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A Look Inside Newegg
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."
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
HDGary secures my bank
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.
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.
Yes! and: Don't trust their user reviews; I complained that I was misled, and got this back: " Regarding the reviews of the products, please note, however, that customer reviews are used at the discretion of Newegg as a marketing device for positive and constructive ways to share the benefit of a product. It is not used as a source for negative commentary as we cannot endorse the validity of any negative comment. Therefore, Newegg is moderated to remove any unproven biased negative comments. " but of course they didn't post this at the top of the review pages. So I thought it was just all glowing, not really a piece of crap, like it turned out to be; and yes I also lost the restock fee and postage too.
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 them a few times and told them to escalate this issue and address it to their management. They told me to go through a convoluted process, and obviously other people have come to this crossroads, so management never sees this issue come up, mainly because no one really goes through the process. If the Tier 1 customer service cared enough they should escalate this issue to their management, but unfortunately I haven't been able to talk to any management. Very fishy. So after all my b+'ing, I still do business with them personally, nothing really beats Newegg.
Insinct is stronger than Upbringing - Irish Proverb
How did you even find that special advertising section?
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
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.
Hmm, I ordered five items a few weeks ago, total shipping of like $25, or $5 per item even though it totalled about three pounds. The "3 day" UPS shipping took five days for two of the items, which were ALL shipped separately.
I like Newegg's products selection and reliability, and the prices are okay (no good computer stores local to me), but not being able to combine shipping costs is crumby, and the shipping options stink.
DigiKey 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 must be!!
"Also I use the $2.99 "expedite my order" feature to get them to ship the same day (of course i make sure i order early enough)"
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 - you'll be surprised that your order still arrives just as quickly.
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.
Someone hates these cans.
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.
------- Oh damn.... the Sigfile escaped... -Great OM
Since I found NewEgg a year ago (through Slashdot), I've placed over a dozen orders with them, both for work and personal orders. Only had one problem with a shipment, one of five hard drives was DOA. I filled out the online RMA request, shipped it back that day, and got a replacement within three business days (cross-shipped I think). I am *really* happy with NewEgg prices and reliability.
Compare to Fry's, Best Buy, Good Guys.
I will not shop at TigerDirect since the whole Mac OS X "Tiger" "I'm-an-attention-whore" lawsuit.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but not his own facts.
While this might seem like a blatent newegg fanboy rant, here is my story:
Newegg is the best company I have ever done business with. period. I have built several personal computers with them. I am to the point where I will buy from them even if I can get a product for 15% cheaper somewhere else. The number one thing that they have going is customer service. period. Sure, they are consistent. They prices are awesome, and the website is very helpful. But they have a hands down no questions asked return policy. I take advantage and it makes my life SO much easier. All of these cases below are from the same hardware purchase, and the same model of hardware.
I am on my fifth video card. For whatever reason, over the past year and a half my video cards haven't worked properly. Sometimes it was because I was dissatisfied with the performance. Maybe I fried it when installing on shag carpet. it doesn't matter. A year and a half later, and five cards later, I have not paid nothing more but shipping for replacements which are covered by manufacturers warranty.
I am on my third motherboard. I blew out one by putting the ram in backwards (note: WHAT? HOW DID YOU DO THAT! THEY ONLY FIT IN ONE WAY!. Thats what I thought. MAN! You wanna see fireworks? Try putting ram in the back of an Antec Aria case in a dark room. You hear a click and think its in. You think "That was a little tough to get in, but hey! it made a click!". Have you ever seen a northbridge chip explode?) Another one got hit by a power outage. I dont even have to lie to get an RMA. "Hey. My Motherboard smells like burnt plastic. I need a new one."
I am on my fifth ram stick. I bought two 512mb sticks, and I can't get them to play nice together when overclocking. I blamed bad memory sticks, but it may be other issues. They work great for stock speeds, but I needed more.
I have several other stories, but these are the most extreme over the last two years. Obviously I tend to tinker a bit more than a regular PC user, but newegg is my krutch. They have 100% of my business.
sig: Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not
What pissed me off the most was the switch to UPS, and then doubling the price for the equivalent FedEx service.
FexEx 3day service takes 2 days to get here.
UPS 3day service takes 4 days to get here. And we are less then 50 miles from one of UPS's main hubs!!!
My first order with them was on 7/15/2002, my invoice list is 7 pages deep and I spend thousands of dollars per year at their store and this is the thanks I get!!!
Needless to say, I've been doing more business with other vendors.