Price Increases. What are your thoughts.
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So every time a company announces price increases I read on what their plans are. Some companies have gone up flat percentages, some a dollar amount per box, some on specific lines only, etc. But what I have noticed is that most look to be about 15-20% per cigar. Are you comfortable now paying $12 for a $10 cigar or how about $18 for a $15 cigar? How’s about $6 for a cigar that was great at $4? Your thoughts.
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I've never known anything else.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain
I can’t say comfortable with it, but it’s like anything else. Those $10 cigars would have been $8 cigars a few years ago. Then again, you have certain manufacturers that are going to make $15 cigars no matter what. I think that’s what is so great about Ernest’s blind contests. It shows us how much we are driven to think that price means “good”. And I think we are all guilty of overlooking really good cigars because they’re not at a certain price point.
When or if the new taxes go into affect we'll have to pay even more.
Don't let the wife know what you spend on guns, ammo or cigars.
Like everything else prices are on the rise and it’s inevitable. It does make me stop and think about my purchases and also search for the best deal I can find. With CA taxes and rising costs sticks under $10 are nonexistent at local B&M’s.
If you want to bomb me send it to Tony @0patience
If you are a newbie I got Dem nachos....
Nobody likes it, but nothing is going to stop any of us from smoking what we want. I think.
So the price won’t deter you from buying “that” cigar? Padron at $30 and Tats Ltd at $18 will have no bearing on how you buy?
No directed at anyone but just a story.
A local Garden Nursery was telling everyone that Christmas trees are going to have….. “Increased prices! Limited availability! Trucking is unavailable! You won’t find them anywhere!” They were wrong. No one shopped them. People wouldn’t spend the $95-$155 a tree (8-12ft). People found good trees for under $40 and they were happy with them. The expensive place ….. 100s and 100s of trees left. Not purchased. Money lost.
Because people will eventually say eff that and put their foot down. But…… bet your asś they will increase price on plants and seed to make up for the loss.
Well, if Padron and Tat jumped to those numbers today, it wouldn't make sense to buy. But, the smallish price increases on sticks thus far (from what I've seen - I might not be seeing it) are just mirroring the rest of stuff going up in price. So living gets more expensive, that's kind of a given, and people here have a steady income and know premium cigar smoking isn't a cheap hobby. I just don't see the vast majority of us stopping when (not if) prices creep up.
Rusty made a great point.
Nailed it
I do understand costs going up. I will also amend that I will lower the 10-15% increase to around 10%….. mostly. I do applaud those only going up 4-7%.
The price of everything goes up. People complain about the price of gas going up 5 cents a gallon. Are you goin to stop driving?
Main point of story. @Rdp77 is low on cigars. He is smoking yard gars
My favorite cigar list here
^ bet you’ll never guess who that disagree belongs to 🤨
We hit $5.00 a gallon and roadways are fuller than ever. I think we will continue to by cigars even with price increases just gotta look for the deals.
If you want to bomb me send it to Tony @0patience
If you are a newbie I got Dem nachos....
You're actually paying $5/gal?
It's like $3.15 here.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
3.06 here
2.69 to 2.95 depending on the location.
Don't let the wife know what you spend on guns, ammo or cigars.
4.28 here
$4.17 for premium here. Since I only drive about 3,000 miles a year it's not too painful.
Yup 87 unleaded hit $5.00
Premium $5.19
It’s all relative to California everything is stupid expensive.
If you want to bomb me send it to Tony @0patience
If you are a newbie I got Dem nachos....
My take on cigar price increases is that everyone in the industry is participating in a giant line dance and are all increasing prices because it's "understandable," if not acceptable or welcome, in today's post covid economy.
It's simple economics that the biggest expense for 99 percent of all companies is payroll, and the majority of payroll for all of these cigar companies is in third world countries like Nicaragua and the DR. Pay in these two countries specifically has not increased by any tangible level, especially outside of population centers like Managua and Santo Domingo.
We also have a boom--without 8 billion new soon-to-tank companies enjoying turning a quick buck. This means that the established firms are reaping the benefits from all of the new customers and volume.
On the flip side, I think that the small price increases of 2020 didn't materialize because of the covid scare, and so the industry may be in "make up mode" and combining small annual increases that never materialized in 20 and 21.
I also think that smaller spoons at chipotle, larger gas prices, and crappy customer service to save companies a few pennies is something that we just accept as the fatalistic sheep that we are. The cigar firms figure that if our budgets don't increase commensurate with the prices, then the new smokers will absorb the additional inventory.
