2016 releases

[AndyCAYP]

it's going to be a madhouse of new releases

Yep.

I would think that outs shops in a bit of a bind as how will they evaluate what they want to carry from that glut of new releases

Yep.

I'm sure a good portion will be half baked and pushed to market just to beat the deadline

Yep.

[jhedrick83]

Yep.

Out of curiosity, if you don't mind me asking, how are you planning on dealing with the deluge of new releases?

[AndyCAYP]

Out of curiosity, if you don't mind me asking, how are you planning on dealing with the deluge of new releases?

I'll deal with this year's IPCPR the same way I do every year: by watching a little bit more of my hair fall out while my blood pressure goes up a little bit.

Aside from the obvious releases that are going to do well no matter what, every year it's a crapshoot. For as many times as I guess right, I guess wrong. There are cigars I think nobody in their right mind would want and before we know it our customers are jumping ship because we aren't carrying them. There are cigars that I am convinced will walk away with glowing reviews and mid-90s scores and yet they sit on the shelf without so much as a glance from our customers. We'll finally open an account with that hot boutique brand only to see our initial purchase still sitting on the shelf 10 months later. There are brands we walk right past because they just don't look exciting only to realize six months later that we missed a golden opportunity. Like any big herf, you can only smoke so many cigars before you reasonably can't taste anything anymore. Shoving visits with 100 companies into just a few days, and trying so many new cigars in such a short time, doesn't really afford you the opportunity to do a thorough taste-testing of blends you haven't tried before. As a retailer I would say it's equal intuition and luck when it comes to figuring out what needs purchased.

This year will be the same as always, just with more new stuff to make a split-second guess on.