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A Look Inside Newegg 327

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the where-the-metal-meets-the-meat dept.
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."
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A Look Inside Newegg More

A Look Inside Newegg

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) * on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @01:33AM (#14722392)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @01:35AM (#14722398) Journal
    shouldn't this be under the Special Advertising Section [slashdot.org]?

  • Looks fishy to me. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by agent dero ( 680753 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @01:40AM (#14722408) Homepage
    "Established in 2001, Newegg has quickly become a household name among AnandTech readers. They originally won the hearts of many readers by offering extremely competitive prices and keeping customer service a top priority. Since their humble beginnings the company has grown tremendously, with net sales in 2005 of approximately $1.3 billion, a 30% increase over the prior year. Newegg currently stocks over 60,000 different products and ships up to 25,000 orders per day, 98% of them within 24 hours."

    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)

      by fm6 ( 162816 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @02:04AM (#14722477) Homepage Journal
      Businesses have always trolled for fluffy, friendly journalism. Doesn't make it an advertisement.

      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.

    • I don't think this is particularly relavent. Especially since, during my last order with NewEgg (and I mean -ever-) they:
      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

      • 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
      • When you place your order, they say "If your billing and shipping addresses are different, there may be delays to your order." meaning that when you MOVE you need to let your BANK know so they can update that.
        If you don't, shit like that happens when people do their jobs correctly at places like NewEgg.
    • 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?

      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)

      by harlows_monkeys ( 106428 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @02:18AM (#14722516) Homepage
      eriously "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?

      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)

      by wilburdg ( 178573 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @02:52AM (#14722625)
      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?

      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.

    • 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"!

  • New Egg not one of my faves (Score:5, Interesting)

    by queenb**ch ( 446380 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @01:40AM (#14722409) Homepage Journal
    If I'm buying for myself, it's probably not going to be from New Egg. I can usually get the same stuff elsewhere on the net for less money.

    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)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @01:50AM (#14722435)
      Typically their prices are not the best on pricewatch but they're close, and their service is great. Most places that are the absolute cheapest on pricewatch have shitty service, should you ever have to return anything. I got a case from Newegg that was dented and they just let me keep it.

      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)

        by MojoStan ( 776183 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @03:36AM (#14722756)
        I agree that prices are good, if not the best. They have a good reputation for speed and service, although anectodal evidence in this story's comments shows they might be going through growing pains.

        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.

    • NewEgg doesn't offer net terms to businesses. This is probably the main reason they don't appear on most company's approved vendor lists.
      • I can understand why. I used to work for a company that went through a great deal of trouble to pay all their bills at the last possible moment. Anything to keep a dollar in their hands as long as possible. Some companies are worse, they don't pay their bills until threatened with legal action.
    • Newegg has generally treated me pretty well; just last week paid a few bucks extra for a laptop HDD but I knew I'd get it quickly and sure enough, I did. But there was some funky thing about a 1-year subscription to PC Magazine that I could opt out of, and in doing so I could send a request to PC Magazine to get back the value of the subscription (something just under $10). I'm going to go ahead and send it in, but I tell you, stuff like that does nothing to endear a company to its customers. It feels like
      • I believe the magazine offer comes up after checking out and it's a rebate for the cost of the magazine. When I saw it before it was completely opt-in (default was NOT to get it). So did you opt-in?
    • Well ironically I just had a bad experience with Newegg. I placed an order a week ago but never got a confirmation. Some companies do not send confirmation e-mails so I didn't think anything of it. A week passed with no sign of the order. I checked their website but there was no order listed. I wound up calling them to only find they had no record of my order. I badly needed the equipment so I'm going to have to pick it up locally. I'm getting ready to build out a number of higher end systems soon but after
      • In the last six months over 50% of my internet orders have had problems.

        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)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Once they have your info you're at their mercy

        Call your credit card company and stop whining, douchebag.
      • I'll have to comment that if you really really needed the part like you said you did, then you should have been on it when you didn't get a confirm e-mail. Not having a tracking # you can check every five minutes reduces your fun factor x 10.
        • I second this, but just check the kind of trolls who jumped at the guy... for what?

          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 sent me the wrong product - twice! They seem to have this little issue where if model numbers are similar, they send you the product of their choice (not necesarily what you ordered).

      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.

    • It's nice that they [Newegg] 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.

      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

    • If you want a mild source of amusement, pick a product, and watch it for a month or two...the price does weird things - it fluctuates as though the product is being traded on the commodities market. Be especially vigilant of any "sales", or "deals" - I was rather surprised to see that there isn't that much of a price difference between a "sale" price, and the price that's listed every day - I'm talking like $5 on a $170 item. I can't say this is true for all products, but it's certainly what happened with t
    • There's an old ComputerWorld story [computerworld.com] that highlights how Wal-Mart was able to revamp their supply chain by essentially opening up their inventory and sales information down to the individual item. Combine this with their RFID initiative [vdc-corp.com] and they've also got a better way to track back room shrinkage [newegg.com] in addition to a much more efficient mechanism for tracking individual items than scanning pallet barcodes ..

