Confronting Newegg Face-to-Face

As an "exec", who grew up through the ranks, I HATE dithering Corp Speak (I literally found myself autonomically wincing & looking away at times). "Please tell me how we can EXCEED EXPECTATIONS so I can KEEP THAT ON MY RADAR"... I mean, I get he was new and super nervous, but that (and sooo many other phrases) is a sign that their leadership (c-suite) is prioritizing hiring leaders who 'talk executive pretty'. Not one of them said "I've gone down and worked the RMA return line this week to really get a sense of how the folks are doing, how the processes are working, and how I can best help them". Poor leaders act as if "we wrote a process, why dont they (worker bees) just follow it?!". The reasons, overwhelmingly are always 1.) Manager and workers aren't connected as humans trying to help each other, org charts/power matter more than clarity, feedback, and getting to a shared understanding 2.) Management has no idea what the real "at the coal face" struggles are (but firmly believe they do... in reality they just know how it effects their usually fabricated kpis) 3.) People have lost the plot on WHY they're all there. Its not to please some boss or shareholder, its not to "meet a kpi". It should ideally be that they can earn a decent living WHILE contributing to something they care a lot about. The company needs to provide a service to the world that they passionately believe people want/need. Leaderships job is to gain clairty, build a supportable consensus, and remove friction/burden from the folks that actually do the work. I'm not trying to vilify any of the leaders in that room. Unfortunately corporate culture breeds those behaviors. Incentives drive behaviors. I'll say this, I've ordered tens of thousands of dollars from Newegg over 20+ years. I strongly want there to be healthy small(er) competitors to Amazon. I think I'm so pissed about this because I used to love that company. I really truly hope they have made a lot of progress. But I'm afraid from that video that they are the fish in the fish bowl and they don't see it. Nice work Steve, that had to be super hard and uncomfortable.

Thank you for doing this. I might buy something from newegg again in the future.

Look at all those face diapers.. embarrassing as can be.

Newegg is a victim of its own success, it becomes too attractive to corporate types who just cares only about profits as long as the company is able to drag its feet and drive its own reputation into the ground that it has built up soo well now is cashing in on its own name and squeezing as most profits from it until it no longer is a brand that is good the cycle 🔁 starts over with other companies

I have sat in on countless "de-escalation, and comfort meetings" working previously as a CFO and company president, and from everything I have heard from this video, I have heard nothing but bullshit and comfort methods. I wish I had better insight, but these scumbags are just like what I used to be. I will never buy from Newegg again.

Hardware Jesus is going long ways to fight for our sins ❤

Wow... half way in and they are just unloading with the "corporate speak". Not a single honest answer. It literally just sounds like a commercial. Fuck Newegg. I'm glad that I didn't built my new computer through them. I went through Amazon and with the exception of one problem (where I got scammed through a 3rd party seller), it was pretty flawless. Amazon has a no questions asked return policy, so everything was streamlined.

wow, i've never seen an honest conversation prefaced with multiple disclaimers of how honest a person intends to be before. predictable how they'll be "totally ready to admit mistakes" like it wasn't deliberate strongarm fraud and a system functioning exactly as intended, save for the rabble roused. a full hour of corporate gas pity party.

That rain man in the corner can remember 2000 employees by their first names?! I can't even remember my own name half the time...

I havent commented here before, yet i feel compelled to say this. Your commitment to getting the best overall experience for consumers is incredibly profound. It is commendable that you will "call out" a company, and then willing sit down with them, and show them how to handle their own business better. I can only suggest, and perhaps you do this already, is that if you havr a sponsor of one of these companies, that you write it into the contract that youll speak openly and honestly, and if a negative occurs, youll allow the business the oppritunity to appropriately handle it. Because as you seem to say, the effecient and effective ways of handling issues is paramount to a busineses longevity and overall success. To be renowned for its simplicity to interact with. We all love amazon, because we trust that we wont get screwed over if we encounter a problem. It just sucks that amazon refuses to unionize

Newegg was great 8 years ago before the Chinese bought them out. I stopped buying as soon as their website flashed Chinese for the icons before switching to the US one before my eyes.

One big thing Newegg has that Amazon doesn’t, is multiple credit ways to pay for PC parts.

Pay in 4
PayPal
Affirm

All available to me if I don’t want to drop $800 in one month

Newegg pulled this EXACT SAME BS on me over 10 years ago. Sent me a damaged motherboard and immediately tried to deny me a replacement or refund and blamed me for it, saying i bent the socket pins. They will never stop acting this way. Always be sure to buy from them with a customer-friendly credit card like American Express. Once i successfully filed a dispute with AmEx they rolled over and sent me a replacement.

They talk really well😂

Ok so 13 minutes in it's interesting hearing him say how if you didn't have a 5 star experience to talk to a manager. Cause I bought all my hardware last year probably around May or June and I didn't have a 5 star experience. For the most part everything came in fine. But my issue was with my motherboard. It was an MSI edge WiFi board (I cannot remember the exact model and am too lazy to find out cause I do still have the owners manual and everything but too lazy to dig) and I bought it brand new. It said no where that it was an opened box and was brand new. Thing is that there were some bad reviews that had me very nervous talking about some major issues of it not working and what not. But luckily when mine came in everything worked fine. My issue though was that the back I/o plate was damaged. The back plate itself was bent. Had a pretty good bend in it too. I tried just bend it back and I got it to be less pronounced but it was pretty bad still. Luckily I could still pop it in and after it was screwed down the bend is gone and fine. The back I/O's work and everything is good. But I would not call that a 5 star experience. I was lucky but that is still a damaged product. Idk how that could've been sent to me with how bad that was. The packaging was perfect so I am still in shock at how someone could look at it and think it's fine to just send off to a customer without fixing that lol. I'd say 4 stars or even maybe 3 cause of the negligence (with either MSI or Newegg). But I am lucky everything is perfect and it wasnt worse then just cosmetic.

