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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  • Mant - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    You are a tool.
    Id like to shoot you with that peanut gun...not really
  • MIKEMIKE - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    the link seems borked for me.
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    Fixed :)

    Take care,
    Anand
  • DigitalFreak - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    Boo. :)
  • Mant - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    Yeah, PLEASE fix that link for the giveaway!
  • DigitalFreak - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    If you can't figure out how to reconstruct the link, you can't enter. It's part of the contest.
  • huges84 - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    I don't know if this is a local/ISP issue ro what, but I was on page 3 of this article and when I clicked on page 4 it just loaded the top and side Anandtech theme, no article. I retried it several times and no dice. Then I reloaded page 3 (which had loaded fine before) and I got the same problem. Then I reloaded the home page and it is no longer there either. :(
  • huges84 - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    BTW when I try to access a page in the article it sends me here:
    http://search.anandtech.com/search?site=atweb_coll...">http://search.anandtech.com/search?site...om=%3CHO...
  • Anand Lal Shimpi - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    Sorry, it got pushed live before it was finished :) It's back up again.

    Take care,
    Anand
  • segagenesis - Tuesday, February 14, 2006 - link

    Having been a NewEgg customer for about three years now, it was nice to see some insight at how things go on behind the scenes (alot different than I expected). By the way, the larger image links are broken :/

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