A Look Inside Newegg 327
An anonymous reader writes "AnandTech has an interesting look inside Newegg's 180,000 square foot facility. Effectively, they followed the path of an order after it was soon placed online. AnandTech was able to get a tour of their facilities before, but this is the first time they allowed them to publish any photos."
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:hmmm (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:hmmm (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Should I feel guilty (Score:5, Funny)
Wouldn't that be a "frost pist" then, not a "frist post"? ;-)
Looks fishy to me. (Score:3, Insightful)
Does this not scream advertisement to anybody else? While it is somewhat cool to see what happens once orders placed, this stinks of a "sponsored article"
Seriously "A pallet is a wooden or plastic platform that can be picked up using a forklift; palletized cargo is cargo placed on a pallet, which is how Newegg's inventory is shipped to them." is considered a story?
"Recently AnandTech got a chance to tour some of Microsoft's offices. Established in 1981, many AnandTech readers will be familiar with Microsoft for offering innovative products, pushing the envelope in the software industry, and their advantage over Linux products in terms of TCO."
Get a life, dude (Score:5, Insightful)
When Firefly premiered, I submitted a gushing story to Slashdot. (I had seen a bootleg of the pilot, and had been blow away by it; the actual series was rather less exciting.) There must have been 20 posts by people who were convinced that I was a sock puppet in the employ of Fox. None of them bothered to check my post history.
Sock puppets do exist. I've even been fooled by them. But in a consumer culture where people where company logos as a "personal statement", you shouldn't be suprised to see a little uncritical praise now and then.
Re:Looks fishy to me. (Score:2, Insightful)
A: Stubbornly used an old billing address after I had revised it.
B: Sent me an email saying my order would be deleted in 3 days if I didn't contact them by phone or email to correct the billing address.
C: Ignored my repeated attempts to contact (15+ phone calls to a busy customer service line, and 2 emails sent the day I recieved the notice) until they-
D: Cancelled my order, at which
Re:Looks fishy to me. (Score:2)
My first and last experience with Newegg was that I had to pay about $50 to "restock" a defective piece of hardware. Specifically, the hardware had broken firmware on the last two model revisions, and was eventually fixed by the manufacturer.
Fortunately, I got a "free" one from the manufacturer after I bitched extensively about how it was unacceptable for them to ship 2 revs of a product that will repeatedly fail in 20 minutes of use.
If QA had nothing to do with quality and assurance, I might find that ter
Re:Looks fishy to me. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't, shit like that happens when people do their jobs correctly at places like NewEgg.
Re:Looks fishy to me. (Score:3, Funny)
YES! Somebody else has done this! Words on a screen cannot express the relief I feel.
Re:Looks fishy to me. (Score:2)
A lot of Slashdot readers may never have been close enough to a warehouse to know this kind of thing, sadly.
The pick and pack process for Newegg really isn't that interesting though. You'll find the same kind of setup in a lot of warehouses. Small warehouses wont have an automated
Re:Looks fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
No, that is considered a "sentence". People called "writers" put together groups of related sentences to form "paragraphs", and groups of related "paragraphs" are what is considered a story.
Re:Looks fishy to me. (Score:5, Funny)
Now, now- don't be so quick to judge.
I found the statement, 'the automated box maker makes a lot of boxes' to be quite insightful.
Re:Looks fishy to me. (Score:2)
Seriously "A pallet is a wooden or plastic platform that can be picked up using a forklift; palletized cargo is cargo placed on a pallet, which is how Newegg's inventory is shipped to them." is considered a story?
It's news to me! I've played dozens of FPSes, and have never seen this so-called "pallet"!
Re:Looks fishy to me. (Score:2)
Re:Looks fishy to me. (Score:2)
New Egg not one of my faves (Score:5, Interesting)
If I'm buying for work, I've got a list of approved vendors from the bean counters- *eye roll* and New Egg isn't nearly stuffy enough and hasn't bought any of the bean counters lunch often enough to make it on their list (just my best guess at how vendors are selected).
It's nice that they have wicked cool facility, but if you really want to see some supply chain stuff in action, visit Wal-mart. Now you can order any thing off the Walmart web site and have it delivered free to your local Walmart. Show me how those orders are processed, and as much as I hate Walmart, you'll definitely have my attention.
2 cents,
Queen B
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of people bitch about service, but when push comes to shove they'll forego service to save a few bucks and service oriented businesses will lose out to discounters. I see Newegg as a great compromise of good service at the best prices possible, and give them almost all of my hardware business as a result.
