stirring the pot local B&M vs big internet

Originally Posted by SeanGAR

Oh I'm certain that you're right in concluding that the cigar manufacturers consider the B&Ms and their customers to be valuable. And I sometimes go to my local B&M simply to meet with reps and their rollers when they come to town. DPG, NP, CF or RP come to town and cigar smokers get excited and want to meet the legends in the industry. They come to the shop and besides chatting, buy cigars, maybe they try some new ones that they will like and buy. This is just part of the advertising that cigar manufacturers are involved with, as are online web sites.

But I was thinking "more valuable" in the sense of where do the profits originate from ... B&Ms or big internet shops. I'm personally inclined to think. the profit split is. not vastly unbalanced, if we combine all B&M sales v.s. all internet sales. This would suggest that manufacturers pay attention to and care about both models of sales. Which would argue against one getting better quality than the other.

Another thing that I was thinking about today is that often the first release of a cigar is superior to subsequent releases. Lets look at an example: La Aurora cien anos. I was not as excited about the last box I had (smoked ROTT) compared to ones I had when they were first released (smoked ROTT). My B&M has one of the first release boxes hidden away (you need to do some serious rooting or ask for them to find them). I bought one of those and liked it better than my recent box purchase. Was this due to some quality stratification at the manufacturer - B&M v.s. internet, as you suggest? Was it due to age? Was it because those B&M cigars were the first release? In the latter case, it is likely that the first release cigars are available longer at B&Ms than online - make sense?

Only the shadow knows.

Valid point. My only addendum would be that the locals are the shop that are in danger of going out of business and this would make you want to give them more attention or an edge. That is where the more valuable comes in they know there are a ton of guys who only smoke socially and would not order on the net or just don't do the "internet thing".