Archive: October 2024

Hi everyone, another week goes by in Norfolk, it really is the calm before the storm of Christmas, online orders are starting to build up more and in store customers keep mentioning Christmas too.

Monday went by in a flash! I was in the shop on my own for the morning. I had to do the incredible amount of pickings by myself!… However, it never was by myself, as a team we came together and decided what would be the best way to quickly and efficiently pick the orders. In the end it was decided that I would pick all of the cigars for the orders and then leave the accessories and extras for Lisa (our packing whizz) to pick for me! It worked a treat, we got the pickings done and then I helped out in packing to catch up with all the orders Lisa helped pick. Meanwhile in the shop, I had a lovely gentleman who wanted to try different pipe tobaccos, I suggested purchasing one of our pipe tobacco samplers. We had a look through together and he decided to try Billys sweet tooth tobacco sampler. It has a great mix of aromatic tobaccos as he decided he wants lots of different flavours. I was also excited to see the new C.Gars magazine become available! They are available for FREE in the shop with any purchase! Online customers will also receive them in the post with any order! It was a lot of hard work to get to this point but it does look incredible!

Tuesday was my marketing day, and I took A LOT of pictures! I started my day by writing an article about the new Partagas Linea Maestra range. There has been a lot of excitement about this range of Cuban cigars and they do look incredible! I took some brilliant pictures for this article too. You can read it here. Afterwards I concentrated on completing the shops newsletters, they do such a good job explaining what is going on in store and choosing some lovely products to promote. I do sometimes have to re-take some of their pictures as in Norfolk we have the marketing department, and so the other stores are not trained up like we are. This time around I had a few to do so I added them to my picture taking list. I also decided to take pictures of the cigars of the month, a very interesting choice for November, but you will all have to wait to find out.

On Thursday, I was back in the shop with Ciaran, we were incredibly busy in the shop! Plenty of customers purchasing cigars and enjoying our service. I served a group of three young gentlemen who have become a regular of mine. They always like trying new things that are quite similar to what they already know they like. They had recently enjoyed the Mitchellero Peru range as well as the Tabak Especial Oscuro Robusto. This time they went away with three different choices, the first one wanted to try Cuban cigars, so he had a Romeo y Julieta Mille Fleur and the Cuban quick puff as it is a great way to try Cuban tobacco before committing to a full cigar. The second gentleman asked for my recommendation and as always I suggested the Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion as it is my favourite cigar range, so he had the Shorty as well as two Tabak Oscuro cigars. The last one had an old faithful in the Mitchellero Peru and then tried another recommendation of mine, the Plasencia Reserva Original Corona – A very nutty cigar in my opinion. 

On Friday, I was back in the shop with Ciaran, we worked on stocking up the pipe room as there has been a lot of orders for Peterson pipes at the moment and our shelf was looking a little bare, so together we stocked it up as well as organised the other shelves. I was needed in packing to help get a good chunk of the orders packed while they had a rather large alcohol order to pack. In the afternoon we completed the Cuban stock count.

On Saturday, It was just Porscha and myself. We worked through the online orders and then we started stocking the humidors and ordering more stock. Porscha also priced up some more whisky for the shop.

I hope you have enjoyed this weeks goings on and I hope to see you all very soon

So long for now

Oliver

Monte-Carlo Société des Bains de Mer and Belgian businesswoman Dominique Gyselinck will inaugurate the Monte-Carlo Cigar Club next spring.

“It’s a new concept that has never been done outside the United Kingdom,” explains Dominique Gyselinck. The businesswoman, who runs twenty-six cigar and spirits boutiques across Europe with her Dominique London group, announced to L’Amateur the upcoming opening of a private club in partnership with Monte-Carlo Société des bains de mer (SBM), one of the main players in the gaming sector in Europe and the leader in luxury tourism in the Principality of Monaco since 1863.

Located on the first floor of the Monte-Carlo casino, the club will be inaugurated in spring 2025.

Named the Monte-Carlo Cigar Club (MCCC), the establishment will be accessible only to members. It will have an indoor and outdoor area of ​​just over 200 m2 in which there will be a smoking room, a bar and a walk-in humidor, as well as a terrace facing the sea.

