Inside Newegg NJ: A New Warehouse and Another Contest
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 20, 2008 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
How a Bill Becomes a L...err, How an Order Becomes a Tote
If Newegg's warehouse had a pulse it'd be a scary thing, as the system is unbelievably self-aware. The warehouse holds around 20,000 unique products and it is aware of the location and quantities of each and every one of them.
This tote is someone's order, I didn't tinker with it
Totes galore
There are tons of red totes that are constantly traveling through the warehouse on automated conveyor belts. They will keep circling until one of them is needed. When an order comes in from the website and is cleared for processing it is assigned to a tote; the order and the tote are married and are only separated once the order is boxed and ready to be shipped.
The totes run by these barcode scanners constantly, they monitor the contents of the tote and the order, if the order isn't complete it keeps getting routed through the warehouse until every last item is in there.
The tote is routed to various locations in the warehouse and filled by hand before being sent back out the conveyor system. The actual filling of the tote is done manually, but tracking the tote and deciding where it has to go is entirely automated. The warehouse knows where to send the totes and it can even detect traffic jams and slow totes down if need be.
Speedy totes
The entire system is optimized so that if the product is in stock in the warehouse closest to you, and your order is placed by 2PM EST, it will ship out that same day. Thanks to careful placement of these warehouses, you should be able to get what you ordered within a couple of days without having to pay for more expensive shipping. It's good to see that Newegg's goal of optimizing for ground shipping is still top priority.
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Screammit - Wednesday, May 21, 2008 - link
When I was in the navy and sitting off the coast of Chile, a buddy fried a motherboard (don't ask why our desktops were on the ship :P ) and ordered one from newegg, they had it to us in a week. I was impressed enough to give them my business ever since.Aolish - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link
This is definitely one of the best tours I've seen. Neweggs facility looks extremely efficient and clean. I'm just really disappointed that the contest doesn't apply to NY. To bad they didn't explain why. :(Yongsta - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link
I remember my first purchase from Newegg in 2001 or so... it was an AMD Duron, I've never heard of the company before but I took a chance because a lot of positive feedback on the forums. I've spent about $40k there over the years (mostly builds for friends & family) and it's great to see how they've grown over the years.Yongsta - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link
Good article but I think it's facility. ;)Yongsta - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link
nm looks like it's fixed now.vijay333 - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link
"In Florida, New York and Rhode Island sponsors are required to register all sweepstakes where the total retail value of all the prizes is greater than $5,000. Florida and New York require the sponsor to bond the sweepstakes equal to the total value of the prizes. Once the winners are announced, a winners’ list must be provided to the state(s) in order to release the bond."AmberClad - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link
What is it with NY being so anal about these types of things. As if the Amazon tax wasn't enough. Added to my list of states to never move to, along with CA (with all the stuff I buy from eTailers, that state sales tax would hit me pretty hard...).BernardP - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link
Seeing this huge warehouse with all the available inventory and the way everything is automated, I realize I should give up hope for Newegg in Canada. Canada's population (30 M) is less than California (36 M), the most populous US state. Not enough economies of scale in Canada.chizow - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link
Only missing from the pics is Anand running through the isles with Geoffrey singing the Toys R Us theme song. Ok maybe not, but thats what the tour reminded me of, those Toys R Us shopping spree commercials from years ago.But ya the Edison warehouse has been great. I think I started getting shipments from there 6-12 months ago. Its much better than the Tennessee warehouse in terms of shipping speed and product selection. I remember there was still a pretty good chance of getting a shipment out of a CA warehouse due to limited stock in TN, but now everything, even more obscure items come out of NJ for me.
IcePickFreak - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link
I had visions of those Toys R Us commercials as well. When I die, I wanna go to a Newegg warehouse.Enjoyable read, I often wonder how they ship so fast even now when they've made the 'big-time' so-to-speak and ship even more stuff. My only gripe was when they switched from Fed-ex to UPS as their preferred carrier. I've worked at both places before and know what goes on behind the scenes at each, and have had some shady dealings with UPS as a customer.