Archive: April 2023

Hi Everyone I hope you’re all excited for your Bank Holiday weekend part 1! After all there are three this month to enjoy! It has been a busy week in store and with online orders too. 

Monday was the usual crazy amounts of pickings but I had them completed by the afternoon, so I researched and wrote my article which is all about La Aurora cigars and I didn’t know they were the oldest cigar makers in the Dominican Republic! You can read all about it here. After I finished writing I took the pictures for it and sent them off to the marketing team to be used on social media. 

Tuesday began with a lovely mother and son who knew exactly what they wanted, A Sweet Smoking Experience Gift Box Sampler as well as The Brisk Bunch sampler and a Brick House sampler! While I was putting all those together the young man saw our Cigarism displays and liked the look of the Cigarism V-Cut Cigar Cutter in a glossy red colour so he treated himself to that too! Later that day I served a friendly man who was getting married on Saturday, he wanted a nice cigar for himself and his groomsmen, when serving someone who wants a cigar for a wedding you really have to think as you don’t want the cigar to ruin their day so the taste needs to be perfect but it needs to look good in the pictures too! So a little Petit Corona is out of the question, I tend to try to push people towards the Coronas or Robustos as they won’t take the whole day to smoke and look good in pictures – In this case we went for five Regius Serie Limitada Robustos as we decided the gold band would look great in the pictures and they aren’t too expensive either so if someone doesn’t like them it isn’t the end of the world. Alongside this he bought a nice Cigarism Windproof Single Jet Flame Cigar Lighter in black and an empty Regius Serie Limitada box to present the cigars in on the big day! I hope he has an amazing day. 

As well as serving customers I started taking pictures of whisky to help out with our cgars whisky Instagram page, you should check it out! I don’t often take pictures of whisky as it’s a slightly different technique needed that I haven’t perfected yet but I will keep working on it and soon enough my pictures will be on there.

On Thursday Me and Humidor Supervisor Billy started stock counting the New World cigars which by now you know it is a hard process and takes all day to do, however this time we enlisted Sharon, who impressed during other stock takes to help us too. So to do this we asked Sarah who is an apprentice to serve customers whilst we all concentrated on stock take. As a team we did really well and actually finished it all in one day which rarely happens! However news broke through that this stock take will now be done every two weeks instead of monthly just to ensure we all know what stock we do have. 

On Friday I started writing a new article which you will see next week all about a new brand of cigars that we have never had before called Foundation Cigars! In the afternoon I did the Cuban stock take by myself as Sharon had Courtney (who you may have seen on Saturdays) come into the shop to learn the role as she will need to do it a lot more soon.

On Saturday once me and the team finished picking orders, I decided to leave the shop in the capable hands of Sarah and Courtney as I have full trust in Sarah to be able to serve customers and do general shop duties and as Courtney was learning I thought it would be great again for her to be with Sarah so they could learn off each other and Courtney could start serving customers without having me breathing down her neck. In the meantime I went to our beautiful conference room to take more cigar pictures mainly of Foundation cigars as well as made some more youtube short videos which hopefully Lewis our content creator will upload asap!

I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog and if you have any questions feel free to email me at [email protected]

So long for now

Oliver

Hi everyone, I hope you’ve all had an amazing week! The sun is breaking through more often which means more time to relax and enjoy a smoke! I’ve been enjoying the Flor de Oliva Robusto, anyone who has been in our store knows that I rate these very highly. They are medium bodied but don’t overpower the palate. 

We had a very busy Monday with all the online orders coming in thick and fast! When I had finished them (finally) I started researching for my new article. Whilst doing this I had a regular customer come in, as always he purchased a box of Mitchellero Novellini and in a little change he treated himself to three Montecristo Petit Edmundo, certainly a nice treat!

On Tuesday I started writing my article after finishing the research yesterday, it is about different aspects of purchasing the correct pipe lighter which you can read here. Once I had finished writing, I went to take pictures, however this week I was assisting Sharon with website product images as this is a new venture for her! In fact, all the pictures in my article were taken by Sharon and she did a really good job! 

Wednesday was a humidor stock up day, after the amount of online orders and pickings we have it’s only natural for the shelves to get a little bit bare. So I went around and stocked up and re-arranged shelves to fit more cigars on. Once done I  then passed on what stock needed ordering to Chris our Senior Buyer, it’s all about teamwork here!

Sharon was off on Thursday so I handled all the shop front, there were two young lads who came in and they always request for their cigars to be cut for them (a service we have always provided). Whilst using an inexpensive cutter I realised I need to treat myself to a new one so I invested myself to a Cigarism Cutter as I have always admired them but never thought about using one my thoughts?… SMOOTHEST CUT I HAVE EVER DONE! You never realise the struggle of a cheap cutter until you use a high quality cutter with extra sharp blades, you all need to get yours now! As well as serving the customers we have made a small but very effective change in the humidor: Gurkha have humipacks of cigars and they are always hidden on the top shelf but not anymore! We have put some hooks up in our humidor to really show them off and it looks amazing!

Later on in the day I was asked to create a short video for our C.Gars Youtube channel, I was nervous as I’m usually behind the camera but after a few takes I felt comfortable and sent it to the marketing team – Now i’m starring in a my own mini series of treasures in the humidor! On top of the videos I have also been asked to take pictures of our shop so we can promote it more on facebook too!

Friday I took some lovely pictures of our humidor ready for our marketing team to share and helped them with weekend samplers as I tend to know what stock we have to hand so we can send out your orders efficiently. In the afternoon it was mine and Sharon’s weekly Cuban stock take and there was a lot of change this week as the box bundle deal has been very popular!

