This was a really tough decision. BOTL members have been great to us and your business is very much appreciated.
Our intent was to let our customers buy singles at the box price so they could inexpensively try them out and then, hopefully, come back to buy the 5-pack or the box. Instead, we became the "virtual" B&M: you know, you go to your local B&M, and try a cigar. If you like it, you wait for a deal online to purchase a 5-pack or a box. I get it. We all want to save on our purchases. I really didn't mind processing the 1, 2 and 3 cigar orders at a loss in the hopes of the next larger order once we proved ourselves, but it just didn't happen often enough (not just BOTL members, by the way). This is all on Puro Cigar, by the way, since we decided to take the risk. An offer is an offer and we fulfilled each and every order, regardless of the size. Only exception to this was one customer that decided to order one cigar every other day so he could get the free 8gm Boveda packs. Very creative, and again, on us since we made the offer. That resulted in the 5 cigar minimum to have your order Boveda packed.
After six months as a BOTL sponsor, and even more importantly as a member, I see the purchases when there is a 20-40% off deal at other online suppliers. At Puro Cigar, we established such a low baseline price (box, 5-pack & single) and topped it off with a BOTL 15% discount that most of the time our discounted price still beat the 20-30% deals. Unfortunately, most customers didn't seem to realize that but instead jumped on the percentage discount deals without comparing them to our everyday prices. Some of you have noticed that other online retailers have raised their everyday prices. This gives them the ability to offer a bigger discount percentage that we cannot do because of our extremely low prices.
There was a post in the Official Cigar Deals Thread over a week ago for a "big" discount. I compared our prices to the deal, and our regular price beat all but one of the offered cigars, and that was BEFORE the BOTL 15% discount. I can only assume that I have failed in getting the message across.
Maybe I'm being too transparent here, but I believe in full disclosure with our customers. I apologize for the lengthy story and the necessity to discontinue singles. I will try and make up for this by putting more line samplers together.
Rob
