Support B&M Stores

[anotherbob]

Don’t get me wrong anyone I think SPC is great, but I sometimes wonder if their volume of products and pricing, local B&M can’t compete, and it will eventually drive them out of business, not to forget the ease of online shopping too, no more gas, car wear & tear, driving, traffic, etc.

L.J. Peretti was the last great tobacco B&M I stepped into, amazing store, one that everyone should visit some day.

Hmm ?

L.J. Peretti / Est. 1870 / Boston, MA

L.J. Peretti, established in 1870 in Boston, carries a wide assortment of cigars, pipes, and imported and custom blended tobacco.

www.ljperetti.com

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that is a beautiful sight. Except the happy guy standing in the way of the tins. He's fine just in the way. Cool apron though.
Personally I buy what my local store stocks there. Everything else I order which basically means Ashton and Peterson. And the reason so I have a place to get stuff when the internet sales stop. One thing I have learned about shops is often they can order more then they stock if you agree to buy a certain amount of it.

 

[anotherbob]

As long as tobacco sales are not required to be "face to face". Once that happens it's B&Ms or nada. As for selection, if your burg's tobacco ship doesn't stock much try asking the proprietor to order some blends for you. Money is money. If a businessman sees more opportunities for profit he'll oblige you.

Yeah, it's going to cost more. Boo hoo.

Cellaring is excellent advice, but not everyone has the funds to buy large amounts at a time.

we really get so much more for our buck even at local shop prices then other tobacco users do. I have a few years worth of stock at the rate I smoke and I've spent about my monthly snus budget on it. Like tea pipes are an affordable luxury.

 

[OneGoodBulldog]

I'd love to, unfortunately I live in Canada so each purchase is money in Justin Trudeau's fancy Laurentian pocket, and the majority of shops seem to be staffed with pretentious twats. Like, yeah Grandad you just take the hobby to your grave along with your failing business. Cheers. It's not like I walked in here ready to drop cash on your counter or anything... Not like "your" hobby is under direct attack from people who can just pick up a pen and write laws or anything...

 

[OneGoodBulldog]

I should add that I feel much the same way about tattoo artists. It's not just tobacconists!

 

[captainsousie]

My two B&Ms that are in any way worthwhile are 3 hours south and 5 hours north one way respectively not counting weather or traffic. It sounds nice to support them but the reality is that spending a whole day's travel and the gas that goes along with are not things I can do regularly.

I do have a few pounds in the cellar so I will order when I can and will visit the B&M when I can. Otherwise, the travel is not a luxury I can indulge in.

 

[ChuckMijo]

I stop by mine almost every Friday to pick up a tin or 2 for the week. I like supporting a small local business. They know me when I walk through the door, and almost always get a free pack of pipe cleaners. A tin cost about 3 bucks more then online . 3 bucks to me doesn’t matter. I also pick up butane, which the always offer to fill my lighter. It’s nice.

 

[oldgeezersmoker]

Once that happens it's B&Ms or nada.

Traditional B&M’s don’t stand a chance. The only pipe tobacco that will survive a face to face requirement are blends that can be pushed out through c-stores, hookah and head stores, an, in this part of the country, the ubiquitous discount beer, cigarette and “pipe tobacco you can roll cigarettes from” stores. Through a subsidiary,

Kretek is having a LasVegas trade show right now for this channel. Little space will be given to pipe tobacco, but some will.

The Premium Cigar Association, which the traditional B&M’s belong to, hasn’t had a show since 2019. A large # of Cigar manufacturers quit even before Covid. And they took pipes out of their name before that.

I expect to see flocks of Passenger Pigeons before there is any resurgence of B&M’s with decent pipe and pipe tobacco selections.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

I have no sympathy for stores that close due to online competition.

100% of Retail should be accessible online, there is no reason not to.

 

[peregrinus]

To see the seismic changes that have occurred in retail exclusively through the lens of pipe smoking is myopic.
Really, who gives a fig about a handful of pipe smoking retro misfits? Not the general public, who have moved on and not only abandoned small scale, narrow focus retail but even the enormous, expensive shopping mall retail palaces in favor of their own easy chairs.
The entire retail world has been forever changed by the advent of smartphone shopping and with consumer values and the drivers of retail success being radically redefined, there is no going back.

