International pricing policy by Habanos SA

[yossie]

9 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

53 minutes ago, Homer said:

I encourage everybody not to buy any CC for month or two.

 

I encourage everybody to ignore that request 

Meaning   don't feed to Rob

[El Presidente]

5 minutes ago, yossie said:

Meaning   don't feed to Rob

...I am fat enough 

[winelover]

On 6/9/2022 at 3:05 PM, Shaunster said:

Certainly for Cohiba and Trinidad it isnt worth UK buyers risking a tax hit now better to just buy in the UK.

Sent from my SM-G986B using Tapatalk
 

Prices are not too bad right now in London, at least for singles, yet I have heard that there will be a Q3 price rise here in the UK, so maybe enjoy this temporary period of price alignment.  We are used to paying the premium (or not!).  Mention this as I smoke a Monte Especial in the sampling lounge at JJ Fox (cue their sole remaining box to fly off the shelves - even for £800!).  At £34.50 it was worth the premium to sample.  I like the lanceros format, but never found Fundadores do it for me, Monte Especial's - I am not sure either - I am still chasing the fading dream of the Partagas Serie du Connoisseur no.1...

[jakebarnes]

1 minute ago, graham_uk said:

Prices are not too bad right now in London, at least for singles, yet I have heard that there will be a Q3 price rise here in the UK, so maybe enjoy this temporary period of price alignment.  We are used to paying the premium (or not!).  Mention this as I smoke a Monte Especial in the sampling lounge at JJ Fox (cue their sole remaining box to fly off the shelves - even for £800!).  At £34.50 it was worth the premium to sample.  I like the lanceros format, but never found Fundadores do it for me, Monte Especial's - I am not sure either - I am still chasing the fading dream of the Partagas Serie du Connoisseur no.1...

We're all chasing that dream. 

[winelover]

Wonder if Rob and his cigar mogul mates can get together and pull some HSA strings and revive the Partagas Serie du Connoisseur... 🙄 *

*Except the way things are going, could any of us afford it 😒 !!

[Homer]

I only have connoisserur no2

[Shaunster]

4 hours ago, graham_uk said:

Prices are not too bad right now in London, at least for singles, yet I have heard that there will be a Q3 price rise here in the UK, so maybe enjoy this temporary period of price alignment.  We are used to paying the premium (or not!).  Mention this as I smoke a Monte Especial in the sampling lounge at JJ Fox (cue their sole remaining box to fly off the shelves - even for £800!).  At £34.50 it was worth the premium to sample.  I like the lanceros format, but never found Fundadores do it for me, Monte Especial's - I am not sure either - I am still chasing the fading dream of the Partagas Serie du Connoisseur no.1...

 

Monte especial and trinny fundy are favourites of mine. I'll never pay those new price's for Trinidad though.

Sent from my SM-G986B using Tapatalk
 

[NSXCIGAR]

8 hours ago, graham_uk said:

Prices are not too bad right now in London,

What's a box of CoRo at? Looks like the world price is about $1400 right now. 

Was just sent this pic of the new Regios price. Was $150. That's a 39% increase...yikes. 

[Bijan]

8 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

What's a box of CoRo at? Looks like the world price is about $1400 right now. 

reported in the price homogenization thread:

Edit: Canada and UK in the $1400s

 

 

[winelover]

20 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

What's a box of CoRo at? Looks like the world price is about $1400 right now. 

No idea because I would never buy a box. I do look at the price of individual sticks and trinis and cohibas are mostlty in the £40s, £50s and £60s. I think I saw a Siglo VI yesterday for around £60 / £65. Also saw wider RG Trinis in the £40s which these days seems to be reasonable value if we adjust to the new price point.

In December last year I managed to get 3 CoRo from a UK airport duty free for about £80 which was good value I think. They were nice sticks and the last box.

[jhalischuk]

4 hours ago, Bijan said:

reported in the price homogenization thread:

Edit: Canada and UK in the $1400s

 

 

Saw some coros going for $92 per in Toronto, so $2300 a box. They had Hoyo Gran Reserva for $250 each!

[Bijan]

Just now, jhalischuk said:

Saw some coros going for $92 per in Toronto, so $2300 a box. They had Hoyo Gran Reserva for $250 each! 

USD or CAD? Also if it's regular retail, list price generally doesn't include 13% sales tax...