Recruitment of members has already begun. Dominique Gyselinck does not wish to disclose the first names or the amount of the annual subscription, but she confides that “it will be an ultra-exclusive club, the most exclusive in the world: artists, sportsmen, crowned heads, businessmen…”. Applicants will have to be sponsored by two members in order to become members in turn.

The interior design was entrusted to the Parisian firm Moinard-Bétaille, which worked in collaboration with the Italian firm DeArt for the humidor.

Original Article – www.cigars-connect.com

Hi everyone, another busy week passes us by here in Norfolk, plenty of customers popping in as well as other activities going on.

On Monday, I was in the shop with Josh, with an incredible amount of pickings to do. We worked together to get through the pickings as quickly as we could. After helping the packing department for a short while, I stocked up all of the cigar shelves in both of our humidors. During the day, I served plenty of customers, one of which was a younger gentleman, who doesn’t smoke regularly but wanted a cigar for his holiday. He only had £10 to spend, so instantly the Mitchellero range comes to mind, I suggested the Peru Gordo as that is £9.99 and is a very good cigar especially for the price. He left happy and went on with his day.

Tuesday was my marketing day. Firstly, I wrote an article for the C.Gars cigar library, it is all about Curivari cigars – you can read it here. I spent plenty of time taking the pictures, and I even had to do a re-shoot as one of the pictures didn’t come out the way I wanted. It is very annoying when that happens but it is part of the job and you always bounce back and the new picture is much better! Afterwards I started creating the shop newsletters for all of our other stores around the UK, it is always a treat to see what they have going on in their stores, each one is so unique that you wouldn’t be bored going to each one! You could do the “Tour de Turmeaus” if you wanted.

On Wednesday, I was back in the shop with Josh. I had my regular gentleman who comes in every couple of months. He always buys around 300 grams of different pipe tobaccos, which keeps him going until his next visit. This time he bought Century R & M blend, American Blends Delite and American Blends BC. As always we had a lovely chat and he always leaves happy. Later on in the day, Jerry from Stone Marketing (who provides ST Dupont products) visited to do some training all about the ST Dupont range. I let Josh go to the training session so he could gain all of the information and let the rest of us know what he learned. So now if you have any questions about ST Dupont don’t hesitate to ask us!

On Thursday, I was counting the New World humidor with humidor manager Billy. In between counting we also had our bi-weekly marketing meeting. We were discussing plans for Black Friday and I can tell you now, look out across all of our social media platforms as there will be some amazing deals to take advantage of. An ongoing deal we have at the moment is The Big Plasencia Sampler – this sampler contains four cigars including a limited edition that you can’t currently buy on our website without purchasing the sampler, the great part is, if you purchase this sampler, you also get the chance to win the incredible Plasencia Alma del Fuego Limited Edition Ometepe Humidor! (Cigars not included), make sure you enter now!

On Friday, I was in the packing department with Porscha. We had plenty of orders to pick and pack. I also got to see our regular customer Tony, he wanted to purchase the New World and Cuban subscription and the Sip ‘n’ Smoke podcast subscription. Instead of always staying subscribed he just comes into our shop and purchases when he wants to. This is only available in the Norfolk store as we hold all of the subscription stock here. Later on in the afternoon, I had to cover the shop as Josh was counting the Cuban humidor with Billy.

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

So long for now

Oliver

Hi everyone, it has been another busy week here in Norfolk, as always I have been doing a good variety of roles which has been fun!

On Monday, I was in the shop with Josh, we had the usual mountain of online orders to pick. I was also happy to see Porscha had returned from her holiday, she had been away for over 2 weeks and she came back with plenty of energy! The orders did take us a very long time to pick but we always get there in the end and somehow every order gets sent at the end of the day. Afterwards I went around the Cuban and New World humidors and stocked up as much as I could as well as ordered some more stock to come later in the week. 

