Inside Newegg: They give us a Tour and you a Prize
by Anand Lal Shimpi on February 14, 2006 3:31 PM EST- Posted in
- IT Computing
Packing your Order and the Peanut Gun
With your order now complete, your tub heads down this high speed rolling conveyer but you will note that the conveyer has a row of metal links on the right side. The purpose of these links is to push your tub into the appropriate ramp for boxing when the system tells it that one is free. The picture below shows the metal links in action:
After your tub is sent down the ramp, everything is removed from the tub, scanned and compared against your order. Newegg's system will not print a shipping label unless the items in your tub match the items you ordered. With everything scanned and your label printed your items are boxed and then sent off to the peanut gun.
The peanut gun is by far one of the coolest things in Newegg's warehouse, and it's exactly what you'd expect. An enormous vat of packaging peanuts is hung from the ceiling of the warehouse (pictured above) and individual guns dangle from it like cow udders (pretty picture):
The peanut gun itself is pretty simple; you aim, squeeze the trigger and peanuts come out:
With your valuables bubble wrapped and the box filled with peanuts, it's handed off to the automatic taping machine. That's right, you hold the box shut and feed it into the machine that takes over and tapes it shut.
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Blondie - Thursday, February 16, 2006 - link
The article was very informative. Thank you so much for taking the time to bring it to us.Bozo Galora - Thursday, February 16, 2006 - link
wow, anand is all growed up.I often wondered if the $50 million plus payout for AT site during the dotcom bubble that anand missed by just a few weeks has been made up for over the ensuing years. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Was it Sharkey that got $70 million or sumthin. LOL
Phiro - Thursday, February 16, 2006 - link
99.9999999% of those dotcom bubble payouts were in stock, which 99.99999% of the time dropped tremendously in value before they could unload any.So 99.999999% of your $50M deals turns into $50k deals.
jnmunsey - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
Hey man NewEgg ain't got no white employees.. Those racist bastards!jnmunsey - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
No wait I found 1 white guy in this pic from page 1 of the article.. The token white guy can be found here in the middle-left of the pichttp://images.anandtech.com/reviews/IT/InsideNeweg...">http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/IT/InsideNeweg...
andrep74 - Friday, February 17, 2006 - link
Yeah, have you ever read the requirements for getting a job there? You practically have to speak Chinese...yanman - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
Anand, how about you use this chance to get NewEgg to offer international shipping for us poor aussies :)Schmide - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
but with all that technology. How come my browser never starts on page 1 in their hot deals section. It’s always page 3 or 4. LOL.Slaimus - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
Newegg got (in?)famous on Anandtech when they were the only one to sell the Radeon LE (Sapphire version imported from China, back in the day when all ATI was made by ATI themselves). It was far cheaper than the Made by ATI Radeon DDR. This got posted in Hot Deals forum and everyone was pleased with their fast and free shipping. They got in trouble, however, when people found out it was the LE (slower) version instead of the full Radeon DDR. There was a big uproar (I think the thread grew to 500 posts or so), and Newegg was forced to take in returns or offer price adjustments. This is also what started the cheap "refurbs" that newegg sells, which were just customer returns. This was probably also why Newegg started posting the core/memory speeds of graphics card they sell.kmmatney - Wednesday, February 15, 2006 - link
Heck yeah!!! I bought one of those Radeon LEs for cheap after the first debacle. I flashed the BIOS to a full Radeon. It gave me a top of the line $150 video card for $65!! Back then, top of the line as $150 :(.