It's a calculated risk, but a good one on their parts. Strike while the market is good.
The boom won't last though, and when it levels off, moochers who troll cBid and auctioneer (and cigar page and others) will reap the benefits.
While B&Ms deplore the "mooch market" and continue to try to push cigars as a "luxury product" because luxury buyers are more tolerant of price increases, B&Ms will eventually kill themselves off with this thinking, unless they successfully kill the internet market through legislation. Between now and then, cigars are gonna get way more expensive for us....
@VegasFrank
So basically, “When there is blood in the streets, buy real estate”?
Yeah really kind of think so. You know last time we had a cigar bloom, you didn't have 10,000 retailers selling stuff 4 fractions of pennies online like we do nowadays. The local brick-and-mortar stores fear the online retailer even more than they do the FDA. The FDA won't put them out of business, but the online retailer will.
So now you have a situation for the local guy is out of everything that he sells the most. With the Advent everything delivered to your house because of covid-19, the everyday smoker started looking online define the smokes that he couldn't find when the shops were closed or when the shops were out of his favorite band.
Lo and behold, what did he find? A cornucopia of brands and deals and free shipping and no tax but he never even knew existed! This is the music market that the local retailer fears the most.
Now the enemy of his enemy is his friend. The federal government sucks, right? Well it doesn't suck as bad as the Amazon of cigars, cBid, does. Federal government will make sure that the local guy keeps making money because the local guy v for the people who will keep him in business. They're going to try to weaponize the federal government against the online retailer. Two guys, smoking, Corona, Neptune, and all of the other large retailers will lose their piece of online but they'll also bring back all of their local guys that they've lost to other online marketplaces.
The first step in this game is 2 artificially inflate the cost of cigars across the board. While it's not an intuitive approach, if you think about it, pieces start lining up.
All we are left with at that point is the bullshit that these retailers "manufacture" under their own private label. I hope you like studio 21! The only place for guys like us to go is the secondary market, where there is no economic value to be had.
On to whiskey, I guess!
“We are not happy with it but we are forced to do it,” said Fouad Kashouty of Hiram & Solomon, who attributed the need for an increase to increasing raw materials costs and shipping rates. “Shipping costs are higher than ever before,” he said, adding that he was confident that retailers and consumers would understand the need for the increase.
“Although suppliers have increased prices due to shortage of tobacco and production, Gurkha has decided to absorb those increases on our end at this time so that the retailers don’t feel the impact,” said Jim Colucci, president of Gurkha Cigars, via a press release.
That’s because they actually sold that one box at msrp and that covered the cost for them
If you want to bomb me send it to Tony @0patience
If you are a newbie I got Dem nachos....
If you want to bomb me send it to Tony @0patience
If you are a newbie I got Dem nachos....
If you want to bomb me send it to Tony @0patience
If you are a newbie I got Dem nachos....
If you want to bomb me send it to Tony @0patience
If you are a newbie I got Dem nachos....
I occasionally buy an expensive cigar, in my opinion that means anything $7 and up. Most of what I buy I pay less than $3 for per cigar. Call me cheap, but that is what I like doing. Gas here is about $3.07 per gallon.
I never like price increases, but they are inevitable. Our government began killing our dollar bill long ago and inflation will never stop.
"Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." - Proverbs 27:17
I'm more irritated with the elimination of the coupon codes. First the place got rid of the extra 10% off coupon for reddit cigars. That without the taxes was a great offset. Then the page page got rid of a great coupon for larger orders. Recently, the monster got rid of a very awesome $30 off coupon that I've been using for years. I now have no way to offset taxes and overcome increases with discount codes. I saw the writing on the wall and stocked up but now I have zero opportunities for offset and the page seems to be the best value. Monster does have some five pack deals that make their usually available $10 off $50 coupon a good deal but half is eaten back up with the $5 cali charge for signature.
Point being, folks should stock up when the getting is good. I've been doing it for years as a hedge and it has paid off with both cigars and ammo. There are still plenty of deals but they are definitely a little less sweet than before. What I used to get for $4, now costs $5 but that offsets helped bring it back to $4 but that's gone. I'll still make strategic purchases but I expect a certain value for my money. There will become a time when I'll either have to smoke less or smoke less quality if things continue. Good thing I have many years worth of cigars to decide.
Happy New Years all yee gar heads!