      As for delivery, take a look at this Frontline PBS special [pbs.org] .. I think you'll find a similar model i
    • A big problem with Newegg is that they advertise a good price for an item, and then force you to pay more than the real cost of shipping for many items.

      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.

  • Nice... but let's see their corporate office (Score:4, Funny)

    by b0r1s ( 170449 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @01:41AM (#14722412) Homepage

    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)

    by theheff ( 894014 )
    I imagined an intricate facitility, but wow! NewEgg is the ONLY website I order hardware from online, and it has never failed me. This is like when you watch the discovery channel and learn the entire manufacturing process behind a simple piece of candy.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @01:41AM (#14722415)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Gah! Advertisement drones [penny-arcade.com] have infiltrated slashdot!

      PS, I'm a real person and I love Newegg

      for serious
    • NewEgg has never taken more than 5 days for me. It's usually about 3 or 4. Sometimes 2 days.

      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

  • NewEgg with Old York inside (Score:3, Informative)

    by layer3switch ( 783864 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @01:59AM (#14722463)
    Still no USPS shippment. I still haven't figured out why NewEgg isn't offerring USPS shippment as an option. Surely they say, "Free Shipping" as some kind of marketing term, but we all know that's not entirely true. In my experience with USPS, especially Priority Mail and light weight shippment below 5 lbs, it's been cheaper, reliable, and no hassle; beating out on FedEx and UPS.

    Or maybe it's just me having bad experience with UPS and FedEx delivery.
    • Er, not entirely correct. They offer APO/FPO shipping, which starts as a USPS function...But yeah, it would be nice to have civilian USPS, especially given that some of us prefer to use P.O. Boxes for everything...mail forwarding and all.

      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.
      • You brought out a really good point.

        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)

    by st3v ( 805783 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @02:03AM (#14722473)
    Newegg's Return Policy stinks. They charge 15% restocking fees, and if you get a defective item, you have to pay return shipping. They are a big enough company to afford not charging restocking fees. I try not to purchase from Newegg whenever possible. They are not a good deal anymore anyways.

    • Re:Return policy (Score:3, Interesting)

      by wolrahnaes ( 632574 )
      Are you ordering the wrong part enough that restocking fees are a major issue? Seriously, the only time you should be returning something is when it's damaged, otherwise it's your fault and the company is free to charge a restocking fee.

      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
    • They waive restocking fees if there's any reason other than you just don't want the part. I ordered a sound card once, they shipped one with the same model name but slightly different model number (in the two days from the time I ordered to the time I got it they also replaced the item number on their web site, same price). Unfortunately, slightly different model number translated into completely different chip, and I wanted the other one. I called, explained that when I ordered they displayed a different m

    • Re:Return policy (Score:4, Informative)

      by DarkBlackFox ( 643814 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @01:45PM (#14725687)
      Restocking fees are a regular practice in most technology companies, and the reasoning is simple. Once a product goes out the door, there is no reasonable way to tell what happens to it. It's not known whether the customer knows how to properly care for or install a product, or if there is any damage to a product being returned. Thus, anything being returned is subject to proper testing, costing the company time, and if it's a retail package that's been opened, it can no longer be sold at full retail price (hence open-box/recertified discount items). There's no reason a company should have to incurr a loss because some customer ordered the wrong part, or didn't know how to install it, so it's only fair the customer pays his share of expense.

      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)

      by chickenwing ( 28429 )
      I bought a CD-ROM burner for my parents there. The drive had lots of problems, got a replacement (had to pay for shipping) and the replacement had the same problems. At this point, I want to return and exchange for another model. Unfortunately, this drive was marked as covered by manufacturers warantee only. The manufacturers warantee says that the retailer will replace or repair the item.

      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)

    by jigjigga ( 903943 )
    As most of us have order computer hardware online, it isn't difficult to find a store that sucks. Newegg has been a gem among shady, poorly supported, and otherwise lacking stores. To see how this organization works and makes what they do happen is not only an interesting read as a customer of newegg but as a nerd who wants to know how they do this stuff!

  • 2001 (Score:2, Redundant)

    by fm6 ( 162816 )
    You can tell the age of internet companies by their names. All the ones started after the good domain names were taken have strange names like "Newegg".
    • I thought Egghead had become NewEgg, but after a quick googling, it seems Egghead became part of Amazon and NewEgg is unrelated.
    • you mean like amazon.com, or ebay.com? stupid, catchy names were part of the original .com boom weren't they? then the secondary companies came about, who thought that having pets.com or buy.com or computers.com would automatically make them a mint.

  • Ok now that I have your attention, I would like to point that although I can purchase from Newegg using my credit card for our school (which I will be forced to do unfortunately), Newegg will not accept PO's from our University, UC Santa Barbara. I love newegg and buy plenty of equipment from them, for myself. However, they are sitting on a goldmine and I am forced to do business with the likes of CDWG, Zones, and Tigerdirect because of their policy of not accepting PO's from Universities. I've called the

    • Re:Newegg will not do business with our school... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You want to know the reason why they don't accept POs from schools? They're a major fricking pain in the ass to deal with, you don't get money right away, thirdly and most importantly, they're a major freaking pain in the ass to deal with.

