOWN
}
public enum ShipmentStatus {
PENDING, SHIPPED, DELIVERED, ON_HOLD,
}
public enum PaymentStatus {
UNPAID, PENDING, COMPLETED, FILLED, DECLINED, CANCELLED, ABANDONED, SETTLING, SETTLED, REFUNDED
}Account, Customer, Admin, and Guest: These classes represent different people that interact with our system:
// For simplicity, we are not defining getter and setter functions. The reader can
// assume that all class attributes are private and accessed through their respective
// public getter methods and modified only through their public methods function.
public class Account {
private String userName;
private String password;
private AccountStatus status;
private String name;
private Address shippingAddress;
private String email;
private String phone;
private List<CreditCard> creditCards;
private List<ElectronicBankTransfer> bankAccounts;
public boolean addProduct(Product product);
public boolean addProductReview(ProductReview review);
public boolean resetPassword();
}
public abstract class Customer {
private ShoppingCart cart;
private Order order;
public ShoppingCart getShoppingCart();
public bool addItemToCart(Item item);
public bool removeItemFromCart(Item item);
}
public class Guest extends Customer {
public bool registerAccount();
}
public class Member extends Customer {
private Account account;
public OrderStatus placeOrder(Order order);
}ProductCategory, Product, and ProductReview: Here are the classes related to a product:
public class ProductCategory {
private String name;
private String description;
}
public class ProductReview {
private int rating;
private String review;
private Member reviewer;
}
public class Product {
private String productID;
private String name;
private String description;
private double price;
private ProductCategory category;
private int availableItemCount;
private Account seller;
public int getAvailableCount();
public boolean updatePrice(double newPrice);
}
ShoppingCart, Item, Order, and OrderLog: Users will add items to the shopping cart and place an order to buy all the items in the cart.
public class Item {
private String productID;
private int quantity;
private double price;
public boolean updateQuantity(int quantity);
}
public class ShoppingCart {
private List<Items> items;
public boolean addItem(Item item);
public boolean removeItem(Item item);
public boolean updateItemQuantity(Item item, int quantity);
public List<Item> getItems();
public boolean checkout();
}
public class OrderLog {
private String orderNumber;
private Date creationDate;
private OrderStatus status;
}
public class Order {
private String orderNumber;
private OrderStatus status;
private Date orderDate;
private List<OrderLog> orderLog;
public boolean sendForShipment();
public boolean makePayment(Payment payment);
public boolean addOrderLog(OrderLog orderLog);
}Shipment, ShipmentLog, and Notification: After successfully placing an order, a shipment record will be created:
public class ShipmentLog {
private String shipmentNumber;
private ShipmentStatus status;
private Date creationDate;
}
public class Shipment {
private String shipmentNumber;
private Date shipmentDate;
private Date estimatedArrival;
private String shipmentMethod;
private List<ShipmentLog> shipmentLogs;
public boolean addShipmentLog(ShipmentLog shipmentLog);
}
public abstract class Notification {
private int notificationId;
private Date createdOn;
private String content;
public boolean sendNotification(Account account);
}
Search interface and Catalog: Catalog will implement Search to facilitate searching of products.
public interface Search {
public List<Product> searchProductsByName(String name);
public List<Product> searchProductsByCategory(String category);
}
public class Catalog implements Search {
HashMap<String, List<Product>> productNames;
HashMap<String, List<Product>> productCategories;
public List<Product> searchProductsByName(String name) {
return productNames.get(name);
}
public List<Product> searchProductsByCategory(String category) {
return productCategories.get(category);
}
}