E-commerce marketplace
New Search Architecture for 1 Billion Products
An e-commerce marketplace needed search infrastructure built for its actual catalog size.
| Industry | E-Commerce |
|---|---|
| Services | Tech Transformation |
Generic search hits limits at a billion products
At a catalog of over one billion products, a generic search solution hits limits on relevance, latency, and cost. The marketplace needed search infrastructure designed for this scale, not one retrofitted to it.
Search architecture for the catalog size, operations stay live
As software architect, a new, scalable search architecture was to be designed: indexing, retrieval, and relevance ranking for the actual catalog size, with a path there that did not interrupt ongoing operations.
From indexing and scaling plan to a migration path
Search architecture concept
Indexing, retrieval, and ranking for a catalog of over 1 billion products.
Scaling plan
Capacity and growth assumptions built explicitly into the architecture.
Technology recommendation
Choice of search stack matched to requirements and operating model.
Integration plan
Connection to the existing platform without interrupting operations.
Migration path
Step-by-step transition from the existing to the new search solution.
Target architecture from catalog data, migration with the team
The starting point was analyzing the catalog structure and actual search queries, not just the existing technical solution. That produced a target architecture with explicit assumptions about growth and load, so the decision stays traceable.
The migration plan was developed together with the platform team, so the business kept running during the transition. A search migration that halts operations is not an option at this scale.
Search architecture fit for the size, no interruption
The platform has a search architecture designed for its actual catalog size instead of stretching a generic solution. The migration path let the team carry out the transition itself without interrupting operations.
Scaling is an architecture question, plan migration around ops
Search at scale is an architecture question
Past a certain catalog size, tuning is no longer enough. It needs a new architecture.
Plan migration without interruption
The transition has to be built around ongoing operations, not against them.
Make assumptions explicit
An architecture for 1 billion products needs documented growth assumptions, not a gut-feel decision.
A first conversation takes 30 minutes.
We look at your search architecture relative to your actual catalog size.