design schema for amazon

Designing a schema for Amazon or a similar large-scale e-commerce platform involves modeling
core entities such as users, products, orders, payments, and more, with careful attention to
relationships, scalability, and performance. Below is a robust, normalized relational schema
suitable for an Amazon-like system, with explanations for each major table.

Core Tables and Relationships

Users
users
user_id (Primary Key)
name

email

password_hash

phone_number

created_at

last_login_at

Addresses
addresses
address_id (Primary Key)
user_id (Foreign Key)
street

city

state

postal_code

country

is_default (boolean)

User to Addresses is a one-to-many relationship: one user can have multiple addresses [1] [2] .
Categories
categories
category_id (Primary Key)
category_name

parent_id (Foreign Key, for hierarchical categories)

Categories can be organized hierarchically (main and subcategories) [1] [2] .

Products
products
product_id (Primary Key)
category_id (Foreign Key)
name

description

brand

created_at

updated_at

Product to Category is a many-to-many relationship, often managed via a join table if products
can belong to multiple categories [1] [3] .

Product Attributes and SKUs

product_attributes
attribute_id (Primary Key)
product_id (Foreign Key)
attribute_name (e.g., "color", "size")
attribute_value (e.g., "red", "XL")
skus
sku_id (Primary Key)
product_id (Foreign Key)
price

quantity

is_active

(Additional SKU-specific attributes can be added as needed)

An SKU (Stock Keeping Unit) represents a specific variation of a product, such as size or color,
with its own price and inventory [1] [3] .
Product Images
product_images
image_id (Primary Key)
product_id (Foreign Key)
image_url

is_main (boolean, for featured image)

sku_images (optional, for SKU-specific images)
image_id

sku_id (Foreign Key)

image_url

is_main

Wishlist
wishlists
wishlist_id (Primary Key)
user_id (Foreign Key)
product_id (Foreign Key)
created_at

Carts
carts
cart_id (Primary Key)
user_id (Foreign Key)
created_at

updated_at

cart_items
cart_item_id (Primary Key)
cart_id (Foreign Key)
sku_id (Foreign Key)
quantity

added_at
Orders
orders
order_id (Primary Key)
user_id (Foreign Key)
address_id (Foreign Key)
order_date

status (e.g., "pending", "shipped", "delivered")

total_amount

order_items
order_item_id (Primary Key)
order_id (Foreign Key)
sku_id (Foreign Key)
quantity

price_at_purchase

discount

Payments
payments
payment_id (Primary Key)
order_id (Foreign Key)
amount

payment_method

transaction_id

status

payment_date

Shipments
shipments
shipment_id (Primary Key)
order_id (Foreign Key)
carrier

tracking_number

shipped_date

delivered_date

status
Summary Table
Table Key Columns Relationships Purpose

users user_id - Customer accounts

addresses address_id, user_id users Shipping/billing addresses

categories category_id, parent_id - Product categorization

products product_id, category_id categories Product info

Product variations (color,

product_attributes attribute_id, product_id products
size, etc.)

products, Product variants with

skus sku_id, product_id
product_attributes price/inventory

product_images image_id, product_id products Product images

SKU-specific images
sku_images image_id, sku_id skus
(optional)

wishlist_id, user_id,
wishlists users, products Saved for later
product_id

carts cart_id, user_id users Shopping cart

cart_item_id, cart_id,
cart_items carts, skus Items in cart
sku_id

order_id, user_id,
orders users, addresses Customer orders
address_id

order_item_id, order_id,
order_items orders, skus Items in order
sku_id

payments payment_id, order_id orders Payment details

shipments shipment_id, order_id orders Shipment tracking

Additional Notes
Normalization: The schema is normalized up to the third normal form (3NF) to ensure data
integrity and consistency [2] [4] .
Scalability: For very large-scale systems like Amazon, consider using NoSQL databases
(e.g., DynamoDB, MongoDB) for high-velocity or unstructured data, and relational
databases for transactional data [5] [6] .
Extensibility: The schema can be extended with additional tables for reviews, ratings,
returns, vendors, and more as needed [3] .
This schema serves as a robust foundation for an Amazon-like e-commerce platform, supporting
user management, product catalog, shopping cart, order processing, payments, and
shipments [2] [3] .
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1. https://dev.to/ezzdinatef/ecommerce-database-design-1ggc
2. https://vertabelo.com/blog/er-diagram-for-online-shop/
3. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/designing-robust-database-schema-e-commerce-shirsh-sinha-7orsc
4. https://github.com/marymathews/amazon-database-design
5. https://www.codekarle.com/system-design/Amazon-system-design.html
6. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/amazondynamodb/latest/developerguide/data-modeling-schemas.html