What tinned tobacco should my shop sell?

[brocha]

My local pipe and tobacco shop mostly sells cigars, but over the past couple of years have been selling a lot more pipe tobacco. They mostly sell bulk tobacco and have just a couple of tinned tobaccos and said that they want to carry more tins but don't know what would sell. So I'm throwing this question out to these forums... If you had a shop and had to choose about a dozen different tins that you liked and thought would sell well, what would they be? Thanks.

 

[papaskittles]

Frog Morton

 

[pstlpkr]

Anything Samuel Gawith... Especially Grousemoor.

Then comes tobaccos like Mac Baren Vanilla Cream Flake, Escudo, Rattray's Hal O' the Wynd, Haddo's Delight... etc.

 

[gwynclan]

PENZANCE! !!!!!. Mcclellan sells very well at my local B&M. Blue mountain

 

[jah76]

I imagine they'd get better discounts from carrying specific brands over a hodge podge. I think Mac Baren would be a good solid choice. Its got variety from aros to some of the HH series and it seems like it would be a safe bet. I'm not that familiar with Peterson's line. After they have a base of tins they could order some specifics.
Or Escudo. Just order Escudo. Heh. Honestly I haven't tried that many tobaccos but I think you could do a lot worse then carrying Mac Baren's line as a base.

 

[undecagon]

G. L. Pease.

 

[cigrmaster]

Escudo is a must.

 

[captainsousie]

All McClelland, Samuel Gawith and G.L. Pease as well as a selection of MacBaren, Dunhill, Peterson and some good Stokkebye bulks.

 

[gwtwdbss]

They would probably do well to stock some Cornell & Diehl as well.

 

[judcole]

All McClelland,

That's an awfully lot of blends - probably well over 100. Very few places can afford to do that.
And the man said a dozen tins. Then grab some Dunhill and MacBaren, since they are pretty well known. Probably Dunhill EMP, 965, Flake, Nightcap, London, and Standard. Then MacBaren Mixture, and a few that the distributor might recommend as MacB blends that sell the most.

 

[crazypipe]

Go to smokingpipes.com and look at there lists. ::

 

[captainsousie]

The point about McClelland is well taken. They are my current favorite blender so I tend to go overboard when recommending them. 1-3 of their blends, probably a Frog or two, would be a great start.

 

[frennchy11]

I'm a fan of sutliff blends but I agree that Sam Gawith and Macbarrens. Both are fairly common tobaccos

 

[photoman13]

From a business standpoint based on popularity I would carry the following.

Esoterica Penzance

Frog Morton

Frog Morton On The Town

Frog Morton On The Bayou

Frog Morton Cellar

Samuel Gawith Squadron Leader

Hearth & Home Marquee Black House

Seattle Pipe Club Plum Pudding

Dan Tobacco's Blue Note

Dunhill Nightcap

Escudo

And Maybe G.L Pease JackKnife Plug for those nicotine addicts.

 

[taerin]

If I limited it to 12 differint kinds and they all had to be tinned, I would pick these for my shop personally. All of them will sell, I would not do Penzance because it is so hard to get a hold of, not worth the trouble. My list has a good amount of English, Aromatics, and Virginias; along with 3 being flakes.
1 McClelland's Frog Morton (regular only)

2 Samuel Gawith Squadron Leader

3-4 Dunhill's Nightcap (High Nic English), Early Morning Pipe (lighter version of Nightcap)

5 Orlik Golden Sliced

6-7 Hearth & Home Marquee Black House, Aniversary Kake

8-9 CAO Moontrance, Eileen's Dream (Gotta throw in some aromatics)

10 Sillem's Black (aromatic English)

11 Peter Stokkebye's Luxery Bullseye Flake

12 Peterson's Irish Flake (High Nic Flake)

 

[lordofthepiperings]

Dunhill- EMP, Nightcap, My Mixture 965, Dunhill Flake

Peterson- Limited Edition Blends, Old Dublin, Connoisseur's Choice, Nutty Cut, Sherlock Holmes

Mac Baren- Vanilla Cream, Plumcake, all of the 7 Seas Blends

Samuel Gawith- Full Virginia Flake, Grousemoore, Celtic Talisman

Gawith and Hoggarth- Ennerdale Flake and Bob's Chocolate Flake

McClelland- The Frog Morton Series, the Premium Aromatics Series, and Christmas Cheer

 

[tanless1]

G Pease and Sam Gawith

 

[gageploungin]

I think any MacBaren would be a solid choice.... great smoke and great value.

 

[cortezattic]

Like Rothnh said, there should be enough marketing info available to identify the most popular blends.

I think a good inventory should cover the major blend categories: straight Virginias, Virginia Flakes,

Virginia/Perique, Virginia/Burley, English, Balkan, Oriental, Burley Blends, Traditional American,

Lakeland Style (scented/unscented), aromatics, and maybe ropes and plugs. So that's about a dozen

categories from which the sales leaders could be chosen.

 

[judcole]

a good inventory should cover the major blend categories

Yes, a good inventory should; but this guy wants to start doing tins. How many distributors would he have to deal with to do that? I think you're liable to overwhelm him. Start small - 2 or 3 brands. See how that works. Let him stick his toe in the water, instead of throwing him in.

From a business standpoint based on popularity I would carry the following.

Esoterica Penzance

Frog Morton

Frog Morton On The Town

Frog Morton On The Bayou

Frog Morton Cellar

Samuel Gawith Squadron Leader

Hearth & Home Marquee Black House

Seattle Pipe Club Plum Pudding

Dan Tobacco's Blue Note

Dunhill Nightcap

Escudo

And Maybe G.L Pease JackKnife Plug for those nicotine addicts.

Respectfully - those are the hot blends here - on this forum. But that list is primarily crossover English and lat bombs. Get something for the pipe smoker who does not do forums and has only limited knowledge - or for a cigar smoker thinking about trying a pipe. Sell something that has some big name recognition among people who do not do pipe forums.