Brick & Mortar Philosophy

[Herf N Turf]

Reminds me of the UK pubs tied to a certain brewer, works very well there, but doesn't seem right for B&Ms here.

I never considered a store being 'sponsored'...that would certainly skew the game...like a Rocky Patel franchise outlet, I reckon...I haven't seen that yet out here in our area...

More often than not, these "sponsorships" aren't wildly overt. General Cigar Co and Altadis have been doing this for decades with hardly anyone even noticing. They'll come in and give you a large cabinet humidor, a bunch of ashtrays, a dozen lighters and a couple of attractive humidors if you buy a certain level of product. You're not allowed to put anyone else's product in the humidor and their stuff has to have specific visibility and you may be required to put up signage for them.

Point being, there are all sorts of schemes, from being a full on Diamond Crown lounge, to just being a preferred retailer of a certain brand.

Thank you @AndyCAYP for your candid, open answers! We are truly fortunate to get the perspective of a true insider here on our little forum.
If there wasn't reason enough already, what I have read here encourages me to look to your store for future purchases.

Tried to RG you on this, but I ".. must spread some Reputation around before giving it to AndyCAYP again."

Damnit, me too! Someone(s) please hit him! Very insightful, Andy. Thanks!

I got him too! GREAT post!

[AndyCAYP]

More often than not, these "sponsorships" aren't wildly overt. General Cigar Co and Altadis have been doing this for decades with hardly anyone even noticing. They'll come in and give you a large cabinet humidor, a bunch of ashtrays, a dozen lighters and a couple of attractive humidors if you buy a certain level of product. You're not allowed to put anyone else's product in the humidor and their stuff has to have specific visibility and you may be required to put up signage for them.

Point being, there are all sorts of schemes, from being a full on Diamond Crown lounge, to just being a preferred retailer of a certain brand.

I got him too! GREAT post!

Thanks for the bumps!

As for the sponsorship: Altadis, General, and to a lesser extent Drew Estate, are now doing lounges too. They'll give you a certain amount of money to refurbish your space, of which a certain amount needs to be spent on branded items. For instance, we have a Montecristo lounge and when we switched to that we ended up with some really nice MC art, an MC pool table, MC-branded light fixtures, paint using their color scheme, etc. Of course, we're expected to maintain a certain level of MC inventory at all times, as well as other Altadis products (mostly Romeo y Julieta, although depending on the whims of our rep we may have to buy-in on other brands at different times) but doing so gets us exclusive access to certain Montecristo cigars that "normal" stores aren't authorized to carry.

From what I've seen in this area the cabinet promotions are a thing of the past. Altadis was the only company really doing them in this region and most of their "Cabinet Selection" SKUs have been discontinued... I still see the cabinets in shops (we have one), but by this point most of the stores I've noticed them in are using them for other things. It's definitely an effective tool if the store is set up right: if forces certain cigars to be the first cigars a consumer would see when entering the store, and that actually can catch some sales if the consumer doesn't really know what they're looking for.

As for other advertising, things differ a lot by region and/or by sales rep. Some reps, if they've been with the company for a long time, have the ability to set up their own promotions which is always nice. Not for nothing, but a lot of manufacturers have tightened their purse strings of late and a lot of the time the best you'll get out of them is some shelf-talkers to hang near their product hoping to drive traffic to it.