Archive: July 2024

Hi everyone! It has been another great week in sunny Norfolk, as it is now holiday season we are getting a lot more holiday makers coming in, however my favourite part of the week was seeing two customers who I hadn’t seen for a very long time.

On Monday, I was back in my usual role of shop assistant and online order picker and the orders were huge! But Josh and I worked our way through like we usually do. One of the orders was incredible, a box of the new E.P. Carrillo New Wave Connecticut Divinos and a box of the new E.P Carrillo Encore Edicion Unica Solidarios. Since getting these new ranges of E.P. Carrillo cigars, they have been flying off the shelf! I also served a customer, who was a regular online customer but only just realised we have a store too. He really enjoyed the experience as he felt looking online doesn’t give the cigar justice and having someone talk through the cigars with you helps much more. That is what the shops are all about, having that personal experience to help find the perfect cigar for you. 

Tuesday was my marketing day and boy was I busy! I started by writing my article on the C.Gars cigar library. It’s about five cigars to enjoy in summer, which you can read here. I have chosen what I believe are five enjoyable cigars to sit outside in the sunshine, you’ll have to try them and let me know. Once I finished writing, I went to take my pictures and it seemed like I had loads to take. I took five pictures for the article as well as a banner, I then took the cigar of the month pictures for the monitors in our humidor – as always I can’t tell you what they are yet but I may have to try the New World selection. I then worked on all of the shops’ newsletters, they always send me pictures from their shops of their products and they do try their best, however sometimes they do ask for my help as they don’t have the marketing equipment that we have here. So I took more pictures to help out with their newsletters. Later on in the afternoon I started making the September New World Subscription box and this one is a must have! Again I can’t tell you what’s inside but there is a newer release from a highly respected brand.

On Wednesday, I was back in the shop with Josh. I was able to serve one of my favourite customers. The first time I met him was about two years ago, he brought in his wife and son. He wanted some cigars for himself and his son to try, however they liked different strengths. His son preferred lighter smokes as he was relatively new, however the father wanted the strongest cigars you could find. In the end the father decided to try a Davidoff Yamasa Piramides and has never looked back, his son tried the Romeo y Julieta Mille Fleur and has come back since to get more. Fast forward back to this visit and I haven’t seen any of the family for a long time. Finally the father came back and he is so happy with his new favourite cigar, the Davidoff Yamasa Piramides. It always feels me with joy when a suggestion of mine is someone’s new favourite cigar, anyway he came just looking for a couple of cigars for his son and his friend, and wanted something that wasn’t expensive and quite light. So I suggested the Mitchellero Peru Gordo – It is under £10 each and great smokes that won’t be too strong at all. He was happy with that selection and away he went, It’s always great when you get on with a customer so well. Later on that day, Josh was talking to a gentleman I have served plenty of times before. He then asked if I could serve him as I know what he tends to enjoy. In the end he walked away with five Charatan Churchills as well as four Mitchellero Peru Robusto Extra. He has tried the original robusto before and was going to try the same again but I wanted him to try the Peru as I felt they were better. He left with a smile on his face.

Later on in the day I had a general tidy up of the pipe room and started to change the displays around. Josh and I had a brainstorming session to see what we can do and we are happy with the results.

On Thursday, Billy and I were doing the New World stock count. It seemed to go on for ages and then we looked at the time and it wasn’t even 1pm and we were finished! It was unbelievable that we got it finished so quickly. So afterwards, Josh and I went back to the pipe room to continue working on the displays, you’ll have to come in and let us know what you think.

On Friday, I fully stocked up our humidors ready for another busy weekend! The Drew Estate Tabak Especial Toraja has been flying off the shelf ever since Josh bought himself a box. I’m sure he’s been enjoying them so much he has been telling everyone that comes through the door. In the afternoon Josh and I completed the weekly Cuban stock take, we do it so often it’s almost like clockwork.

I hope you have enjoyed this weeks activities and I hope to see you all in store very soon

So long for now 

Oliver

Hi everyone! Another week has passed by and we’re now finally getting some British sunshine! We have had another great week here in Norfolk.

On Monday, I found myself in a different role! Instead of my usual order picking, I was booking on parcels, ready to be dispatched. As many of you know we have loads of orders from the weekend, so all departments are busy. Josh and Porscha were in charge of the shop and online order picking and they did a brilliant job. I helped out in between parcels to make sure there was a smooth flow of orders picked. I found it rather strange to spend most of my Monday sitting down!