I hope you have enjoyed this weeks blog, as you can see there has been lots of changes in store and now to my role too. Make sure you pop in next time you’re around even if it’s just to say hello!

So long for now

Oliver 🙂

Hi everyone, I hope you’ve been enjoying the sun with a lovely cigar, we’ve been enjoying the release of the new limited edition Davidoff Millennium Lancero and what an amazing stick it is! 

So bank holiday Mondays are always crazy for online pickings as it’s the usual amount we get on Mondays but there’s only me available to pick them! So this bank holiday Monday we opened the shop at 12 and almost immediately our first customer came in, a lovely gentleman who came in on the Saturday before, he treated himself to a Corn cob pipe and a Rattrays tobacco pouch. When he left I was able to start printing orders, however I clicked print and then the second customer came in, I’d never known anything like it on a bank holiday. They were a lovely couple who had been in before, they both enjoyed our open bottles of whisky and rum which are available for sampling and eventually chose a bottle of Nikka Days and Diplomatico to go home with as well as a good selection of cigars. Whilst I was serving them a third customer came in, luckily I had Hayley, our customer care manager available to help serve him whilst I was busy with my customers. By the time I had finished serving customers it was 1.30pm and I hadn’t started picking orders! I swiftly started organising through and away I went picking as many orders as I could. I was able to do most of them by the time we closed at 5pm

Wednesday began with the usual pickings, I have noticed since I mentioned the Alec Bradley Project 40 Maduro being one of my favourite cigars they have been flying off the shelves so I hope you guys are enjoying it too? I spent the afternoon organising the June cigar subscription. I always try to find the best cigars for everyone to try as I like to experiment with different brands and different blends that those brands provide. I like to pass my passion on to my subscribers and customers alike. The June subscription box also includes an incredible gift included of which will help any cigar beginner as well as the connoisseur.

On Thursday I spend a lot of time on my article on the C.Gars cigar library, This time I was asked by out marketing department to create one for pipe smokers as they wanted to put out more pipe content which you will see in our newsletters, I hope you have all signed up for those as they have great deals as well as information! I decided to write about the history of Churchwarden pipes and how big they were in history, you can read about it here. 

On Friday I had the pleasure of serving two of my favourite customers, who I hadn’t seen for ages! They we’re getting some cigars for their sons birthday (another favourite customer of mine) and they went away with some cigars that they know he liked as well as a Rocky Patel Disciple Robusto (of which I knew he wanted to try) and as I knew it was for him I included an empty cigar box so it would be packaged nicely too.

As always on a Friday the afternoon was filled with Cuban stock take to keep on top of our Cuban inventory as the supply issues with these cigars is still ongoing and we like to ensure we can provide you with as many of your favourite smokes as possible

I hope you’ve all enjoyed this weeks blog and I will see you all again soon

So long for now

Oliver

Hi everyone, we’ve had one hell of a week in Norfolk this week, plenty of online orders to keep us busy as well as many in store customers.

Monday was the usual picking for online orders for most of the day but in between I was able to research for my next article on why cigars lose humidity which you can read here. 

We had plenty of customers to keep us busy too, including one gentleman who treated himself to an Arturo Fuente Opux X No77 – The Shark. As you may have noticed you currently can’t purchase Arturo Fuente cigars online so you have to come in-store to purchase them, this gentleman drove for 45 minutes just to look at our Arturo Fuente range and he was flabbergasted to see how many we have in store, if you like your Arturo Fuente you should definitely pop in-store to see what we have and you’ll be surprised to see how much we have! 

On Tuesday Me and Sharon started preparing for the quarterly stock take which was on Wednesday. All employees have to help count everything in the building and it takes all day and in some cases it can spill over into the next day. Me and Sharon were tasked with counting every single cigar we have in store! So we started a day early and counted all of the rest of the world cigars like Henri Wintermans and King Edwards and adjusted as and when we needed to. After 3pm when we finished our last lot of pickings and we counted the Cuban humidor as quickly as we could, Sharon counted and I inputted the data and we made a damn good team! So when it came to Wednesday all we had to do was the New World humidor and regular readers will know how challenging it is for me and Billy to do but it turns out Sharon is so quick at counting and I’m so good and inputting data that we completed it by 2.30! A new record! We even had a chance to help others with theirs. During this we still kept our high level of service and sold quite a few Cigarism accessories.

On Friday I served a gentleman who travelled 45 minutes to look at our pipes and he was in disbelief when he saw how many we had, he treated himself to a nice and reliable Peterson – Another happy customer. Around lunch time one of my favourite customers came in and bought his payday smoke – The La Unica no. 100, I have never tried a La Unica so I shall wait to see what he says but he also purchased a box of one of my favourite cigars in the Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion Skinny. They are a beautiful and sweet smoke with a few spicy tones too, definitely a good purchase there.

On Saturdays I am joined by our apprentice Sarah, Due to constantly being busy with her apprenticeship and packing orders she rarely gets a chance to come into the shop anymore so whenever she works a Saturday she works her socks off picking orders and serving customers, she is even getting her own regular customers now! Obviously working only 1 day a fortnight in the shop is a difficult feat, trying to learn the shop and cigars but she is doing well and I hope she continues to enjoy what she is doing. We spent some time stocking and re-organising the pipe tobacco, due to Rattrays no longer producing pipe tobacco we are finding more and more gaps on the shelf as people try to get their favourites before stock runs out and we are now starting to run very low indeed so get it while you still can. To fill in the gaps I put more beautiful accessories out for you all to see – the Lotus gift sets are particularly eye catching, a beautiful lighter a cutter set which would be great as a gift or for yourself to enjoy.

I hope you are enjoying reading my weekly blogs

So long for now

Oliver 🙂