Juliano88 Posted January 20, 2022 Share Posted January 20, 2022 I'm grateful that I have built my Cuban stock over this past year to last me years. I also am a big fan of new world cigars so I can still supply my smoking obsession. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassistheplace Posted January 20, 2022 Share Posted January 20, 2022 the beatings will continue until morale improves 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troels Posted January 20, 2022 Share Posted January 20, 2022 Why would habanos even care about filling up retailers reserve stock -if they can sell what they produce. If they can make people pay more and still sell the same volume, that would make sense, but dont understand why they should raise prices with a purpose of not selling. What do I know - would seem odd though 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djrey Posted January 20, 2022 Share Posted January 20, 2022 3 minutes ago, Troels said: Why would habanos even care about filling up retailers reserve stock -if they can sell what they produce. If it were me I would personally want to fill the shelves and let the retailers battle each other with sales etc. That way more product going out the door which will in turn allow you to roll and sell more cigars. In addition lower cost of entry causes more people to come. Yes cigars are a premium product but not everyone that smokes cigars and CC for that matter makes 6 figures or more. Imagine a NC smoker who loves Padron 3000 (5.5x52), a consistently great cigar at the current price (Just checked) of $197/26 before coupons. You want to dabble into Cubans and look between say D4 and E2's costing 300-400+ a box and then have to be worried about consistency issues. Will that individual join the CC market? My point is that the price increases caused by HSA yearly bumps and retailer/supply issues are going to curb future market growth along with the potential of loosing many clients. Yes you will always have the bigwigs who can shell 1K for a box of Cohibas and say they don't care. However I am not so sure they make up enough regular smokers to keep HSA happy. I think it is in the best interest to keep retailers supplied and for retailers able to compete price wise to fight for the regular production smoking middle class. I can say if the prices that we are seeing now existed when I came into the CC world years ago I never would have dabbled in. New world cigars are much cheaper and and can still be damn good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spaceman Spiff Posted January 20, 2022 Share Posted January 20, 2022 I have a fair amount of Cubans that I plan to age, but I really only really got serious about doing that 3 or so years ago... So for the foreseeable future I think I'm going to have fun exploring various NCs as my daily smokes and TRY to preserve the Cubans for special occasions..(apparently Thursday is a specially occasion if the RASS I had this morning counts...) But I feel fortunate that there are some Honduran and Nicaraguan puros that I genuinely enjoy smoking so, I suspect I'll be smoking more of them until this whole situation plays out... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anacostiakat Posted January 20, 2022 Share Posted January 20, 2022 Yea. Sad situation all around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El Presidente Posted January 20, 2022 Author Share Posted January 20, 2022 I had a conversation yesterday with a Habanos sub distributor. Airfreight for an incoming average bi-monthly shipment has gone from $15,000 to $55,000 (per shipment) over the past year. 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrBirdman Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 26 minutes ago, El Presidente said: I had a conversation yesterday with a Habanos sub distributor. Airfreight for an incoming average bi-monthly shipment has gone from $15,000 to $55,000 (per shipment) over the past year. Well that is at least one cost of business being passed on that will presumably abate at some point in the future. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jfire Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 2018 notes on my phone.... trini reyes 152 each X4 FOH HUHC 99 each D4s 25 ct 189.00 Monte 2 10 CT 107 each Siglo V FoH 553 Siglo II 268.00 2004 Monte 2 25ct box from a vendor 482.00 LGC Mdo 4 ULA code 185.00 CoRo 25ct cab 385 each Anyone got a time machine? just looking to go back 5 years..... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightonCorgi Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 3 hours ago, MrBirdman said: Well that is at least one cost of business being passed on that will presumably abate at some point in the future. Retail price correction due lower freight cost for cigars are wishful thinking. Have retail prices on Habanos ever gone down? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Troels Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 8 hours ago, jfire said: 2018 notes on my phone.... trini reyes 152 each X4 FOH HUHC 99 each D4s 25 ct 189.00 Monte 2 10 CT 107 each Siglo V FoH 553 Siglo II 268.00 2004 Monte 2 25ct box from a vendor 482.00 LGC Mdo 4 ULA code 185.00 CoRo 25ct cab 385 each Anyone got a time machine? just looking to go back 5 years..... Prices pretty much two times what it was in 2012 - in usd - meantime usd vs dkk (my currency) has gone up 25 pct as well - if only my wages rose eaqually… Anyway, smoke a fifth today compared to then - so no biggie really. No real need to buy for a number of years, beside the entertainment of the act, as ive bought way too much earlier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrBirdman Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 9 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said: Retail price correction due lower freight cost for cigars are wishful thinking. Have retail prices on Habanos ever gone down? Have we ever been through a global pandemic that caused freight costs to nearly quadruple in the span of a year? Nobody really knows what is gonna happen - the times we live in. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monterey Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 11 hours ago, BrightonCorgi said: Retail price correction due lower freight cost for cigars are wishful thinking. Have retail prices on Habanos ever gone down? Lets see, the last time prices spiked because of a global pandemic and a sudden massive drop in production the prices afterwards . . . . Oh wait! You are way oversimplifying the current situation. Basic supply and demand curve my friend. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightonCorgi Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 6 minutes ago, Monterey said: Lets see, the last time prices spiked because of a global pandemic and a sudden massive drop in production he prices afterwards . . . . Oh wait! You are way oversimplifying the current situation. Basic supply and demand curve my friend. I don't expect any retailers or food vendors to lower their prices when shipping costs go down. Places like Walmart, super markets, and Costco would be it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monterey Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 50 minutes ago, BrightonCorgi said: I don't expect any retailers or food vendors to lower their prices when shipping costs go down. Places like Walmart, super markets, and Costco would be it. Not sure your point as Walmart, super markets, and Costco represent 90% of all food. Core cpi, which economists use most to measure true inflation, excludes food and energy because they rise and fall so much. So of course food will eventually fall. Though never to what they were due to permanent wage increases Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djrey Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 One thing I am very curious about is why are smaller cigars somehow non affected by the increase in shipping costs, HSA price increases etc. For example you can still find boxes of Partagas shorts for $135 all day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightonCorgi Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 32 minutes ago, Monterey said: Not sure your point as Walmart, super markets, and Costco represent 90% of all food. Core cpi, which economists use most to measure true inflation, excludes food and energy because they rise and fall so much. So of course food will eventually fall. Though never to what they were due to permanent wage increases Those businesses I mentioned are very tight margin retailers. Not everyone is trying to sell as low as possible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bijan Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 32 minutes ago, djrey said: One thing I am very curious about is why are smaller cigars somehow non affected by the increase in shipping costs, HSA price increases etc. For example you can still find boxes of Partagas shorts for $135 all day. You could find them for under $100 in 2020. My lowest price was $93. Edit: My lowest prices were $82 for Fonseca KDT Cadetes and $83 for El Rey del Mundo Demi Tasse. Prices are about 50%+ up from those lows. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djrey Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 4 minutes ago, Bijan said: You could find them for under $100 in 2020. My lowest price was $93. Oh Damn! Nevermind then. Wish I saw those deals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrightonCorgi Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 In locales where the government determines tobacco prices, there could be a positive price adjustments. Fingers crossed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrimpchips Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 39 minutes ago, djrey said: One thing I am very curious about is why are smaller cigars somehow non affected by the increase in shipping costs, HSA price increases etc. For example you can still find boxes of Partagas shorts for $135 all day. Probably very uninformed conjecture, but I think there’s going to be a more pronounced difference in pricing at the