The Gran Reserva seems like going rate 😂 and also 🤯

Also was it plain packaged? I would be suspicious of anyone who still claims to have officially sourced non plain packaged Cohiba in Canada.

[jhalischuk]

5 hours ago, Bijan said:

USD or CAD? Also if it's regular retail, list price generally doesn't include 13% sales tax...

The Gran Reserva seems like going rate 😂 and also 🤯

Also was it plain packaged? I would be suspicious of anyone who still claims to have officially sourced non plain packaged Cohiba in Canada.

CAD and yeah that's not including tax. I can't remember if it was plain packaged. I think it was but I'm not 100%. 

I was at a shop on the native reserve today, they had a couple siglo 1s and panetelas, along with a few other Cubans that weren't plain packaged. Majority of their non Cuban stuff was plain packaged though. Not sure what applies there and what doesn't.

[Bijan]

18 minutes ago, jhalischuk said:

CAD and yeah that's not including tax. I can't remember if it was plain packaged. I think it was but I'm not 100%. 

So that's something like $1780 USD without sales tax, about $2,000 USD with sales tax for a box.

If they got them at the same rate as that, native stores would be around $1300-$1400 (edit: when or if they can get stock again).

18 minutes ago, jhalischuk said:

I was at a shop on the native reserve today, they had a couple siglo 1s and panetelas, along with a few other Cubans that weren't plain packaged. Majority of their non Cuban stuff was plain packaged though. Not sure what applies there and what doesn't. 

Non-plain packaged would be anything pre 2021 or thereabouts. Stores were supposed to sell all that by May/June 2021 but no one cares. But obviously they can't important non-plain packaged through official channels anymore.

However I could see stores being tempted to bypass official channels and get non-plain packaged. Well at least before the price increases.

[Chas.Alpha]

I think the bit that confuses me the most is if tourism is important to Cuba, why Jack the prices up to the same levels that I can get them elsewhere? While I did enjoy the island, it’s culture and their music, if it wasn’t for the opportunity to bring home some inexpensive boxes, I don’t know if I would have gone more than once.

[Bijan]

1 minute ago, Chas.Alpha said:

I think the bit that confuses me the most is if tourism is important to Cuba, why Jack the prices up to the same levels that I can get them elsewhere? While I did enjoy the island, it’s culture and their music, if it wasn’t for the opportunity to bring home some inexpensive boxes, I don’t know if I would have gone more than once.

I think that made sense when cigars were readily available without a scavenger hunt.

Now there are so many people hoovering up boatloads of boxes that you can't get fundadores without tight connections and forget about Cohibas or Sir Winstons.

[Chas.Alpha]

Just now, Bijan said:

I think that made sense when cigars were readily available without a scavenger hunt.

Now there are so many people hoovering up boatloads of boxes that you can't get fundadores without tight connections and forget about Cohibas or Sir Winstons.

I think I shared my “Biggest cigar regret of a lifetime” story with you. At the LCDH Melia Libre hotel, I asked if they had Fundadores and the answer was a sly smile and a “no.” After tossing back my usual 7-8 beers and tipping American ($2 CUC beer, 1 CUC tip) the nice gentleman went to the room kattycorner from the walk in humi with 2 boxes of them! He said “do you want them both?” I said no, only one... 😔 ARS 19’s, absolutely smashing! Best fundies I’ve ever had! 
Had I been an FOH before that last trip, my buying strategy would have been vastly different i.e. I never would have bought RASS, Epi 2, Monte 1 etc. Those pesos would have been better spent on big game hunting!

[HDGSN]

1 hour ago, Chas.Alpha said:

I think I shared my “Biggest cigar regret of a lifetime” story with you. At the LCDH Melia Libre hotel, I asked if they had Fundadores and the answer was a sly smile and a “no.” After tossing back my usual 7-8 beers and tipping American ($2 CUC beer, 1 CUC tip) the nice gentleman went to the room kattycorner from the walk in humi with 2 boxes of them! He said “do you want them both?” I said no, only one... 😔 ARS 19’s, absolutely smashing! Best fundies I’ve ever had! 
Had I been an FOH before that last trip, my buying strategy would have been vastly different i.e. I never would have bought RASS, Epi 2, Monte 1 etc. Those pesos would have been better spent on big game hunting!

Had something similar with HUSWs at the Nacional but with running out of cash because they werent there the day before.