On Tuesday, I was back in the shop with Ciaran, we spent the day picking our orders and replenishing the shelves after a busy Monday! The week before I made sure to order some extra stock in as the nicer weather tends to bring more customers and I am right, we have had plenty of customers having larger cigars. So Ciaran and I filled up the shelves and they are looking pretty good! In the afternoon, I spent some time filling up our Ardor pipes, they are beautiful works of art and a real joy to look at. While I was stocking up the pipes, I had a gentleman come in who had previously visited us in our previous shop in the village of Rollesby. He was amazed by our pipe room and the amount of choice we had to offer. He spent a lot of time deciding which pipe to have but settled for a Chacom Maigret Brown Sandblast 1201. He left very happy.

Thursday was my marketing day, I created an article for the C.Gars cigar library about a very common question we get in the shop – Does a dark wrapper mean it is a full strength cigar? To find out the answer you will have to read the article by clicking here. I also spent some time taking the pictures which relate to the article. I attended our fortnightly marketing, and even though I can’t discuss what was mentioned in those meetings, one thing I can say is keep an eye on our social media pages as we will have some different content coming soon. In the afternoon I was working on your till system to see if there is another way to make the till process quicker and easier. The worst part of coming to a shop is waiting in a queue to pay for your items, so if we can find a way to speed up the process then hopefully the queues won’t be so long. This will be a work in progress situation so for the moment please be patient with us.

On Friday I was back in the shop with Josh, however I was doing double duty as I was also needed in the packing department to help pack some of the orders. As well as helping out I did a full restock of our Cuban cigars and packs. In the afternoon it was the usual Cuban stock count, however we were interrupted by a customer who I haven’t seen for a very long time! He used to come in all the time, but he has been travelling a lot and hasn’t been able to find time to come in. It was great to see him and it looks like he will be going to our August cigar sampling event too! So if you are going to the event, make sure you say hello!

Saturday was incredibly busy, we had so many customers coming through the door, at one point the humidor was full of customers looking for their weekend smokes. It’s always great to see how much our shop grows year upon year and it keeps my job very interesting as there will always be questions that I would never expect. This Saturday Josh and I was joined by Ciaran – we picked our orders and then went to work stocking up the pipe tobacco shelves. We had a gentleman purchase one of our exclusive in store only cigar pick ‘n’ mix! You get to choose five cigars out of a selection of ten as well as a travel humidor, cutter and lighter and it’s a great price for £99.99. You can really save a lot of money by doing this, I would highly suggest having a look next time you come in.

I hope you have enjoyed this weeks blog and I hope to see you all in store very soon

So long for now

Oliver

Hi everyone, I hope you are enjoying July! But I have one question… Where is the sun?! Well regardless of the weather, we are still open and happy to see you all! 

On Monday, Josh and I were non-stop, quite literally! We had mountains of online orders to pick, it was like a never ending stack of orders! And in between we were serving customers too, it felt like every time we decided to take 5 minutes to rest, another customer would come in! We always enjoy serving our customers and our service was still top tier despite our hidden tiredness. It was during this period that Josh served a lovely gentleman who had travelled for over an hour and a half with his niece to our store! Josh served the gentleman, while I stayed with his niece, keeping her entertained while the gentleman chose his cigars. She took advantage of our in store coffee machine, enjoying a hot chocolate, and we had a general chat. I was amazed when Josh came back out with an incredible amount of cigars on the tray! It took us both a little while to put his cigars through the till but we got there in the end and it was the most Josh has ever taken in one transaction, I could see the joy in his face, and when the customers left he needed 5 minutes to relax. It can be really draining being with a customer for a long time, staying focused and helping them with their cigar selection. But after he rested, he was back to serve and pick his orders. Later on he decided to treat himself to a box of his new favourite cigar – The Drew Estate Tabak Especial Toraja as well as a few other cigars. A well deserved treat.