I think you'd find that looking up the resellerratings.com listing for most companies selling stuff at the very cheapest prices, they don't compare to newegg.
All that said, this article looks like a cheesy, paid-for fluff piece.
Web site organization and categorization is great (Score:4, Insightful)
But since its inception, what seperated Newegg from every other low-cost web retailer was the organization of their site. If you want to browse products, it's so freakin' easy pick a category/subcategory and narrow the choices down based on features you are looking for. I can't believe other sites haven't gotten this right yet (Mwave is okay).
For example, Buy.com has great prices for some items, especially when a heavy item qualifies for free shipping. But try browsing Buy.com's selection of 1GB DDR2 memory kits (2x512MB) or their selection of motherboards with socket 939, microATX form factor, nForce4 chipset, and 4 dimm slots. At Newegg, it's a snap.
The first time I browsed Newegg, the categorization of their inventory was as impressive to me as Yahoo's.
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:2, Informative)
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:2)
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:3, Informative)
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:2)
is it just me, or does that number sound amazingly high?
maybe some spyware has taken over your computer?
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:2, Insightful)
Call your credit card company and stop whining, douchebag.
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:3, Insightful)
The IQ level must be real low to have NewEgg fanbois... it's a freaking shop! and he did nothing but tell his anecdotal experience.
New Egg problems (Score:2)
I wasn't very happy when I returned it, only to have it come back AGAIN!
I ended up ordering from zipzoomfly [zipzoomfly.com] and haven't looked back. They have an actual warehouse and very accurate "in stock/out of stock" monitoring.
I did not appreciate the nearly month of downtime afforded to me by newegg. Yuck.
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:2)
Wal-mart has pretty much the same setup as in the article. As does Amazon. As does pretty much any other large mail/net store, or heck - any brick and mortar sto
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:2)
Wal-mart (was Re:New Egg not one of my faves) (Score:2)
As for delivery, take a look at this Frontline PBS special [pbs.org]
Profit on shipping cost (Score:2)
When I find a company that makes a profit on shipping, I usually just close that tab on my browser.
However, there are good deals at Newegg when the shipping cost is low. And, Fry's and CompOOZA are usually even more adversarial.
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:5, Informative)
In practice, however (at least at the store I worked at), the on-hand counts were always off due to managers screwing up, shrinkage, warehouse mishaps, etc. The result was that some items were almost always out of stock, and others were piled to the ceiling in the back room because the system kept ordering more when we obviously didn't need any more. To complicate matters, you have holidays and seasonal items to account for, and some departments are somewhat independant of the rest of the store (shoes and jewelry come to mind).
And that's just at the store level. I can't imagine what kind of magic lurks at the distribution centers.
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't doubt this is true, and I would just like to add, this figure shocked me, check this out:
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:2)
Maybe one day, the WTO will actually listen to the US's complaints and actually hold China accountable for all the WTO agreements that it's systematically been violating.
Re:New Egg not one of my faves (Score:2)
Cold water always messes up my claimed amount, too.
Nice... but let's see their corporate office (Score:4, Funny)
As someone who works next door to Buy.com's corporate office (they're in 85, we're in 65, effectively next door) - I'd rather see their corporate office than the warehouse. Come on, how many Ferraris are in the parking lot?
Interesting (Score:2, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Newegg is awesome (Score:2, Funny)
PS, I'm a real person and I love Newegg
for serious
2 - 5 days for me (Score:2)
Depending on what time of day you order, they usually package up your goodies on the same day. Standard "freeish" (sometimes they charge for certain items) FedEx 3-day shipping takes 1 - 3 days depending on where you live and how busy FedEx is.
The beauty of FedEx is they're designed for overnight shipping. Packages shipped 2-day or 3-day are usually sorted after the overnight packages and often make it in time for ov
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Newegg is awesome (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you also check that box on your tax form that says "donate $3 to the presidential campaign fund"? The suggestion is that it somehow affects your taxes, but of course it doesn't. You just pay an extra $3.
Coincidentally, that's pretty much all that checkbox is at Newegg either. They may as well label it "Check here to pay $3 more for your order." Try not checking it some time
Re:Newegg is awesome (Score:3, Informative)
NewEgg with Old York inside (Score:3, Informative)
Or maybe it's just me having bad experience with UPS and FedEx delivery.
Re:NewEgg with Old York inside (Score:2)
People give the USPS a bad rap, but it really is just as good as UPS/Fedex/DHL. USPS will track packages just like the big guys. Hell, in some rural areas, USPS and other carriers will pool deliveries.
