Archive: January 2023

Avatar photo A Day in the Life of a Retail Assistant #12

Published by UnderShop Updates on

Hello everyone I hope you are well. We have had a busy week here in Norfolk, Monday was a lot of order picking which never seemed to end! But when it did me and Sharon decided to organise the display pipes a bit more making sure it was easier for customers to see and for our pickers to find the boxes for each pipe, this has been successful and our pickers are more than happy! Tuesday was Sharons last day for the rest of the week, so she made sure she finished her displays as they are her pride and joy now. I concentrated on taking pictures for my new article and finally finished writing it which you can read here, it’s about the differences between Artisan pipes and factory made pipes. I hope you enjoy it!

Wednesday I was surprised to see our Brands manager Paul bringing in boxes from his car into the shop. They contained new gift bags for any purchase of Foragers and I must say they are lovely, you should buy a bottle to see for yourself! Paul was also here to have a meeting with Davidoff and the marketing team, I was not involved in this meeting however one of the highlights is already on the website available to purchase, the release of the Davidoff Signature no.1 which is the first limited edition of 2023! And if they’re as good as the Signature no.2 I would suggest getting yours now! The meeting seemed to go well as there were smiling faces afterwards.

Paul came back to us on Thursday, this time meeting another supplier of ours Tor Imports. This would be my first time meeting Scott who is the Managing Director of Tor and I can say he is a lovely gentleman and taught me a lot about New World cigars which is what they mainly provide us. Also on Thursday I had another nice gentleman come in and spend a hefty amount with us, he spent the second biggest amount I’ve ever seen here! I didn’t see what website he was on but he had two top 10 lists he was looking at and wanted to purchase 5 of each! Unfortunately we didn’t have all he was looking for but he certainly left with many bags full of cigars! We definitely hit many targets.

Friday I was busy picking orders again and then Cuban stock take, I was able to enlist the help of Shanel, one our apprentices, to help me out. She’s trying to learn the different shapes and sizes of cigars to help with her studies, she seems to be picking it up fast. At the end of the day one our Directors Laura announced to me that we finally have a cigar library on the Turmeaus website! So from now on I will be writing articles on there to help you all with your cigar knowledge! 

I hope you are enjoying my blog, I am off next week so you guys won’t hear from me until the week after.

So long for now!

Oliver 🙂

Avatar photo A Day in the Life of a Retail Assistant #11

Published by UnderUncategorised on

Hi all, been a bit of a funny couple of weeks as both me and Sharon have been struggling with illness but we battle on through ensuring you get the top service you deserve and keeping our beautiful store exquisite!

We have been very busy with pickings and it seems to be that people have been taking advantage of our January sales, with many people taking advantage of our great deals! Afterwards, I finished writing my latest article on Chacom pipes and took all the pictures for it. My pictures were so good it actually featured in one of our newsletters for last week! I’m not a photographer by any means I just give it a go and thankfully the marketing team have helped me improve and even like my work. 

On Tuesday I had two marketing meetings! So once I finished picking orders I had my first one. It was all about us using Linkedin more and using it to communicate to our customers (like yourself) and a wider audience. Feel free to add me on there and you can enjoy things that I post and I’m sure we will get chatting soon. The second meeting (which happened to be in the local wetherspoons) was about our marketing plans for the future so watch this space! Once I got back I had noticed Sharon had moved around the alcohol shelves into a better order putting some gift packs out too as we have many customers buying gifts so it only made sense. Later in the afternoon I finished planning Marchs cigar subscription and I can tell you that it is a really good one! If you’re interested click here, you pay £74.99 but Marchs subscription is actually worth almost £100! You’d be silly not to get one!

Thursday I had a lovely customer with his wife and son come in who i believe are starting to become regulars, they like looking at the pipes together and the gentleman always asks his wife if she likes it which I think is sweet as i’m sure she looks at it while he smokes it and his little one was cute and couldn’t stop staring at me – not sure if that’s a good thing or not…

We are also starting a new cigar promotion in store! We have some disbanded cigars and all you have to do is purchase one for £12.99 and then guess what the cigar is once you’ve smoked it. If you are correct we will add 500 loyalty points to your account, its that simple so good luck! Sharon has decorated our shop ready for Valentines day, adding new displays to our existing ones and theming the centre display for his and hers.

On Friday I finished my article about K by Karen Berger cigars which you can read here. All pictures were taken by me too as I am enjoying photography more these days. Lewis, our content creator also wanted me to take a picture of our shop display for our shop newsletter with the lovely Sharon in ofcourse. She takes a lot of pride in her displays to the point that other members of staff are scared to touch them 😉 She is holding a bottle of Foragers Winberry Gin which she thinks is the best gin out of the range.

On Saturday I was determined to re-organise the pipe room, it always looks nice but I felt like it could have been better and it was a bit rough around the edges. So I moved pipes around the room, stocked and even explored corners I’ve never looked at before and found so many old displays that I have never seen before! I have worked here for three years and found so many things that I didn’t know we even had! After tidying up I carried on the non-stop task of stocking the humidor as by the time I have stocked it up we sell almost everything and I have to start all over.

I hope you are enjoying my blogs so far and if you want to know anymore feel free to email me at [email protected]

So long for now

Oliver

Avatar photo A Day in the Life of a Retail Assistant #10

Published by UnderShop Updates on

Hi all, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and New Year. The Norfolk shop has been so busy that I haven’t had a chance to write to you all. 

The first bank holiday of a new year is always strange as we all come in to count all the stock in the building! As you know me and Sharon do a weekly stock take of the Cuban humidor however this time we had to split up and count the Cuban, New world and machine made cigars! It took the whole day but we got there in the end, so much so that I helped count some of the pipes in our pipe room. 

Tuesday began in a strange way. Instead of the usual pickings we actually couldn’t pick as we had an auditor in to ensure our stock-take was correct so as we waited eagerly, me and Sharon decided to have a move around of the displays in the shop, moving our fantastic Snowdonia Distillery range to a more prominent position and sorting out the display cabinet to show off our accessories. At around 10.30 our pickings finally came and there was a lot! A lot of people were certainly taking advantage of our January sale! With many pickings lasting the day, I couldn’t believe how long it took but alas we all got there in the end. 

When you come in next you will find there has been quite a few changes, Sharon has been busy creating some lovely displays, we are also updating all of our pricing in store which is a very long and arduous process but we will get there. I served a lovely man on holiday from London, he recently started his cigar journey and wanted to try a variety. He began his cigar journey by smoking Ashton cigars in Las Vegas so wanted to try something new, I suggested a Regius Serie Limitada Wide Churchill as they are too good not to try. He also tried the Casa Turrent 1880 Maduro Lancero, if you know me by now I prefer Maduro cigars over anything so will always suggest them, his last cigar was the Brick House Double Connecticut Corona Larga, again another favourite of mine. He was a lovely man and really appreciated my help, I do enjoy serving everyone who comes into our store and it feels even better when they appreciate your help.

So long for now

Oliver 🙂