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."

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SWEET!

[DrEldarion]

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Find the lowest prices or Buy it from Amazon for $638.98

Best investment ever.

hmmm

[larry bagina]

shouldn't this be under the Special Advertising Section?

Re:hmmm

[Matt Perry]

How did you even find that special advertising section?

Re:hmmm

[keyrat rafa]

Advertisement or not, i think it's still very interesting to most nerds. That's what matters.

Looks fishy to me.

[agent dero]

"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."

Re:Looks fishy to me.

[crazyjimmy]

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 point they responded to my email saying "we're sorry, we cannot help you because that order had been cancelled".
and of course,
E: When I contacted them about the bum service (using the same email address that they responded to the first time), they completely ignored me. I instead placed my order with Mwave, who got it to me two days after I ordered it (and saved $20 in the bargain).

I'll be hard pressed to ever shop at newegg.com again, and I definately do not care how they ship things (since the -if- seems to be a much more interesting adventure)

--Jimmy

Re:Looks fishy to me.

[harlows_monkeys]

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.

[wilburdg]

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.

Re:Looks fishy to me.

[fr1kk]

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.

Re:Looks fishy to me.

[Rallion]

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?)

YES! Somebody else has done this! Words on a screen cannot express the relief I feel.

Re:Looks fishy to me.

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

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.

New Egg not one of my faves

[queenb**ch]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:New Egg not one of my faves

[Cunk]

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.

Re:New Egg not one of my faves

[Leomania]

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 (and probably is) some kind of phoney-baloney bullshit; just doesn't come off as "reputable company" in my book.

It's surprising to me that there are so many places online to buy computer stuff that vary so widely in business practices... I remember well how some sites linked to by Pricewatch (such as BZ Boyz) would nickel and dime you to death on cpu/mobo combos, or infer that the quality of the components in the Pricewatch price that led you to their site in the first place were sub-standard and you should choose other (more expensive) options. Then places like Monarch Computer, who had few such shenanigans. It's so varied, but they all seem to stay in business.

I certainly can't say that Newegg has ever really treated me wrong, but still that last transaction left me feeling that if I wasn't paying attention I'd be sending PC Magazine some $$$ that I really didn't want to. I dunno, maybe it's a sweet deal and I just can't see it for what it is. Mostly, I just want to buy things at a fair price (not necessarily the cheapest) and have good service. I guess for the most part they've met that standard.

Re:New Egg not one of my faves

[Belseth]

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 they lost the very first order I placed I plan to go elsewhere. I'm not sure if this is so much an indictment of Newegg but internet sales in general. In the last six months over 50% of my internet orders have had problems. I've had others lost and I had a large order get duplicated. I used to love ordering on-line but now I'm hesitant to do it. I'm had multiple equipment companies put me on back order then refuse to cancel the order. Once they have your info you're at their mercy. You can save money but the risk and the hassles make it dangerous and I'm not sure I save anything in the long run. Most of the websites have issues. If you are going to depend on the internet make sure your databases work. It may have been a $400 order they lost this time but over the next month alone I had planned to spend quite a few grand with them. Loosing a week to a lost order is potentially disasterous. If I have to pay 10% more but I can pick it up same day I have to say it makes more sense in my situation. The savings are nice but it's just too much risk.

Re:New Egg not one of my faves

[dtdns]

I used to work for Wal-Mart a number of years ago. Their system is called SMART (IIRC, that is Systematic Merchandising and Applied Retail Technology). Their process is known as "perpetual inventory" and for good reason. The computers know how much inventory is in the store at any given time (like any good POS), as well as how many will fit on the shelf, how many come in a case, etc. When it sees that the "on hand" count is getting to the point where the shelf cannot be kept full from overstock, it orders more. It also knows the inventory levels at the warehouse, and how long the delivery will take, so it can make some predictions that result in stock arriving just as the shelf is no longer full. The system also takes into account sales that are coming up and adjusts the order amounts accordingly. Department manager and some floor associates have the ability to manually adjust the on-hand inventory counts, so you can trick it into sending you more of an item if you want to do a department special. It does a lot more than that, and on paper it should result in an almost fully stocked store and and pretty empty back stock room every morning after the previous night's trucks have been worked out to the floor.