Re:NewEgg with Old York inside (Score:2)
My package delivery done with USPS was nothing but excellent and I wouldn't expect anything less.
http://www.usps.com/all/optionsforreceivingmail/we lcome.htm [usps.com]
Can the same level of service be provided by FedEx and UPS? I don't think so. FedEx and UPS, IMHO, are not in the business of delivery TO people, they are in business of delivery FROM people. I can only count until number infinity, the times I had to deal with FedEx and UPS about packages are discarded, kicked, dra
Return policy (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Return policy (Score:3, Interesting)
As for returns, just call them up and bitch, you'll get the return shipping credited to your account. Most motherboards have a note on them saying they're warranted through the manufacturer only, but I've still had them accept returns on two defective boards and even immed
Re:Return policy (Score:2)
Re:Return policy (Score:4, Informative)
Internet companies like newegg are especailly vulnerable to this, as online orders are relatively anonymous, in that there's no way to verify the technical ability or knowhow of any given customer. I work for a brick and morter shop, and it's usually pretty easy to pick out the customers who know what they're doing, and those acting on advice from a friend or co-worker, with no real insight of what they need done. But online, anything flies.
Most of the time, if it's a retail/shrinkwrapped item, and it's returned without breaking any seals or plastic wrap, you can convince the company to waive the fee, because no testing or repackaging needs to be done.
Re:Return policy (Score:3, Interesting)
So I email newegg on the behalf of my parents and tell them that I want to exchange for another model. They never reply.
Good article (Score:2, Insightful)
2001 (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:2001 (Score:2)
Re:2001 (Score:2)
Newegg will not do business with our school... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Newegg will not do business with our school... (Score:3, Interesting)
I worked for a university, and I was was tasked with purchasing lots of tools when it was decided we needed to upgrade. I bought up over $350,000 dollars of welders and supplies, metal working equipment, machine tools (including a good sized 3 axis CNC mill, a small 5 ax
Here's how it (doesn't) work (Score:4, Informative)
As an end user, you've usually got four purchasing options:
1) Petty cash. For very tiny things. Pointless to this discussion, and still involves lots of careful receipt-handling rules.
2) School-issued credit cards. Only people way up the food chain get to use these. Purchasing agents in the school's procurement office get to use them, and sometimes people who work in travel offices, or that coordinate events, etc., do, or deans and whatnot. Generally there are very tight rules about how these can be used, and that's usually never for things like a shiny new computer monitor or the like.
3) Small, "casual" Purchase Orders. Usually these are limited to a few hundred dollars or so. The end user has to request the use of them, but then gets handed something more or less like a blank ticket that has a spending limit on it. Many vendors won't take these because they're not already assigned, by the school's procurement office, to the vendor... which means the there may be bumps in the road getting it actually paid.
4) Serious POs. These are the ones that come out of the procurement office after the purchasing agent has shopped around to make sure the end user is making a rational request, after some bids (either over the phone, or more formally on paper) have been reviewed, and so on. If you're wondering why these take so long, it's because when a state school (which is really the state government) decides to buy something, there are a jillion rules at play. Has the vendor been filing state taxes correctly? Has the vendor been keeping up with state regulations on hiring quotas, manadatory cardboard recycling, health insurance regs, etc? Yes: purchasing agents spending bigger-ticket amounts of tax money have to check ALL of that crap. And you can only imagine what happens if some of the funds involved happen in to include some federal support for the school's program(s). Suddenly the vendor has to pass all sorts of federal tests, as well. All of that has to be established before the PO is cut to the vendor. And if there's some comparison shopping to be done (this is usually required by law), the purchasing agent may have to actually advertise that the school's about to spend $50,000 on some capital item, and allow a certain amount of time to pass so that all potential vendors can respond with a proposal.
Now: suppose you're a vendor. Think of the time you've got to invest in presenting a friendly face to that process. Then, imagine that the school's policy is to review all shipments before even beginning to start the process of paying the bill to the vendor... but the purchasing agent can't certify that the shipment even GOT to the school, with the right stuff in the box, in good shape, until the end user (and/or his supervisor, dean, etc) signs off on the circulating paperwork. Never mind if the product has some OSHA issues, or HAZMAT considerations to slow all of that down. Finally, the end user's receipt paperwork gets back to the purchasing agent, who then sends the paperwork to the school's accounting people, who have to match it up with the filed invoice from the vendor, and then they schedule a payment for some number of days in the future... thus giving them time to check whether the vendor is or is not on some shit-list about some other transaction having gone well or poorly, thus holding up the payment.
