Hello everyone! I hope you all had an amazing Christmas! Mine was certainly Turkey filled, with a few drams of whisky too.
On Monday, it was certainly a catch up of online orders! Marcus and I had a big stack of orders to pick. As always we didn’t panic and we picked them at an extremely fast rate! Meanwhile, I served a lovely gentleman who wanted to get his son some cigars for his birthday! He specified that it had to be tubed cigars and specified a Charatan. I suggested the Charatan Churchill Tubed, as it was a birthday present it should always be something special. I then suggested the Gurkha Royal Challenge Toro Tubed – Gurkha make some fantastic cigars and I would say the Royal Challenge range is one of the best. The gentleman left very happy.
On Tuesday, I spent a lot of my time organising March’s cigar subscriptions. I can’t believe I’m looking into March already! But I will say these subscriptions are incredible! The amount of money you will save is brilliant! You may have noticed that I haven’t added an article onto the C.Gars Cigar Library for a little while – This is for two reasons – 1. We have been incredibly busy with Christmas and New Year, to the point where I couldn’t sit down for 5 minutes! And 2. We are changing the style of the Cigar Library! I will be working with an SEO specialist who knows how to get our website to number 1 on Google and so I will work with them to see how I can improve the articles so they come up before any other website.
On Thursday, I spent my morning training another newer member of staff how to pick orders! Scarlett has been with us for around 4 months now and she has been exceptional at packing online orders as well as booking them on the Royal Mail system. But now was a new challenge, to learn your way around our humidors can be a difficult task but she did a brilliant job. I was very proud of her. Meanwhile I served two gentlemen who had travelled all the way from Hull! They wanted to stock up their humidors and spent a good amount of time going around our humidors and then left with a brilliant mix of Cuban and New World Cigars – One gentleman was particularly excited to try the Ramon Allones Edicion Limitada 2024 Absolutos and who can blame him! In the afternoon, I had another management training, it was all about communication and how to motivate your team to complete tasks that have been set out.
On Friday, I was continuing my work on the cigar subscriptions. I also served a regular gentleman who purchased a lot of pipe accessories, and many different pipe tobaccos. Luckily, I had Will to help me out by collecting all of the products for him. In the afternoon, I completed the Cuban stock count – I had recently been pushing this onto other members of staff as it is a great way to build up their skillset.
On Saturday, I was joined by Marcus and Sarah. Together we picked, packed and booked on as many orders as we could. I served a regular who likes the shorter and thicker cigars. I suggested the Oliva Orchant Seleccion Chubby – It is smooth, nutty and a bit peppery – A great combination.
Now I have some sad news – The Norfolk retail shop will be closing towards the end of the month. We don’t yet have a confirmed final date, but as soon as this is known, I will let you know.
Moving forward, we’re excited to be transitioning into a full-time mail order warehouse, allowing us to focus on improving our online service and nationwide delivery.
The good news is that we’ll still be offering a click & collect option, so you can continue to place your order through our website and collect it directly from the Norfolk location.
We’re incredibly grateful for the support shown to us at the shop and look forward to serving you in this new way.
I hope to see you all very soon.
So long for now.
Oliver