E-commerce Surd - Multi-Vendor E-Commerce Marketplace
Overview
When I was approached to lead the development of what would become E-commerce Surd, the vision was clear: build a robust, scalable multi-vendor eCommerce platform that could rival the big players & have the flexibility & personalisation that smaller sellers crave. From the start, I knew this wasn’t just about building a marketplace, it was about a digital ecosystem where vendors could thrive & customers could trust.
From day one, I anchored the project in Scrum. We started with a discovery sprint, mapping out user personas, vendor journeys, & the core value proposition. I facilitated backlog grooming sessions that helped us prioritise features like vendor onboarding, real-time inventory sync, & dispute resolution. Every sprint brought us closer to a product that felt both powerful & intuitive.
Technologies
Choosing the right stack was critical. I worked closely with the tech leads to ensure we were building for scale & speed:
Frontend: React.js with Next.js for server-side rendering & SEO optimisation
Backend: Node.js & Express for a lightweight, modular API
Database: PostgreSQL for relational data & Redis for caching
Cloud Infrastructure: AWS (EC2, S3, RDS), Docker for containerisation, & GitHub Actions for CI/CD
Payments: Stripe & PayPal integrations with webhook-based transaction tracking
Analytics: Mixpanel for behaviour tracking & Google Analytics for traffic insights
Collaboration: Jira for sprint management, Confluence for documentation, & Miro for whiteboarding workflows
Team
I led a cross-functional team of seven:
- 2 Frontend Developers
- 2 Backend Developers
- 1 UI/UX Designer
- 1 QA Engineer
- 1 DevOps Engineer
As Product Owner, I facilitated daily standups, sprint planning, & retrospectives. I made it a point to keep the product vision visible always, whether through roadmap reviews or impromptu Slack huddles. My role was to remove blockers, clarify priorities, & keep the team focused on delivering value.
Challenges
Designing Vendor Onboarding Flow: One of the biggest challenges was designing a secure & frictionless vendor onboarding flow. I spent hours mapping out edge cases: what happens if a vendor’s KYC fails? How do we handle duplicate product listings? These weren’t just technical questions; they were product decisions that shaped the user experience.
Platform Performance: Another hurdle was performance. With hundreds of vendors & thousands of SKUs, we had to ensure the platform could handle traffic spikes without compromising speed. I worked with the DevOps engineer to implement load testing early & often, & we optimised our database queries sprint by sprint.
Uniqueness
What made E-commerce Surd stand out wasn’t just the tech; it was the thoughtfulness behind every feature:
- A vendor dashboard that gave sellers real-time insights into sales, traffic, & fulfilment
- Custom storefronts that vendors could personalise without touching code
- A modular architecture that allowed us to roll out new features without downtime
- Real-time order tracking that kept buyers informed & reduced support tickets
Conclusion
After five focused sprints, we launched E-commerce Surd into beta with over 300 vendors onboarded in the first quarter. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive; vendors loved the autonomy, & customers praised the seamless checkout experience.
Looking back, what I’m most proud of isn’t just the product we built; it’s the culture of agility, ownership, & clarity we created along the way.
Project name :E-commerce Surd
Role : Product Owner
Industry : E-Commerce solution
Methodology : scrum
