Order Pipeline: Requirements and Load

A grocery delivery company takes 432,000 orders on an average day from 600 stores. Spread evenly over 24 hours, that is 432,000 / 86,400 = 5 orders a second. Orders are not spread evenly, though. Most customers order after work, and the busiest evening hour carries three times the daily average, which is 15 orders a second. On the day before a public holiday, that hour doubles again, to 30 orders a second.

A grocery order is larger than a typical online order. The average basket holds 30 different products, and some of them, such as fruit and meat, are priced by weight