The Picker

Your tote makes its way around the Newegg warehouse via conveyor belt and since the system knows the location of every last product in the warehouse, it can drop off your tote whenever it's near product that you've ordered.

Once the tote arrives, a Newegg staffer will scan the barcode on its side:

Once scanned, lights near the products you've ordered will illuminate telling the employee what and how many items need to be placed inside the tote:


The lower half of the Ok button is illuminated, the display indicates that our tote needs one ASUS P5VD2-VM SE


The rest of the displays remain shut off to help point out what products need to be placed in the tote

Once the system indicates that the tote is full, you simply hit ok and place the tote back on the conveyor belt. The system will continue cycling the tote around the warehouse until the order is complete, at which point it'll be sent off to packing/shipping.

How a Bill Becomes a L...err, How an Order Becomes a Tote The Box Maker
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  • zshift - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link

    Man, I was so hyped by that article and then reading about the sweepstakes. Then I read that Florida is exempt from the contest.... My heart has grown a small crack in it today.
  • neon - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link

    ... it opened its first warehouse on the east coast in Tennessee.

    A slight correction - Tennessee is on the west coast of the Mississippi R.
  • NINaudio - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link

    to correct your "correction", the western border of Tennessee is the eastern shore of the Mississippe River. Tennessee is also directly west of North Carolina, which is an eastern coastal state..

    Not really sure where you get your maps from. =p
  • johnsonx - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link

    Presumably he's being tongue-in-cheek, as in suggesting that anything west of the mississippi doesn't really matter, so therefore Tennessee IS the 'west coast'.
    As 'true' west coaster, I can assure him that in actual fact, nothing east of the rockies really matters.
  • Matt Campbell - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link

    I can only see about 25 in the picture, but the numbers on the doors go up to 62. Even 25 lanes with multiple shipments per day is impressive!
  • AmberClad - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link

    I don't think all of those are for outbound customer order shipments...some of those might be for trucks carrying products into the warehouse.
  • esandrs - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link

    I just want NewEgg to get their B2B / Purchase Order system back up and running so I can give them my company's money, too!

    They're still the easiest vendor for me to purchase from, but without PO's I'm stuck ordering much of my hardware elsewhere [sniff].
  • johnsonx - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link

    Actually I found their B2B system to be quite a headache to use, since it wasn't integrated with the regular order system; either had to call the rep, or put the products in a wish list, flag it shared, and then e-mail the list to the rep. I was glad to have it though, while it lasted. My rep almost always either waived shipping, or just charged $20 on an order that would have been upwards of $60 shipping.
    I wonder what happened to all the B2B reps? Canned? I e-mailed my rep within minutes of getting the notice that they were shutting down the department, and I never got an answer.
  • esandrs - Thursday, May 29, 2008 - link

    Yeah, the "old" B2B wasn't the easiest, but [sadly!] it was still better than most my other options. I didn't find the Wish List -> Email route too horrible.

    FYI, yes, nearly all the B2B reps were "let go". I only know because our rep was one of the few retained (and assigned different duties).

    I don't vividly recall what was all in the public announcement and what we learned via email, but the "new and improved" B2B model was targeted to go online Q3 2008...
  • donkeycrock - Tuesday, May 20, 2008 - link

    I second that, i love newegg, but the fact that they dont do business accounts makes me wonder. WTF are you insanely stupid.

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