I searched forum but if this was posted already please close.

Oliva pulled Mike's Cigars account after two warnings to sell the Oliva lines closer to msrp. The third strike came when Oliva Sr. was looking through a mikes catalog and saw an Oliva sampler at half msrp. So they pulled the $500,000.00 account.

I can respect them looking out for local b&m's not being run out of business by the internet giants.
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thats awesome. can i give them RG?
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Wow. They ain't playin' around.


How does something like that work? Does Oliva pull all the stock that Mike's has or just stop selling to them?
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Who is Mikes Cigars?
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Just stop selling to them. They can't pull stock that has already been paid for. As a retailer, you have to sign a contract saying you will not do this type thing or the account could be pulled. However, there are other distributors that you can get cigars from but it will cost a little bit more.
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Whom? Mike's Cigars or Oliva?

"THAT'S AWESOME" ????? Yeah, if you're a retailer.

If you could find smokes for close to 1/2 the MSRP wouldn't you think it's AWESOME?
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Really, If I can get my V's at 1/2 price then that's a good deal for me. I'm not all that concerned with the B&M's
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www.mikescigars.com
Posted via Mobile Device
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That's very selfish of you.

I, for one, am glad this can happen because it helps protect my job.
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I do think that manufacturers have the right to protect their brand. If one place sells WAY cheap it devalues their line. Also, I'm sure there was a contractual price when Mike's started carrying the Oliva line.

Chalk this up as a win for B&Ms everywhere. I don't mind paying more for smokes; this is a luxury. I don't NEED cigars; I choose to smoke them.
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The B&Ms got two warnings and should have known better, but it’s a loss for the consumer
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I don't see anything close to half msrp on their site... :-)
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This is really similar to how the golf industry operates. Some of the big OEMs, like Ping, are notorious for using "secret shoppers" to check for accounts selling below MSRP.
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I think he is talking about this..

https://www.mikescigars.com/ProductD...-SAMPLER/29260
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Now that makes more sense.
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It's not unique to the cigar industry. Apple has always done this.
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Very interesting :-)
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Nice review.
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Good deal too!
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I'm of mixed opinions about this, mostly because I've only got a limited amount of information. As far as I can tell, that sampler is the only thing that's being sold so far below MSRP.

Any retail knowledgeable person will tell you that brand recognition is a major player in sales. Many retailers (whatever the product is) sell a certain item of a name brand as a "loss leader" to attract other sales. If I like the cigars in this sampler, I'm very apt to buy more of those cigars, probably at the full price. So it's very possible that MikesCigars was using that sampler to boost Oliva sales. Why they didn't simply make arrangement to do this with Oliva, I'm not sure.

I can also see Oliva's point of view trying to protect the brand, but there are other ways of getting around that problem, so I don't see why there's a need to pull the account. Raise your price to the supplier, and let them sell the item for no profit or a loss. Limit the available stock to them.




I'm wondering what other information we aren't privy to, because a half million dollar a year account is a LOT of money for a business to simply throw aside, even a multi-million dollar outfit like Oliva can't afford to go killing accounts left and right. "A penny here, nickle there, and soon you've lost a whole dollar" as the saying goes.
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