You get the idea. The life cycle on these things is horrific, and vendors have to really want to do that business, and be willing to float the money, usually for months, before getting paid. If even ONE aspect of the end user's paperwork isn't just right, the vendor often does NOT get paid. Now, combine all of that with an industry like selling motherboards at very low margins... and remember that the company (like Newegg) has to honor (or even beat) their advertised
Positive Experiences All Around (Score:3, Insightful)
I've had great experiences with their customer service, I'm impressed by their prices overall. My only complaint is that shipping is sometimes a bit steep considering I'm less than 75 miles from their warehouse and I also have to pay California sales tax. Overall though, I still give them my business after 2 years. Not a bad deal.
I love NewEgg, but in-laws had bad experience (Score:2)
The printer didn't work, but Canon resolved that. The box that the camera was empty... claimed it weighed several pounds, but it was nothing but peanuts. The first call to Newegg seemed like they would actually ship the camera, but it took 3 more calls for them to actually do so. I was pretty shocked about that.
They won't buy from Newegg again... which is too bad, I still consider them to be one of the best online
they dont got nuthin' on..... (Score:2, Informative)
Check out the Thief River Falls plant sometime. Whoa.
mod parent up (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:mod parent up (Score:2)
It's not the cold, it's the wind chill. Uff-da!
What ever happened to 2AM, $3 overnight shipping?? (Score:5, Interesting)
The first time I took advantage of this crazy fast, crazy cheap shipping was when I bought my Newton PDA in 1994. I remember placing my order around 11 PM and paying with the Newton the next morning just after breakfast. I think I ordered it from MicroWarehouse/MacWarehouse. This was many years before the dot-com boom, so I'm still a little baffled at how so many companies were able to update print 200+ page catalogs every month and still offer such awesome shipping.
As far as I can tell, this all ended around the time of the dot com bubble burst. What I don't really understand is why. Or why they didn't just up the shipping charge to $6 or downgrade to overnight instead of overnight-priority shipping. 4 PM the next day isn't a whole lot worse than 10 AM the next day.
I miss those days. Now it seems like NewEgg's 1 - 2 day order turnaround + freeish FedEx 3-day shpping is the best I can find in the same price ballpark. I can usually order from NewEgg on a Monday morning, opt for the Free to $5 shipping, and have the item by Thursday afternoon. Good but still nothing like the 8 hour delivery I experienced for most of the 1990s. Now with online ordering, better tracking/sorting, and greater package delivery competition you would think that $3 - $7 overnight shipping would still be a possibility. Or at the very least, give me back the 2AM cutoff again instead of this 5PM sillyness.
PLAYING with the Newton the next morning (Score:2)
Re:What ever happened to 2AM, $3 overnight shippin (Score:2)
But there were also weekly articles in Wired, C-Net, etc. talking about how all these companies were losing money on shipping. Most of the companies that offered this either went out of business or got bought out by someone else who didn't share the business mo
Re:What ever happened to 2AM, $3 overnight shippin (Score:3, Insightful)
They are still there [pcconnection.com] and still taking orders until 2AM for next-day shipment. At least most of the ones I remember.
What's changed is the shipping prices have gone up. With sites like Pricewatch etc., it is harder to subsidize the shipping cost by burying it in the cost of the product. Pricing is just too competitive these days. If anything, it's the opposite now, lots of places appear charge inflated shipping to subsidize the costs of the goods.
Back when you bought your Newton, these catalog places wer
Re:What ever happened to 2AM, $3 overnight shippin (Score:4, Interesting)
I hate when they won't just leave the package. I can understand if they'd like to get something in writing saying that they're not liable for the package once it is out of their hands, but let me fax them some standard form, which they can keep on file. No one in my house is ever home during business hours, and my wife's job doesn't allow personal packages to be sent to her work address, and my job has such over active security (everything has to be hand checked, and put through a metal detector/xray by security), that there are packages I wouldn't and can't have come to work.
Around here, UPS never just drops the package --except when it is an amazon super-saver (although fedex will most of the time), I will actually not shop at online stores who's shippers have given me the "will try again X# of times" slip --I'm simply not going to be home.
No UPS information (Score:2)
If you've been a custome of Newegg for more than six months, you know what I'm talking about.
Re:No UPS information (Score:2)
Re:No UPS information (Score:2)
I am outraged, and so should you be.
What's with the jar of pickles? (Score:3, Funny)
[anandtech.com]http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/IT/InsideNewe
How well does that sort of thing age? (Score:2)
I find that most really cool technology that actually gets deployed in a working environment either works and thus never gets upgraded, or sucks and has to be completely replaced.
