Resellers Add Newegg.com To The Menu

irst things first. Newegg.com is not in any way related to the former Egghead.com, which was purchased by Amazon.com several years ago.

“Egghead was a software company. We’re into the three C’s: computers, communications and consumer electronics,” said Howard Tong, vice president of marketing at Newegg.com, City of Industry, Calif.

The company’s name derives from a Chinese belief that a new egg symbolizes a new beginning, Tong said. It’s an appropriate name, considering Newegg.com was founded in 2001 just as the dust was settling from the first e-tailing boom and bust.

Newegg.com’s founders created a model whereby home users could buy components to build their own systems. And they built up a logistics infrastructure that could support next-day delivery. “This was when everything online was notorious for customer service. … Our intent was to go after the end user, the guy who needs the latest and greatest,” Tong said.

Newegg.com’s customers, many college students, started graduating and getting jobs in the IT industry and carried their purchasing experiences over to the commercial side. “Now we get a lot more of this business,” Tong said.

For small solution providers, Newegg.com’s price advantage vs. distribution can be dramatic, said Louis Berkowitz, owner of Eclipse Computer Services, Brick, N.J. “You can’t get a DVD burner for less than $90 through Ingram. They’re $40-something on Newegg.com,” he said. “It doesn’t make much sense to order that through Ingram.”