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
The Peanut Gun
If you're going to have an automated box maker, you absolutely need to also have a packaging peanut delivery system to go along with it. When you enter the warehouse on the far right you'll see two large vats:
The peanut vats are to the left
In these two massive vats are about a tractor trailer's worth of packaging peanuts. They are piped to the packing area using metal ducting that you see in the picture above. The peanuts are sent to mini-vats in the actual packing area and from there they are sent to the peanut guns:
As the order is completed, the tote is sent to the label station where each item is scanned individually and a label is generated to make sure what you ordered is what goes in the box.
The label station
Label printed
The peanut guns dispense packaging peanuts into boxes as they are readied for shipping:
If the Newegg staffer filling the box gets a little too excited and shoots peanuts everywhere, never fear: the system is self-recycling.
Any peanuts that miss their target get sucked back into the system, minimizing waste and maximizing peanut-fun. Newegg insists that packaging peanuts are still the most economical form of packaging, although within the next few years we may see some more eco-friendly solutions arise.
Delicate items are individually wrapped in bubblewrap
Newegg has a bit of bubblewrap on hand
Some things must be done by hand
Once full of peanuts, the box is pushed through the automatic taping machine and sent off to shipping:
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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.