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

[Solder Fumes]

It's not so much magic, as brute-force labor. The computers do all kinds of fancy things over in their little air-conditioned room, but the actual implementing of the orderfilling is dependent on miles of conveyor and sorting equipment, forklift drivers, and people who split up boxes into the fine-tuned per store replenishments. It's possible for a box or even a pallet to get lost, or sent to the wrong store. Misread labels can cause incorrect sorting. Equipment breakdowns can cause a backlog and inevitable mixing of orders. All of the above problems can be quickly resolved with a good management staff, and amazingly most of them are pretty damn good.

Wal-Mart has over a hundred distribution centers and warehouses scattered across the nation; Newegg's warehouse is 180,000 square feet but the smallest Wal-Mart centers are over 400,000. Most of them are around 1.5 million and some are over 2 million.

Re:New Egg not one of my faves

[Anonymous Coward]

Once they have your info you're at their mercy

Call your credit card company and stop whining, douchebag.

Re:New Egg not one of my faves

[Anonymous Coward]

Wal-Mart has over a hundred distribution centers and warehouses scattered across the nation; Newegg's warehouse is 180,000 square feet but the smallest Wal-Mart centers are over 400,000. Most of them are around 1.5 million and some are over 2 million.

I don't doubt this is true, and I would just like to add, this figure shocked me, check this out:

"Wal-Mart [...] has doubled its imports from China in the past five years alone, buying some $12 billion in merchandise in 2002. That's nearly 10% of all Chinese exports to the United States."

[source -- an interesting article itself, and just Google for lots more cites.]

But just think about that! Wal-Mart buys 10% of everything China exports to the US.
Here is another perspective:

"Wal-Mart has a very close relationship with China," says Duke University Professor Gary Gereffi. "China is the largest exporter to the U.S. economy in virtually all consumer goods categories. Wal-Mart is the leading retailer in the U.S. economy in virtually all consumer goods categories. Wal-Mart and China are a joint venture."

[This is from a pbs.org source.]

Re:New Egg not one of my faves

[Detritus]

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.

Re:New Egg not one of my faves

[Klinky]

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.

Re:New Egg not one of my faves

[muyuubyou]

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.

Nice... but let's see their corporate office

[b0r1s]

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

[theheff]

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

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

NewEgg with Old York inside

[layer3switch]

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.

Re:NewEgg with Old York inside

[littlerubberfeet]

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.

Re:NewEgg with Old York inside

[layer3switch]

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

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, dragged, damaged and mishandled. USPS Priority has been my choice of shippment and I prefer USPS Priority as a reciever.

It's just mind boggling that people think less of United States Postal Service even just in general. The number of postal service stations and volume of mail delivery on daily basis just dwarfs the volume of deliveries FedEx and UPS have to deal with.

Return policy

[st3v]

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

[wolrahnaes]

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 immediately ship out the replacement before I had shipped the bad board back (granted, they had my credit card number already, so it wasn't a real risk to them).

As an internet business, doing real phone support costs them enough that they will generally do anything within reason to get you to stop calling them, which generally means agreeing to your demands of a return equivalent to at a B&M store.

Re:Return policy

[DarkBlackFox]

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

[BoorayJenkins]

Oh ya?

I ordered the wrong USB cables with an order about 3 weeks ago. I got the mini 4 pin connector on one end. It was my fault, I didn't look close enough.

I called and told them I wanted to exchange. They explained they didn't exchange, only refund and re-order. I told them that was fine. He said hold on while I get an RMA number. Then came back and said "just keep the cables".

$18 worth of product, not a lot of money, but this is indicitive of the support I've received from them over the years. They are the only company I order from now for parts. I've built my last 4 systems, bought 6 19" LCDs, and built 2 systems for my office mates. This ads up to several thousand dollars over many many orders, and I've never been anything but satisfied.

Re:Return policy

[chickenwing]

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. I decide to post a negative review of the drive to let others know the drive has problems. But as I am posting, I notice that the review policy basically says "no negative reviews, no reviews of defective items". WTF??? I post one anyway and weeks later, I get some lame appology and offer of a $25 gift certificate.

