I think the thread ran its course. Continue with the derail as desired.
Latest Pipes & Cigars Debacle
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Well, that, and there have been others over the years.
I’d say 60-70% of the time they get it right.
But when they blow it, the onus is on the consumer to get it straightened out. Their customer service staff doesn’t seem to take the initiative.
Perhaps it’s the structure being imposed by the parent company, CI. Nobody seems to be empowered to make their own decisions. And as far as shipping, there seems to be a disconnect with order fulfillment. I’ve received orders with wrong item, or missing items numerous times. Definitely a problem somewhere in that hierarchy...
I’ve had a couple issues with orders, and they have always been straightened out, usually with a replacement being shipped free and me keeping the damaged product. There have even been a couple issues that were my fault, with order additions, or a time where I accidentally removed an item, which made a coupon invalid, where they took care of me after I called and explained it. I’m a fan.
Actually the parent is Scandinavian Tobacco Group. They run multiple retail operations such as Cigars International, Cigars.Com, Thompson’s, etc. off essentially the same two pieces of software which don’t play well together. A few years back, they had to take a hit to earnings because of their US fulfillment problems, which was in their annual or quarterly report. When you deal with P&C, you are not dealing with a mom and pop. Even Smoking Pipes, which looks like a giant to most of us, is a small fish compared to STG as a whole. And yes, Amazon, which gets a lot of my business, for one, has proven that it is possible for large players to provide much better customer service than P&C delivers. But two years ago I had a major - to me- issue with Amazon that took almost two months to resolve in my favor. That took more of my time cumulatively than I have spent dealing with P&C on any one issue. I still use Amazon.
I guess somebody up there likes me, because I've not had any serious issues with P&C orders. There was a two week delay on one order a couple of years ago when they went through all that merry hell after installing a new tracking software. That's a minor inconvenience, not a tragedy, like being bankrupted by needing a life saving medical procedure.
I've had one shipment where they got one blend wrong and I sent it back for a credit. Nobody is perfect, not even me.
One order where a backordered blend never arrived. I just bought it from SP instead.
Their packing is poor, but nobody does a great job of packing. No dented tins.
Other than that, every order over the years has come through without issues.
I've had one shipment where they got one blend wrong and I sent it back for a credit. Nobody is perfect, not even me.
One order where a backordered blend never arrived. I just bought it from SP instead.
Their packing is poor, but nobody does a great job of packing. No dented tins.
Other than that, every order over the years has come through without issues.
I had exactly the same problem with Russ O's birthday blend . When I telephoned to investigate, they said it was just a mix up with MR labels on the bags. And no $10 coupon for me.
It’ll probably never happen but I’d love to see the raw data from the vendor side for the larger outlets as to percentage of messed up orders. I’d be surprised if they didn’t track that.
For that matter I’m curious about the total number of orders each of them process in a year.
For that matter I’m curious about the total number of orders each of them process in a year.
Going strictly from the order numbers in my SP.com history, it looks like they’ve had 140,000 orders in the last nine months and change. And that’s not including a Christmas season.
If that’s right, pipery is a far bigger business than I thought.
Well, actually the Parent of CI is now Swedish Match AB. I don't know the org chart of the holdings that were under CI as a result. Probably the same...
Yes, I'm sure they do track that, and no, they would never share such information publicly...
No. From Wikipedia:
“In 2010, Swedish Match and Scandinavian Tobacco Group (STG) formed a new company specialized in cigars. Swedish Match brought its entire cigar business (with the exception of U.S. mass market cigars) and pipe tobacco into the new company, while STG transferred all of its tobacco business. The new company took over the name Scandinavian Tobacco Group. Swedish Match became a partner with 49 percent of the company, and the remaining shares were owned by Skandinavisk Holding A/S. In 2016, STG became publicly listed, and Swedish Match sold most of its shares in the company.”
They have some pretty killer deals, and my orders have mostly been fine. Their website is such a nightmare that even when there are good deals I mostly skip it.
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