[BlackIrish]

Thanks for the thought-provoking post. Here's my $0.02.

1. JoeCigar describes its offerings in glowing terms, even when they don't deserve it. But every vendor does this (take a look at Famous, Holts, JR), and that's why we spend so much time reviewing cigars -- to provide an independent perspective.

2. The prices on JoeCigar's deals often are not much better than the box price divided by two. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, as others have noted. There are times you want to try 10 before committing to a box, and less-than-box quantities typically cost more, on a unit basis, than a box does. To get 5 or 10 sticks at the same per-cigar price you'd pay if you bought a box can be a good deal.

3. Even so, JoeCigar prices aren't always a great deal. There are other vendors that offer better prices on a regular basis, which is why it's critical to do your research homework, using tools like CigarCyclopedia's comparison shopper. It's not uncommon to be able to buy two 5pks of a cigar from Atlantic Cigar, for instance, for about the same price as you can buy the JoeCigar deal.

4. JoeCigar and CI do ship quite wet, as virtually everyone else has observed, but we expect that. I always put my purchases in a humi for at least 30 days to stabilize. But I do that with everything I order over the internet.

5. I don't have enough evidence to conclude that the cigars offered on JoeCigar are of lower quality. There's enough variation in handmade premiums that it's hard to draw any conclusions without a much more controlled comparison. Maybe I'm too big a science geek, but before I'd make any conclusion, I'd want to compare a cigar from JoeCigar with the same cigar from another vendor and from a B&M, all stored in my humidor for a decent amount of time (3mos?). And then I'd want to do that repeatedly, to try to control for the inevitable inconsistency between cigars even in the same box. It would be an interesting experiment, but I don't have the patience to do it.

My approach: be an educated and critical consumer. Expect that the descriptions on JoeCigar are hype. Expect that JoeCigar is offering sticks that are moving slowly. Expect that they'll be shipped wet. Read reviews, shop around, and compare prices before clicking the buy button.

Being a critical consumer means that I take everything a vendor says with skepticism, because that's the way the marketplace works. But it doesn't mean that I'm quick to conclude that a vendor is acting in bad faith or engaging in unethical conduct. I've bought subpar cigars from CI and sent them back, without hassle, simply because I didn't like how they tasted or were constructed. My experience with their customer service has generally been good, and that experience leads me to believe that they engage in hype and puffery but don't cross the line into deception or unethical practices.

Nevertheless, I think your post is thoughtful and a valuable contribution to our discussion here.

Have a new year full of delicious smokes.

BlackIrish