Several warehousing problems. (Score:3, Interesting)
Product in the rack storage area above head height should be wrapped. I believe this is an OSHA requirement. Even if not, packaging can be damaged if it falls to the floor. And while the packaging is no doubt designed for impact resistance, no one wants the can of beans with the dent in it, nor the dented scratched up box, reagrdless of what's inside.
Garage bay doors should not be open unless they are blocked with security gates. This keeps people from falling off the dock as well as lowers the point of breach. The box recycler is also another point of interest. I wonder how many pieces of memeory end up in the crusher.
And while this may be an advertising ploy, no doubt someone at newegg will see this thread. Hopefully they improve upon their environment.
Re:Several warehousing problems. (Score:2)
Be sure to read my comment about Newegg.com triping their shipping charges. I am outraged about it and I want to get as many people pissed off about it as I can so they'll bring back UPS Ground as a shipping option.
For the most part I like Newegg, but, (Score:2)
I bought a sata hard drive from them. $4.99 for 3 day shipping.
Then I added a sata power adapter cable to the order for $2.49 and they charged me another $4.99 for shipping on a cable that weighs about 2 ounces and cost half of the shipping fee. And they just threw it loose in the box with the OEM drive in the peanuts. Didn't cost them a f*cking red cent more in shipping to throw that in like they did. I was PISSED and still am about this.
Newegg quietly triples shipping charges (Score:5, Informative)
Article CLEARLY a Promotion (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Article CLEARLY a Promotion (Score:2)
Re:international (Score:2, Informative)
Fuck 'em indeed.
Rush Process is expensive for what you get (Score:2)
Re:Nice Advertisement... (Score:2)
If it doesn't matter to you, don't pay it. They aren't sitting on it, you'll probably get the order in the same amount of time. But if I'm buying $1000+ worth of computer, $3 is really nothing to make it get here a little sooner.
randomly tag on a Ziff-Davis subscription to your order.
That $1000+ purchase was last summer, and I have no subscription. Have they really started doing this since then? Or did you just check (or forget to uncheck) a box s
Re:Ok, but why can't they ship same day? (Score:2)
Depends on when you order (Score:2)
Re:Not representative of most people's experience (Score:2)
But they don't even offer UPS Ground. Their bottom end shipping option is UPS 3 Day. If your packages are taking longer than that you really should complain and get your shipping fees refunded.
Re:Newegg is pretty damn good. (Score:2)
They also apparently hold large orders an extra day if you are a new customer (they did this with me, I ordered $1800 worth of components for my new computer in one big order). I've been told by others that Newegg did the same on the first large order, but that after that, they don't hesitate.
Re:Newegg is pretty damn good. (Score:2)
Sure they will. My billing address is a P.O. box and I order from them all the time. You do have to have the alternate address listed with the CC company but that's pretty much how it works everywhere.
--
Ray
Re:Newegg is pretty damn good. (Score:2)
Re:I hope anandtech picked up some servers (Score:2)
Anandtech is quite large, so I'm sure they can take the Slashdot load just fine.
A different anecdotal experience (Score:2)
Re:Returned DOA hard drive no problems (Score:3, Interesting)
Compare to Fry's, Best Buy, Good Guys.
I will not shop at TigerDirect since the whole Mac OS X "Tiger" "I'm-an-attent
Re:Advertorial suffering (Score:2)
Yes, yes. You've seen it all. Nothing new under the sun. Please. I thought the article was interesting because I have never worked, nor been inside, a warehousing plant.
I work for a newspaper. Our press is a giant 2 story machine that is pretty much identical to every press in every city in the US. That doesn't prevent an endless parade of tours and kids
Re:lost orders (Score:2)
Now I'll shop at the lo
Re:Isn't Mwave.com better? (Score:2)
Their site's organization and categorization is great. I wouldn't be surprised if Newegg initially copied their design, as another replier claims [slashdot.org]. For browsing, I can't think of any other online tech store that can compare to Mwave and Newegg.
As for customer service, Newegg has better customer ratings at ResellerRatings.com and BizRate. Anyone know if these are reliable store rating sites? Here's links to N
Re:Isn't Mwave.com better? (Score:2)
I've ordered from both companies. In my (limited) experience, NewEgg fulfills orders faster. And there's no question that NewEgg's web site is far more informative (but I've been burned before when their site listed the wrong type of RAM for a motherboard, so check the manufacturer's site before buying).
ZZF, on the other hand, has a pretty good selection and free shipping on most it
Re:Newegg Hates Canadians! (Score:3, Funny)