Tuesday was my marketing day, I decided I wanted to create a whisky article for the C.Gars cigar library, as it had felt like it had been a long time since I created one. So I looked around the Norfolk store and there was a bottle that stood out for me – Glenglassaugh. I spent a lot of time researching about the brand and I was fascinated by how many times the distillery had closed and reopened. You can read more about it by clicking here. As well as my article I emailed all of our stores to start thinking about their content for the August shop newsletter. As always it was interesting to see what they have going on in store. I also had a meeting with our shop staff to see what they wanted to promote in the store, so I could begin creating the content. If you are signed up to our newsletters, you will see what we have in store for you. 

On Wednesday, I was booking on parcels, ready for dispatch, I do get a little nervous doing this as I haven’t done it much, however, I would like to think it was a success as all the parcels were booked on and ready to be shipped!

Thursday was New World stock count day with our humidor manager Billy, as always we were super quick at doing this, but this time we needed to be very fast as I was leaving early for a family event. We got to a point where there was only a few brands left before I had to go, so Billy was able to complete the rest by himself.

On Friday, I spent some time doing general shop housekeeping and then in the afternoon, it was time to do the Cuban stock count. For the first time I had the help of Porscha, she has recently started working Friday’s so this may be a new tradition for us both.

I hope you enjoyed this weeks going on and I hope to see you all in store really soon.

So long for now.

Oliver.

Hello everyone! How are you all doing? We have had some incredible weather in Norfolk! Some days have been really hot, other days it has been raining all day! But that hasn’t stopped our loyal customers from coming in and buying their favourite smokes!

So what has been going on this week?

On Monday, It was Josh and I working in the shop and picking the mountains of online orders! Josh has been impressing so much recently that he is now working full time! So there are more opportunities for you all to meet him and have a lovely chat all about cigars. I also served a lovely lady who was buying a few cigars for her husband when he got back from travelling. He used to have Cuban cigars, however due to the price of them in the UK, he recently changed to New World cigars. Unfortunately due to the change, the lady didn’t know what to get him, she just wanted three good cigars for a decent price. This is a specialty of mine as one big consideration for me when buying cigars is the price. She went away very happy with a Regius Serie Limitada Robusto, Aladino Corojo Robusto and the Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion Shorty. Once we finished our pickings, we went around restocking the humidors, ready for the rest of the week.

On Tuesday, I was back in the shop with Ciaran. After our pickings, we started cleaning the pipe room, polishing the metal on the pipes as well as stocking up. Everyday we seem to have new pipes on our website and some of them look incredible. I particularly like the Vauen pipes, they are not just your standard pipe, most of them look unique, but also create a cool smoke. 

Thursday was my marketing day. I started off by researching for an article for the C.Gars cigar library, I then took part in our marketing meeting, which we have every two weeks. We discuss what has worked well as well as what we can improve on. We have combined together for an excellent idea which we are all working on, you will hopefully see the finished product soon. Between me and you though, it will be a game changer. After the meeting, I started writing my article. This week was a break from the lists as I wrote about Rattrays pipes and the history, you can read all about it here. Later that day we had a bit of fun – If you remember from a previous blog, we had a Euros sweepstake, I got Italy… Unlucky for me. Those whos teams were still in the tournament got to play some games to win prizes. They played table football with Malteasers as well as stacking towers out of marshmallows. 

On Friday, It was Josh and myself again as it usually is on a Friday. I served a great gentleman who has been coming to the store a long time before I started working here. He used to have a supplier who would send him cigars from the US. However that person had to stop so now he can only buy a few from our store to keep him going. I also recommended the Mitchellero range as it is a bargain price for a hand rolled cigar! So he took two coronas as well as some CAOs and left happy. Later on that afternoon we had the Cuban stock take. I think Josh had an extra coffee as he was counting extremely fast! It was difficult for me to keep up sometimes. 

On Saturday, myself, Josh and Porscha were running the shop. We got through the pickings and then got on with shop tasks. This included shuffling the Peterson pipes as they were in the wrong order! We like to organise them in an order that makes it easy for us to find as well as keeping all the different ranges together. So we went through all the Peterson pipes to put them in the correct order and re-stock the ones that needed to go out. Josh went through the humidors and wiped off any plume that could be seen. Many of you will know that plume is a good thing, however it doesn’t look particularly appetising, so we wipe it of so when you receive your cigar it is ready to be smoked. If you don’t know what plume is then I have an article you can read all about it, just click here.

I hope you have enjoyed this weeks going on and I hope to see you all in store very soon.

So long for now

Oliver