Hi everyone, this is my first full week back since the new year! But it has certainly gone by so fast.
On Monday, I was in the shop with Josh, we worked through loads of our online orders to get them shipped out as quickly as possible. I served one of our regulars, who is absolutely loving the Tabernacle Knight Commander, he said it is the best that Foundation Cigars has ever released! It is exclusive to Norfolk so you need to come here to purchase for yourself! Later on I spent some time with Porscha, explaining how we order stock and with which supplier, she did an excellent job and I would like to think she will be confident enough to do it more in future.
Tuesday was my marketing day. I started by writing a slightly smaller article for the C.Gars cigar library. It is about why a lot of Scotch whiskies names start with “Glen”, you can read why by clicking here. Afterwards I carried on with completing the shop newsletters, I enjoy reading what they will be getting up to in February and some of their photography is brilliant but in some instances I do have to train them on how to take a picture of certain items, but I do love training people. In the afternoon I spent some time organising the March New World Subscription. It is very difficult to decide which cigars to put in each month but I think a lot of you will enjoy what I have chosen.
On Wednesday, I was back in the shop with Josh. We had a lot of price changes come through in the night so we spent a lot of time changing them on the till system and on our shelves, as well as picking our online orders. It can be difficult to do all these changes but patience and plenty of coffee always does the trick. We have also started an in-store offer on our pipes! We are offering 20% off all pipes (not in conjunction with any other offer). One gentleman took advantage of this offer and purchased a beautiful Savinielli Monsieur as well as some Peterson pipe tobacco.
On Thursday, I was joined in the shop, for the first time in a while, by Ciaran. We worked through our online orders and then back to more price changes! Afterwards I had a look in the pipe room and saw some of the displays were missing pipes so I filled them up and then organised the pipes that weren’t on display, I just love a nice organised shelf! In the afternoon, I helped Billy and Josh with their New World stock count. Billy and I have decided to train the rest of the staff on stock counts so we can occasionally swap out if we need to. I could see Josh and Billy were a little bit behind so I jumped in and counted what I could and I think it really gave them a boost.
On Friday, I was given time to alter my newsletters. All newsletters get checked over before they go out in case there are any mistakes, or if someone has any recommendations. I only had a couple of minor tweaks to do and then I scheduled them all. I then helped the shop staff with labels for pipes that needed to be put out on the shelf and afterwards I created the New World Subscription leaflet for March, ready for the team to pack ahead of time.
I hope you have enjoyed this weeks going on in and I hope to see you all in Norfolk very soon.
So long for now.
Oliver.