Exactly! You need APIs, affiliates, advertising module and others.
he’s just asking about creating a website that functions similar to Amazon, which I personally don’t believe is a “massive” challenge, it’s a lot of work, I’m not denying that, but it’s certainly doable by one person who is determined.
When you say “similar to Amazon” is not just a product listing and a cart. I’m thinking about reproducing all features. After a simple click to My Account you’ll see some features (like Gift cards, reviews) that may take you more than one month (by your own, without a testing or UX department). After few clicks I discovered “Wedding Registry” (I had no idea about this) and there are lots of other hidden features besides the product listing and a cart. Now, I have to remind that everything you see it’s almost double-work because of the Administration area (for every small detail)
So, to stick to the topic, he should not be scared (if determined to do this!) and should just start with a simple eCommerce from scratch (user login, product listing, add to cart, submit a shopping cart to some email, admin area for those)
You do realise that Amazon probably have to pay millions of dollars each month just to keep their site running?
I think you are vastly under appreciating the sheer complexity of their system. Even something like their recommendation engine is basically a genius tool - that one feature alone will have been designed by a team of extremely strong engineers, and will have taken a long time for them to code up.
You could make something that had a far reduced functionality set compared to amazon, but that looked similar on the surface, but actually coding up something on the scale of Amazon is 100% impossible for a single person to do. I would estimate you’d need a few million dollars and a team of around 100 extremely gifted engineers.
For my daily job I program an Ecommerce site. I am the only programmer that works on the site, but I do work with a designer as well. I create everything from scratch based upon what my clients needs are of the site. It’s been a 2 years in the making so far, but I rarely work on the site more than 20 hours a month. We have a wish list system, infinitely deep categorical system, an automated order form system, and lots of other php driven goodies on there. I’m not saying that what I have built compares or competes with Amazon, but after building what I have I don’t see the programming of a site like Amazon as an impossible feat for one person to do. Keep in mind I’m just talking about the programming, I’m not referring to customer service, advertising, server maintenance etc.
I don’t often use Amazon, so I’ll admit perhaps I’m off my rocker here, but what is it about Amazon’s programming that seems too complex or vast for one person to code themselves? How does it differ from other etail like websites?
According to this: http://www.amazon.ca/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=10194731 , this makes it seem like it’s very similar to posting something on Craigslist. A bit more involved as you have to fill out more information obviously but it doesn’t even seem like it requires an API, just like Ebay.
The main issue is scalability. Could you scale your application over multiple servers worldwide? Can you deal with localisation of all different countries in the world + deal with the posting for each individual country, different laws, different currency conversions and the logistics involved in selling products on this kind of scale? Can your code handle millions of simultaneous users? Can you handle allowing other companies to sell products through your site, and handle the logistics of all of that? Can you analyse your users habits to the extent that you can recommend them products they are actually interested in, on a global scale? Can you deal with special offers, can you deal with thousands of employees adding products to the system at any one time?
The main issue is sheer scale and the size of it all. It’s 100% impossible for a single person to do something like this. The problem is that scaling projects to a massive size actually DOES have a big impact on your code, and if your code base can’t handle it, it simply won’t work. For example, I could code something that may look similar to facebook in terms of functionality, but in reality it’ll be nothing like it, because it wouldn’t be able to scale. Look at facebook chat for example - I could code something using Ajax polling that would look SIMILAR to the functionality of facebook chat on a small enough scale, but scale this out to thousands or millions of users and it’d fall on it’s ****.
There’s a reason Amazon employees so many great people and pays them so much money. A single developer could make a drastically reduced size project that emulates SOME of the functionality of Amazon on a much smaller scale, but to do it properly to the size, scale and ambition of amazon is 100% impossible for an individual developer. As I said before, you’re probably looking at more like 100 full time, very talented developers and a cost of millions - easily.
Finding the products to sell is not my issue. Neither is all the bits and bobs like currency conversion etc
I am looking to make a uk site SIMILAR to Amazon. Doesn’t need to be AS complex as Amazon. Ps I always use Amazon and realise how complex it is. The recommendation tool alone!!! That’s why i’m looking to make something SIMILAR to it.
Something which is very difficult, but is DOABLE by an individual, then i can learn and build on it, in time.
The scale is major issue. I’m with hostgator, however i’m not too sure how much they can handle.
Any recommendations and explanations?
Well, writing something similar is very different to trying to do the same thing as Amazon.
If you’re just starting out with code though, there’s no way you’ll do this well the first time out. It’s just the nature of programming - you’ll end up with something that’s not so easy to change over time the first few times you code something up.
I’d recommend starting with a smaller project unrelated to this in order to get a grasp of the basics, and then work towards making this system when your knowledge and confidence has increased.
Well, for me, if you say similar to Amazon, I will just assume you will do Amazon but a bit different.
If I say “I’d like to do something similar with the White House building” you don’t expect me to create a simple house, but a white house looking like the White House.
You should’ve just say you need to create your own store without mentioning Amazon or eBay.
However, good luck with the learning and the project!
The scalability comes in time (as resources) but you have to design things well (the database is the main issue)
Update
The scale is major issue. I’m with hostgator, however i’m not too sure how much they can handle.
Any recommendations and explanations?
After you get some money you will afford a dedicated server.
After you get over couple of thousands of orders a month, you will feel the need of an own datacenter.
For now, think about the design (structure and platform) and everything will come in time.
Ok guys.
I have decided to start up by making an ecommerce site. I’m sure this will help get an understanding of quiet a few things.
Gonna do this manually using php. I will keep you guys updated thanks for all the advice!
I have read and taken all of them into consideration.
You haven’t seen the last of me!!
I definitely can’t say with any certainty that my code could scale like that. My point being though that if I or the OP required the site to scale to across multiple countries and servers we would probably be making enough money to pay others to jump on board. But he could definitely still make something Amazon like! Which is why I encouraged him. Thanks for taking the time to clarify and explain, I appreciate that.
(for every small detail)