      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)

      by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @09:48AM (#14723724)
      I've worn a lot of hats over the years, including as an end user with a large university (the guy who needs stuff) and later as a guy working at a vendor who sells stuff. Here's the scoop.

      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)

    by PrimeWaveZ ( 513534 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @02:42AM (#14722591)
    I've been spending money at NewEgg for about two years, though I've been aware of them and lurked for a while before then. I've been quite happy with all of my purchases, and except for one instance on a DVD-R drive RMA (at 8 or 10 months old) the process for everything, including returns, has been pretty fast. Not all of my stuff ships same-day, but except in the most extreme circumstances, that's OK. Many of the things do ship same day, and living in Orange County, CA, the La Puente warehouse is next day by ground.

    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.
  • While I use and recommend Newegg, my wife's parents ordered a printer and a digital camera.

    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)

    by Anonymous Coward
    DigiKey.
    Check out the Thief River Falls plant sometime. Whoa.

    • mod parent up (Score:3, Interesting)

      by green pizza ( 159161 )
      DigiKey [digikey.com] is located in tiny Thief River Falls, Minnesota... about half an hour from Grand Forks, North Dakota and about 90 minutes from Fargo, North Dakota. They have a huge complex of warehouses full of electronic components. Every chip, diode, resistor, LED, sensor, etc etc etc you could ever imagine. Their print catalog is two inches thick and doesn't even contain half of their inventory! I've never toured their warehouse, but based on their inventory and quick shipping I can only imagine how awesome it m

  • What ever happened to 2AM, $3 overnight shipping?? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @03:02AM (#14722656) Homepage
    Believe it or not, this isn't a troll. From about 1993 - 1999 there were dozens of printed catalogs that offered overnight (technically same-day) shipping if you placed your order before 2AM EST. For $3 your package was delivered by Airborne Express (now DHL) by 10AM that SAME DAY! I ordered many computer parts over the phone around the 2AM deadline and had them in my hand just 8 hours later. And this was to Fargo, North Dakota. Amazing IMHO.

    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.
    • That was a typo, I was *playing* with the Newton the next morning.
    • That lasted well into the dot-com boom; in 1999, Outpost.com announced free overnight shipping until midnight (I believe PST!). How did they do it? They kept their inventory AT the Airborne Express hub, and had Airborne do the fulfillment [csmonitor.com] for them.

      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

    • 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

  • Where's the picture of the UPS goons handing stacks of hundreds over to Newegg VP's?

    If you've been a custome of Newegg for more than six months, you know what I'm talking about.
    • Other than the part where they talk about switching to UPS because FedEx increased their rates?
      • Read my comment about Newegg getting rid of UPS Ground and instead charging you for 3-day select. They will still ship it to you via ground if you are close enough to make it in 3 days or less, but they'll charge you for 3-day select and pocket the difference.

        I am outraged, and so should you be.

  • What's with the jar of pickles? (Score:3, Funny)

    by green pizza ( 159161 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @03:19AM (#14722706) Homepage
    How does a jar of pickles help make boxes?
    [anandtech.com]http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/IT/InsideNeweg g/automaticboxmaker.jpg [anandtech.com]
  • Does anyone have experience with any of these cool order fulfilment technologies? 10-15 years down the track, how are they? Still the same? Breaking down frequently? Replaced at significant cost? Upgraded gracefully?

    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)

    by Associate ( 317603 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @04:31AM (#14722913) Homepage
    Namely, product on the floor, not on pallets. This may seem like an odd requirement until you realize that fire hoses leak more often than they are used to put out fires. Also a forklift is less likely to crush something sitting on a pallet.
    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.
    • I received a 24-port managed switch inside a plastic bag full of water from Newegg in the fall. I don't know how it happened, but your comment may shed some light on it. The switch was fine, but the box was waterlogged.

      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.
  • one thing that pisses me off is they don't combine shipping fees.

    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)

    by EmagGeek ( 574360 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @08:15AM (#14723412) Journal
    Having frequently purchased things from Newegg.com and been relatively satisfied with being close enough to one of their warehouses to get overnight ground shipping on the cheap, I was recently horrified to discover that they have quietly changed the way they offer shipping in order to pad their own pockets. In case you haven't noticed, Newegg.com no longer offers UPS Ground as a shipping option. They have instead created a new service called "UPS 3-day Guaranteed," which, if you read the terms [newegg.com], basically says that you have to pay for UPS 3-Day Select, but will still get ground shipping if you are close enough to receive your order in 3 days or less. For people like me, that equates to a tripling of shipping charges and nothing else. Newegg.com could not be reached for comment as of the writing of this story. Am I the only one who is outraged?

  • Article CLEARLY a Promotion (Score:4, Informative)

    by sweetnjguy29 ( 880256 ) on Wednesday February 15, 2006 @09:29AM (#14723633) Journal
    This article is clearly a promotion for newegg.com -- I mean, they even promote a freakin contest over at new egg for a Athlon 64 4600+ ! http://promotions.newegg.com/NEPro/AnandTech//inde x.html [newegg.com]

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