Edit: I will say it has been a year btw since I bought everything and built my beast. Everything works perfectly and I haven't had any other issues besides that. I bought all the hardware and case from them and bought everything else from Amazon to do with water cooling n such. Everything is amazing and I do plan to use Newegg again but I am nervous. I just hope they got their crap together and are doing better as a business cause I do not wanna have to buy everything from Amazon. I wish I could have a microcenter near me. Why is there not a location in Nashville? I'm a decent bit away from them but I'd make the trip if it meant not dealing with Newegg lol.

2 little 2late. Every1 stay away from newegg

I'm looking at online computer shopping, and Newegg popped up in my list of potential prospects. Towards the end of this video, you and the executives mention follow-ups. Are there any?

This is all entirely consistent with my impressions of Newegg as a stagnating company, stuck in business practices of the past. You can tell just by the way they talk, dress, and hold themselves in a conversation. Customers are entities on a spreadsheet to them. So what do they offer? The Amazon marketplace has equally good prices on common items, and caters much more to the customer experience with favorable return policies. The only reason to use a boutique shop nowadays is because they offer a better service in some way (example: OWC for well-curated mac components). But Newegg? What do they offer?

The people that get into these positions of power tend to be either Psycho or Sociopaths. Thats why they are fireproof. You screw up a work item, you're fired. You screw up an entire company, have a $2 million seveaence package.

Ive worked with VPs on a daily basis at a F200 company in the past.

I can say this meeting, even the coloring of the room, is too familiar

They invited to de-escalate, the room, the common (im a good guy) language, the power dynamic (room setup) etc.

Truth is. Its a dynamic setup as a front (at worst). It is entirely possible they are serious - problem is often how much execs put onto the plate of the employees (despite their PR language).

The use of 100% linguo can easily be refuted by keeping this open.

Keep the email open. If the rate of incidents lowers drastically (and only drastically) then their words have a source to the vibe

these execs were speaking nothing but corpo BS.

❤

How about the Newegg followup?! That'd be a great video 👍

they were probably told a bunch of shit before they came in that meeting and had their hands tied.

sent 4 people in to see if they can intimidate you.

Cookie cutter words like "what could we have done to exceed the expectations" are signs that BS-ery. "Expectation" is a very common generic BS word to avoid concrete details.

Love you guys!! Gamer Nexus is one of the channels that gives me hope for the world!

I've had very good service with New Egg in the past. I'm not super happy to see all of their upper management to be only Caucasian. I know that's weird to look at. I'm native American and I believe the company is responsible to have a diverse management.

Do we know if these Eggs (why aren’t we calling NewEgg employees Eggs?) are still employed by NewEgg? It’s a year and a half later. My assumption was that Newegg allowed the interview to happen so that it could then fire these specific people either as blame scapegoats or as sacrifices to be able to publicly claim that they are new and improved.

I used Newegg since 2001. Man, they really went downhill since the beginning.

They guys use politician-speak. My eyes glaze over when they talk and I don't believe a word they say.

That guy on the left that has been there the longest needs to be fired

Cut your hair young man

4 blokes that lie thru there teeth ill never buy newegg again

And I was in a circle L again how confusing our sites are and the fact that you know you have to buy everything individually they don't have like bundle I think you need to go back to them selling a product out of from them and not selling the Fry's Electronic stuff not selling Amazon stuff😊 because I go on their site and I used to find everything now I just going to get fixed in 20 minutes trying to figure out how to skate setup now they are going backwards so I kind of agree with you guys

Back in 2008 2019-2010 I was spending probably close to $10,000 or better a month what's Newegg TigerDirect and Fry's Electronics my did have issues it was usually because of something they do but what I don't like is the fact that they're selling other people's products now doctor today was just them you can buy a barebones PC kit in your and the start of your PC they don't even offer stuff like that I also don't like the fact that you order something you think it's coming from the wig always coming from China from some company you've never heard of that kind of pisses me off I did like values and Kylie right now for I can see that anymore guys are there except for the one that's been there for 16 years have anything to say about the company cuz they don't know what the company's van words that at The Guidance Center for 16 years he's actually seen probably a lot of transition been with the company less than 33 years you don't know nothing about a company

This took balls.

I gave up on New Egg. I just buy parts from my local Micro Center. I'm a Software engineer in the corporate world, dude, the corporate speak coming out of their mouth right from the start made my eyes roll. I'm all too familiar with it. They 100% were talking shit about you after you left.

I think it would be a very insightful project to count every single spoken metaphor this whole video.

This really is an "Atlas Shrugged" story. It's just that nobody got killed by running a wood-burning locomotive through a tunnel.

Believe it or not: this is the end-result of five generations of formal Pragmatism in action at destroying American thought.

HAAHAHAH screw Newegg. I will never buy anything from them

Hey Steve! Really hope we get an update, seems like this is still a problem people are having. It's been a year now, maybe it's time? Incredible work, by the way.

Yeah it’s 2023 and they are still at it just got snuffed on a mobo…

Im late on this but, i work for a big company with shareholders and a board, these dudes are saying whatever they have to say. Its basically meaningless. They are just like the people under them, trying to keep their jobs. Dont by from newegg.

Has Newegg imrpoved at all since this conversation? Fantastic journalism, by the way!

If I order 3070 get 3090 there no way in hell I’m returning it

Take a drink every time they say “Customer experience” and you’ll be in the hospital in 20 mins.

What bothers me is that they kept referring to this and others as ERRORS.They are not errors they are poor standards from somewhere in the system and imo it starts at the top they told the lower ranks how to operate.
SO rather than calling these issues an ERROR they are poor customer relation standards.