Tuesday was my marketing day, I spent some time writing an article for the C.Gars Cigar Library, it was about bleeding your lighter. Did you know that a common issue with lighters is the gas chamber can fill up with oxygen causing a blockage? You can read more by clicking here. I also took some time to take some pictures, with the help of my new hand model Porscha. In the afternoon, I updated a very outdated article we had on our website from August 2017 (two years before I started). It is all of the Cuban editions of Orchant Seleccions. This was very difficult as I had to go through our archives to find images for each of them. Looking at the pictures in the past, I can see where as a company we have improved massively! As well as technology being much more advanced too. 

On Thursday, I was back in the shop with Josh. We picked plenty of orders and served some lovely customers. One gentleman wanted to get a gift for his friend who loves Cohiba, he has a slim budget but we were able to find the Siglo II, which he was happy with and then bought two Inka Secret Blend Blue Petit Corona for himself to enjoy. In between serving customers, I had to shuffle around our pipe room, we are preparing for a lot more Vauen pipes to be with us very soon, so we had to make space in our very full pipe room. I then created tags for all of our new pipes we put out, they are more time consuming than the old way of manually writing it, but they do look much better.

On Friday, I was helping out in the packing department. I picked orders, and helped pack them. It was actually quite an enjoyable experience, as usually I am juggling a few jobs throughout the day, however this time I had nothing to worry about other than pack orders, it was also quite nice to socialise with other workers who I don’t usually get to spend time with.

On Saturday, it was Josh, Porscha and myself, looking after the shop. We picked orders and stocked shelves, we also served four customers within the first half an hour of opening! It seemed like everyone was out early to get their cigars and tobacco. I served a regular customer (I should have asked if he would be ok with me naming him) who was bringing in a lovely gentleman who was getting married. We spoke for a long time all about different cigars, our events and who knows what but it is always lovely to spend time with any cigar smoker as you always have a lovely chat about something we all enjoy. In the end the gentleman went away with seven Regius Serie Limitada Petit Royales and an Alec Bradley Orchant Seleccion Skinny, which is one of my favourites!

I hope you enjoyed this week’s goings and I hope to see you all in Norfolk very soon!

So long for now

Oliver

Hello everyone! A slightly shorter blog today as I enjoyed Monday and Tuesday off travelling around Norwich, a beautiful city if you ever get a chance to visit!

My work week began on Wednesday, I was back in the shop with Josh and I was amazed at how the rest of the staff had decorated the shop for Halloween! It is the best I have ever seen!. I had an interesting day to say the least, we often get customers coming in not knowing what they want but their partner has sent them in to get some cigars. The lovely lady came in, was told to get a few cigars as a present for a friend but didn’t have a clue what to get. So I had to recommend cigars that are good for anyone, beginner or experienced. The first thing that came to my mind was the Mitchellero Peru range, slightly sweeter and a great smoke for the price! The lady wanted one more so I suggested the Plasencia Reserva Original Robusto, a favourite of mine and is very easy to smoke and full of flavour. She bought a couple of our C.Gars event lighters too and left very happy. Later on I had another Lady come in for her husband with no idea what to get, however she did say he was an experienced smoker so I suggested the Plasencia Orchant Seleccion Orchante, as the charred oak flavour you get is second to none! I also suggested the Tabernacle David, one of the best made cigars you can get and full of flavour too! Another customer left very happy.

On Thursday it was my bi-weekly stock count with humidor manager Billy, however to spice up our day we also had our marketing meeting on the same day! So we powered through a quarter of our stock and then went for our meeting. We discussed plenty about ongoing marketing and what we could be doing better. We were also treated to a few gifts from Mitchell as a well done for creating the C.Gars magazine to a brilliant standard. After our meeting, Billy and I continued with the stock count. We finished quite late in the afternoon but I did have time to create the New World Cigar Subscription. It has another 5 great cigars and a bargain price!

On Friday, I was back in the shop with Josh, I worked through our alcohol pricing and updated the labels to make them much clearer. In the afternoon we completed the Cuban stock count, which I think we both know like the back of our hands.

I hope you enjoyed this shortened blog but don’t you worry, It will be back to normal next week!

So long for now

Oliver