The Picker

Finally, at the very back of the warehouse there's a three-level rack/picker setup and this is where your order from Newegg is actually born.


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The three levels are organized in terms of product "velocity" or the speed at which Newegg sells through of that particular product. A proprietary algorithm designed in-house by Newegg determines velocity. High velocity products (pictured below) such as in-demand motherboards or video cards will be found on the first floor, while medium and low velocity products such as server boards, certain optical drives, etc... will be found on the second and third floors respectively. The idea is that the easiest to load floor is the first floor, and that's where product that needs to be frequently replenished should be.


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Some "medium velocity" items

As soon as Newegg receives your order it is allocated a bar-coded tub; the encoded in the tub's label is data on every item that's in your order as well as where it is located within Newegg's warehouse. The automated system will not print a shipping label for your order unless every item in your order matches all of the barcodes in the tub.

The tub glides along a rolling conveyer, which will carry the tub from the start on the first floor all the way up to the third floor. Along its journey it will pass by Newegg's inventory; the system (pictured below), knowing exactly what your order should contain, will stop the tub whenever it gets to an item that needs to be put into it.


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The Beginning The Picker (continued)
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  • jims23211 - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    As a FedEx employee, the info that NewEgg supplied you about a price hike was bogus. Fact is NewEgg received a substantial discount, but UPS decided to undercut FedEx, so NewEgg renegoitated their contract on a less volume. Last I heard from our Corporate Sales rep, Newegg finally realized their mistake (a huge amount of damage returns and missed/lost deliveries by UPS) and is trying to get their deal back with FedEx, good luck...

    Jim
  • NullSubroutine - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link

    aww poor fed ex, do they want a sucker? im sure its not just one sided to fex being innocent.
  • yacoub - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link

    Considering FedEx is the better shipper to use most of the time...
  • hergieburbur - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    I agree, I have shopped Newegg for years, and I never once had any problem receiving my order extremely quickly until they switched to UPS. First time I ordered that was sent UPS took 2-3 days more, held up by shipping. Personally, I miss Fedex Ground.
  • overclockingoodness - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    I'm guessing that's based on Newegg's dealings with UPS. A shipping company better be competent if it wants to handle 25K orders a day. I guess Newegg has created a benchmark for making sure shipping companies are doing their job well (so has Amazon.com).
  • jfunk - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    I've always loved Newegg since the beginning. Almost always within a couple bucks of the cheapest price and service has been great the few times I've had to contact them.

    I just hope not too many of my shipments start comming out of the new TN warehouse, it takes longer to get to me than the stuff from NJ.
  • overclockingoodness - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    Yes, that's Anand in the picture. :)
  • AndrewChang - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    Hey Anand, that wouldn't happen to be you by any chance would it? Haha, Goodstuff...
  • PClark99 - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    the link to enter the contest is not working for me.
  • DigitalFreak - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    Leave the contest link broken! All the n00bs won't be able to figure out how to re-construct the correct URL and won't be able to enter! More chances for the rest of us.

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