We are only talking about $35 dollars here, but it bothers me that newegg would do this to my parents. In the past I have spent thousands of dollars at newegg, but after this experience I will never shop there again. If negative reviews are not allowed, how will I know if I am buying a lemon? If I cannot be sure that newegg will allow me to return or exchange for another item, how do i know that I am not just flushing money down the toilet?

Re:Return policy

[BoorayJenkins]

You misunderstood. I've been buying from them since '02, the USB cable incident was 3 weeks ago. It was mearly an example of the type of service I've received over the years, and in response to the "they charge restocking fees and return shipping".

I once thought I'd save a few dollars buying from the lowest on PriceWatch a few years ago. Bought an ABit motherboard, only to get it all running with 3 days work of config and software install, only to realize my bad overclocking board reported an idle, non-overclocked CPU temp of 175F. When I called to have them cross-ship me a replacement, I went through 3 people who couldn't speak english. Literally. The most I understood was "no cross-ship, only you return and we ship another, you pay costs.". Never again, only NewEgg.

BTW, it was 2 long USB Cables, not one.

Re:international

[Daxster]

Aye, they can't even ship it continental either, ie..Canada.
Fuck 'em indeed.

Get a life, dude

[fm6]

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.

Good article

[jigjigga]

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!

Re:Newegg is awesome

[sunwolf]

Gah! Advertisement drones have infiltrated slashdot!

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

for serious

Newegg will not do business with our school...

[bariswheel]

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.

Re:Newegg will not do business with our school...

[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 axis mill ,a couple small CNC lathes) and basically everything a bunch of engineering students need for their various projects... Basically, everyone thought it would be awesome if we could almost built an entire small turbine engine in house... So, yeah, that's what i went after.. Aside from some precision grinding, and some bearings, etc, it was certianly feasible.

Two months later, when all of this stuff is going strong and we need consumables, I couldn't get anything from anywhere I dealt with previously. The university lost $200,000 worth of POs from various companies, and they companies didn't complain loudly, because quite frankly, we were a drop in the bucket compared to what they were used to. I'm sure the shit would have really hit the fan later... But I had enough of that position anyhow, and this was the last straw.

What I'm saying is that even though you might not have a hard time internally within your school, some companies take a very harsh stance when you go to purchase anything from them, simply because they have had hard times.

Positive Experiences All Around

[PrimeWaveZ]

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.

they dont got nuthin' on.....

[Anonymous Coward]

DigiKey.
Check out the Thief River Falls plant sometime. Whoa.

What ever happened to 2AM, $3 overnight shipping??

[green pizza]

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.

What's with the jar of pickles?

[green pizza]

How does a jar of pickles help make boxes?
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/IT/InsideNeweg g/automaticboxmaker.jpg

Re:Should I feel guilty

[Benley]

It's like pure untouched snow, just waiting to be pissed on. And I say that with the best of intentions, as every year, I spell out /. in the snow.

Wouldn't that be a "frost pist" then, not a "frist post"? ;-)

mod parent up

[green pizza]

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!!

Re:Newegg is awesome

[nachoboy]

"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.

Web site organization and categorization is great

[MojoStan]

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.

Several warehousing problems.

[Associate]

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.

Re:Newegg is awesome

[ryanov]

No, you don't -- $3 of your taxes are donated to the campaign fund. You don't pay an extra $3. Try it with Tax software and you will find that this is correct.

Re:What ever happened to 2AM, $3 overnight shippin

[great om]

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.

Re:Returned DOA hard drive no problems

[dreamer-of-rules]

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.

Newegg quietly triples shipping charges

[EmagGeek]

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, 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?

Re:Newegg quietly triples shipping charges

[nbritton]

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.

Article CLEARLY a Promotion

[sweetnjguy29]

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

Here's how it (doesn't) work

[ScentCone]

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

Re:What ever happened to 2AM, $3 overnight shippin

[dmadole]

They are still there 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 were selling things at or close to list price. They could easily afford a $3 shipping gimmick.

Re:Newegg Hates Canadians!

[WebHostingGuy]

It is because they fear you. Why would 80% of all Candians live next to the US border? They simply do not wish to fund your imminent invasion of the US.