The remaining brick and mortar stores are dead men walking.

Nothing in this post is true but it is exactly how things are.

 

[americaman]

I told a local B&M on their Instagram that they should ship because it’s legal to do so and they would get more sales. People were asking, but the owner is scared of the legality of it. So they blocked me.

It’s funny because they know me and they’re nice to me in person, but whoever runs their social media should have better manners if they want to keep up business. I doubt whoever blocked me knew who I was, but I could have been a new customer, and they could have lost that new customer.

 

[Delant_Sotsan]

Nice Score! Which one would you prefer from both of them?
I currently have both and have not made up my mind to smoke first.

 

[Chasing Embers]

Nice Score! Which one would you prefer from both of them?
I currently have both and have not made up my mind to smoke first.

Depends on whether you like an English or a treacle aromatic.

 

[Delant_Sotsan]

Depends on whether you like an English or a treacle aromatic.

I've only tried Boswell (English) , and Country Squire Middle-Earth blends. My favorites so far are Northwoods & Rivendell.

 

[jrharrigan]

The last B&M I walked into was selling 2 oz. Pease tins for $24. They always say I should support the local shops, but the local shops need also to support me, and a more than 100% markup doesn't. I have bills to pay too.

 

[frozenchurchwarden]

The ironic thing is I've seen plenty of examples of stores that maintain and even expand walk-in retail space because the store is mostly run online.
The idea that online retail means the death of in-person shopping is totally unfounded.

 

[cohibajoe]

I would support local B&M but nothing but Vape shops in Central NJ. There is a small Cigar/Pipe shop in Somerville but more on Cigars.

 

[telescopes]

The last B&M I walked into was selling 2 oz. Pease tins for $24. They always say I should support the local shops, but the local shops need also to support me, and a more than 100% markup doesn't. I have bills to pay too.

There lies the problem. They are not warehouses so their overhead is much higher. I agree with others on this forum that once the B&Ms are gone, internet sales will end and it will be over.

On the other hand, look at ammunition. People WILL pay whatever price it is selling. A B&M that has ammo can charge whatever price they want to. Their shelves will soon be empty. When internet sales are over, any remaining B&Ms will be able to do likewise. The problem is that unlike ammo shops, I doubt there will be any B&Ms left standing.

 

[burleybreath]

I visit the Rez for OTCs. Does that count as a B&M? I'd buy from the Mafia off the back of a truck in an alley if I had to. Any objecting cop or legislator reading this, GFY. Rochester NY has, I think, two shops that might qualify as half-assed pipe shops, with cigars dominant. Maybe only one. It's been a long while since my last visit. New York has a 75% of wholesale price tax, plus the $2.833 federal excise tax per pound. That's pretty much what kills B&Ms around here, to add to the easy price comparisons online. The power to tax is the power to ream.

 

[cigrmaster]

When I moved to Florida in 2003 I was maybe 12 miles from a great tobacco store that had been in business for over 50 years. These guys had pipes and cigars and both were well stocked. I could walk in and buy a tin of Penzance for about 5 bucks and it was always in stock.

In 2008 or 9 the state put in an 85% pipe tobacco tax and a zero percent tax on cigars. It ruined this guys pipe tobacco business and it was a good thing, they had a good cigar business or they would have gone out of business. The place is called Benningtons and the place has little pipe tobacco on the shelves.

The only people who buy it are tourists from Europe and Canada and other high priced tobacco countries. Once they put the tax in I never bought tobacco there ever again. I was strictly an online tobacco buyer. I did buy a couple of lighters, bought the P&T magazine and gave him any repair business I had. It really sucked and I haven't gone in there in years now. No it wasn't the D's who did this but by the R's who were in the pocket of big tobacco.

They wanted to get rid of roll your own and they did it just fine as those stores went out of business almost over night. The pipe tobacco lobby is weak and the cigar lobby is real strong. Pipe tobacco mfgs need to get the same lobbyists as the cigar guys have. Please just keep this to pipes and tobacco as this is not a political statement.

 

[PipeIT]

Nothing in this post is true but it is exactly how things are.

Your post or everyone else’s?

The Retail Store industry changed because it’s called Amazon, then eBay, then eCommerce spread out all around the world, causing eCommerce growth, small businesses and big business eventually having online shopping.

eCommerce killed Retail Stores.