higher and lower end of things. HSA has shown that it’s responsive to market trends with bigger RG, flashier packaging, and more exclusivity (LE/RE), and importantly higher price point. These cigars often sell out with retailers, and there’s a huge growing market in China/worldwide that is very responsive to exclusivity/luxury, and are less sensitive to price increases. Retailers/distributors won’t back down prices for this market so long as it keeps snapping everything up. On the other end I think HSA wouldn’t move away from the bread and butter small cigars/lower-end marcas/vitolas that make up a bulk volume of sales in other markets. These would probably be more price sensitive, as they’re filling a different niche. These small cigars I would think will be available and priced closer to pre-pandemic prices when the increased costs of freight/overhead start to normalize again. In terms of current price, again I would guess the small/lower end of the market is more sensitive to huge price increases, and there’s probably just more stock available overall as well. 11 minutes ago, Bijan said: You could find them for under $100 in 2020. My lowest price was $93. Edit: My lowest prices were $82 for Fonseca KDT Cadetes and $83 for El Rey del Mundo Demi Tasse. Prices are about 50%+ up from those lows. I got Shorts for $87.50/25 in mid 2021 as well, but maybe that was leftover inventory from prepandemic times. I don’t think comparing the absolute lowest price in the last two years to current prices is that useful considering there aren’t a lot of inventory clearing level of price reductions going on anywhere now that shelves were bare for a while. Regular price for shorts was sitting around $120, and now they’re around $160. Proportionally, definitely way less than price increases on things like CoRo and Siglo VI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bijan Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 8 minutes ago, Shrimpchips said: I got Shorts for $87.50/25 in mid 2021 as well, but maybe that was leftover inventory from prepandemic times. I don’t think comparing the absolute lowest price in the last two years to current prices is that useful considering there aren’t a lot of inventory clearing level of price reductions going on anywhere now that shelves were bare for a while. Regular price for shorts was sitting around $120, and now they’re around $160. Proportionally, definitely way less than price increases on things like CoRo and Siglo VI. Yes and no. During the same period Cohibas were categorically never on sale (as far as I could tell, one retailer that had a bulk discount had a rule that it didn't apply to any Cohibas). Well maybe Siglo I and II were on sale, but I don't think CoRo and Sig VI were. So it makes sense to use sale prices for cheaper cigars and regular price for Cohibas (because there was no cheaper price for Cohibas). From my perspective Siglo VI and Esplendidos were high $800s low $900s and I've seen Siglo VI low $1000, Esplendidos $1100s recently. Maybe that window just passed but it's not too far off from the change in cheaper cigars. Edit: if we talk longer term what you say is true, but by 2020 Cohiba was already priced up, before any other cigars were affected. So half of the long term increase doesn't show in the pandemic period. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Monterey Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 4 hours ago, Bijan said: Yes and no. During the same period Cohibas were categorically never on sale (as far as I could tell, one retailer that had a bulk discount had a rule that it didn't apply to any Cohibas). Well maybe Siglo I and II were on sale, but I don't think CoRo and Sig VI were. So it makes sense to use sale prices for cheaper cigars and regular price for Cohibas (because there was no cheaper price for Cohibas). From my perspective Siglo VI and Esplendidos were high $800s low $900s and I've seen Siglo VI low $1000, Esplendidos $1100s recently. Maybe that window just passed but it's not too far off from the change in cheaper cigars. Edit: if we talk longer term what you say is true, but by 2020 Cohiba was already priced up, before any other cigars were affected. So half of the long term increase doesn't show in the pandemic period. CORO's used to be on sale on a regular basis thru the end of 2020. 25 cab. Gone are those days. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bijan Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 19 minutes ago, Monterey said: CORO's used to be on sale on a regular basis thru the end of 2020. 25 cab. Gone are those days. Out of curiosity what was the price? I see a lot of people pining for $350-$380 a box but that seems like 2018 prices to me. I remember them being $450-$500. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hammer Smokin' Posted January 21, 2022 Share Posted January 21, 2022 I recall when I joined this board (2018) I saw the odd "clearance" box of CoRo just under $400 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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