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A
Cigar events
have definitely
been played out.
We still do them,
but only during
the warmer
season at a few
of our larger
stores.
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TOBACCO BUSINESS
[
MAY
/
JUNE
|
17 ]
Ask top tobacco retailers to describe their current pre-
mium cigar business and you will hear words such as
“growing,” “opportunity” and “comeback.” Ask about
their cigar events, however, and many will report that
while they can be closely tied to the state of the business,
there is work to be done to make stogie happenings less
staid and more relevant.
Recently, Rocky Patel told
Tobacco Business
that re-
tail cigar events are a bit overplayed in the industry,
meaning cigar retailers have an opportunity to “truly
engage” with the premium cigar customer by moving
beyond offering the same old weekly or monthly event
deals inside the store.
LESS BUT MORE
For that very reason, Blue Ridge Tobacco based in Win-
ston-Salem, North Carolina recently cut out its lackluster
weekly events. “We started out in 2016 doing traditional
cigar events every Wednesday, and typically, three people
showed up,” says Frank Armstrong, president. “So now
we make it monthly.”
But it’s not just a routine, boring event, notes Arm-
strong. He asks a cigar manufacturer to commit to doing
featured promotions throughout the month, along with
a cigar dinner at the end of the month. Excitement re-
portedly builds all month in-store for the featured brand.
While this Southern tobacco chain streamlined its
events to monthly, a tobacco chain in the Northeast cut
events to seasonally. “Cigar events have definitely been
played out,” agrees Doug Nolan, vice president of Rock
Hill, New York-based Smokers Choice. “We still do
them, but only during the warmer season at a few of our
larger stores.”
Randy Silverman, president of Klafter’s, d.b.a. Smok-
er Friendly/Cigar Express in New Castle, Pennsylvania,
agrees that events can be “somewhat overplayed,” and
“you don’t always get the benefit from them.” He plans
to continue to do events, both in-store and out-of-store,
but with considerable forethought moving forward.
“We started asking ourselves, ‘What are we trying to