[LordAnubis]

My top coulda shoulda woulda moment was in a high end hotel in London. Walekd into the humidor and there were HUpmann Number 2 Reservas there that were just released. There was no price, but a label with the name. So i asked the lady how much they were. She picks up the menu, and says "Yes HUpmann Number 2... thats 22 pounds" 😂 I politely told her that is absolutely not the price and to find out what the price was before any are sold. Think it ended up being about 60 pounds or so.

[NSXCIGAR]

7 hours ago, Bijan said:

I think that made sense when cigars were readily available without a scavenger hunt.

Now there are so many people hoovering up boatloads of boxes that you can't get fundadores without tight connections and forget about Cohibas or Sir Winstons.

The problem is there's nothing in Cuba either (or should I say especially). Fine, have a 15% discount if you could get SW or Esplendidos but you can't. No one's going to Cuba to buy $1,400 CoRo at $1,250. People look at percentage of savings as well as total saved. Historically the island discount was about 40%. 15% ain't gonna cut it. 

I can tell you that the Cubans are very concerned about this. They understand high prices there means disaster for cigar tourism. 

[Bijan]

5 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I can tell you that the Cubans are very concerned about this. They understand high prices there means disaster for cigar tourism. 

I agree. But too low prices mean that anything allocated to Cuba gets bought up by what are essentially "paid agents" before normal cigar tourists have a chance.

(Don't remember who it was that described people arriving and buying essentially mastercases of Cohiba at a time).

 

5 hours ago, NSXCIGAR said:

The problem is there's nothing in Cuba either (or should I say especially). Fine, have a 15% discount if you could get SW or Esplendidos but you can't. No one's going to Cuba to buy $1,400 CoRo at $1,250. People look at percentage of savings as well as total saved. Historically the island discount was about 40%. 15% ain't gonna cut it. 

Part of the reason there's isn't anything was the discount ratio increased, as demand went up (international prices were driven up by demand, Cuba prices lagged before the recent price increases).

I went to Cuba often 2007-2014 (ish). And while I didn't buy too much supply was good everywhere.

I think the logical solution (though  not one we will like necessarily) is to limit the boxes per tourist. Obviously enforcing that directly would be unpleasant for tourists.

But i think an alternative would be to sell at inflated prices but offer a discount/cash back on leaving the island on X boxes per person.

edit: essentially this whole price homogenization is Habanos SA's realization that some number of cigars do sell at duty paid prices in some of the high duty countries. So HSA thinks to sell close to those prices duty free and "pocket" the duties.

And therefore the idea above would be Cuba's version of duty free "allowances" for tourists.

[Edicion]

Haven't read the full thread so apologies if this may be a duplicate but the new prices hit Italy yesterday. The prices increased from approx USD 18 for a Trinidad Vigia to USD 55. CORO went from 34 to 76.

One shop owner told me that they didn't expect to sell any of these brands at those prices and that the distributor would come and pick up all the cigars later this year that were unsold. I don't know if those were/are official instructions or just what they believe will happen, because the cigars would otherwise just sit unsold for a long time. Just speculation but maybe all unsold cigars will be shipped off to UK/ME/HK eventually.

[Bijan]

18 minutes ago, Edicion said:

Just speculation but maybe all unsold cigars will be shipped off to UK/ME/HK eventually.

That would not be the best situation for Habanos.

They'd want to move them to somewhere where they would sell but duties would be low, to get the most money for themselves and the least money to the local government in duties. (the main goal of this price mess)

[NSXCIGAR]

On 6/16/2022 at 12:31 PM, Edicion said:

Just speculation but maybe all unsold cigars will be shipped off to UK/ME/HK eventually.

Cohiba and Trini are all over the gray market right now. The "shortage" is over and I expect these will not move at these higher prices. If $600 CoRo wasn't moving in the gray markets $1,400 CoRo certainly won't move. 

The bigger issue for HSA is the only way they get distributors to take low-end garbage like Romeo tubos is when they want Cohiba and Trini. If HSA can't move the low-end product they are in serious trouble. Not going to be easy to hold SLR Regios or Mag 46 hostage to get them to take the crap. 

I truly believe we're going to see prices gradually drop on Cohiba and Trini for years until some equilibrium is reached. 

[GoodStix]

2 minutes ago, NSXCIGAR said:

I truly believe we're going to see prices gradually drop on Cohiba and Trini for years until some equilibrium is reached. 

I so hope you’re right 🙂