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[FEATURE STORY]
Local Custom
Personalized products help set you apart
By Kris Verhage
Courtesy of Signature Stogies |
In today’s marketplace, the consumer is faced with many choices when purchasing a product, whether it’s a car or a meal, a pair of jeans or even a cigar.
Do you go with the SUV or the hybrid? Two-door or four-door?
Do you want to super-size it or do you prefer smaller portions? Do you want fries with that?
Do you want skinny jeans or do you like the classic fit? Boot cut or flared?
Do you like cigars made in the Dominican Republic or in the United States? Montecristo or Romeo y Julieta?
You get the idea.
Besides quality and cost, how do you get your product to stand out on store shelves, in humidors or on the Web? Some in the industry say customizing your products or offering private labels is the way to go. These days, cigar labels, cigar accessories and the cigars themselves can be tailored to meet an individual’s or business’s needs. They can feature the classic monogram, announce the birth of a baby, advertise a business or commemorate an event. Customized cigars also can help build customer loyalty and ward off counterfeiters.
By offering customized products and private labels, retailers and other businesses are giving their customers another avenue in which to express themselves, a reflection of their taste and lifestyle.
“We live in an age where everything is customized,” says Dennis Briganti, president of New York City-based CF Dominicana Cigars. “Your cell phone can have custom ring tones. When you get in your car, it knows who you are.”
The Personal Touch
CF Dominicana, founded by Briganti in 2001, aims to set itself apart from the rest by providing custom cigar bands without sacrificing the quality of the cigar, which is made in New York City and Miami. Its tobacco is imported from the Dominican Republic.
Courtesy of Signature Stogies |
“The bands are a novelty, but the cigars are not,” Briganti says.
Through CF’s recently created wholesale division, retailers can sell a premium cigar and, at the same time, offer customers a product and service that can help set their business apart—monogrammed bands.
Free with the purchase of CF Dominicana cigars, your customers can have the bands custom made to feature their initials or, if giving a gift, the initials of the recipient, Briganti says.
“The stores will have ammunition when customers come into the stores,” he says, adding that through the bands they can reach not just regular customers, but gift-givers.
CF Dominicana also can provide more elaborate cigar bands advertising businesses and commemorating events such as birthdays, bachelor parties, weddings and births.
“The personalization is really over the top,” Briganti says.
The more elaborate bands cost $50 plus the purchase of CF Dominicana cigars. Graphic designers, college interns who are supervised by an in-house graphic designer, work with the customer to create the bands, Briganti says. The customer can review the artwork by going to www.cfcigars.com and entering a code. The client can e-mail revisions to CF Dominicana, which in turn sends them on to the designer.
For example, a father-to-be who knows the baby’s sex and has a name picked out can order cigars and custom bands before the birth and approve the initial artwork, Briganti says. Once the baby is born, the proud papa can complete his order by e-mailing the company details such as the time and date of birth and the baby’s length and weight. Those details then are added to the labels. Orders arrive four to five days after purchase, he adds.
CF Dominicana might one day offer personalized cigar accessories in addition to its cigars, custom cigar bands, cigar-rolling demonstration events and supplying cigars as props to television shows such as “The Sopranos” and “24,” Briganti says.
Courtesy of CF Dominicana Cigars |
“The cigars...should always be the pinnacle,” he adds. “In the future, I don’t see why (personalized cigar accessories) can’t be done.”
Not only does Signature Stogies in DeLand, Fla., engrave humidors and other accessories, it will engrave the cigar itself. Signature Stogies uses a laser to engrave logos, text and graphics onto a cigar’s surface without ruining the cigar’s quality.
CEO Sidney Taylor says his former employers, the family that previously owned Signature Stogies, developed the engraving technique a few years ago. Taylor and his wife, Amy, bought the company, its assets and the laser-engraving patents in 2005.
Signature Stogies does business with both individuals and companies through its Web site, www.signaturestogies.com.
“I get a lot of calls for weddings, corporate brandings,” he adds.
Taylor says he sees numerous opportunities in customizing the cigars. Customers have the cigar’s entire length on which to print a message, logo or graphic, he says. Custom bands or rings are “hard to read,” he adds.
Engraved cigars stick out in tobacco stores, Taylor says.
“It really stands out in a humidor,” he adds. “Everything else looks the same. But then there’s this box with cigars that say ‘Joe’s Cigar Store.’ They’ll really stand out.”
Also, the engraving’s “complex design” helps deter counterfeiters of higher-end and Cuban brands, Taylor says.
“Anyone can buy a 25-cent cigar and slap a $7 label on it,” he says. “Anyone with a color printer can make a label.”
A would-be counterfeiter would have to get a laser and learn how to use it in order to copy Signature Stogies, Taylor asserts. Also, a label can be peeled off; removing the engraved cigar’s wrapper would damage the cigar’s integrity, he says.
In addition, it’s possible to engrave “born-on” dates on cigars, he says.
“Some people store and collect cigars almost like they were wine,” Taylor adds.
Taylor has just begun offering statewide licenses of his engraving technique to cigar distributors and retailers whose employees could then engrave cigars themselves. The license-holder would have exclusive rights and would provide all engraving in the state for both retail and wholesale customers. That means that even if a customer contacts Taylor directly, the customer will be referred to the licensee for his or her state.
“It makes for better distribution and setup so they don’t have to send me their cigars,” he says.
Currently, customers can either purchase a house brand or VS Legacy from Signature Stogies or send them their cigars to be engraved by Taylor, his wife and a couple part-timers. He’ll occasionally outsource to a group if there are a lot of orders to be filled immediately. The engraved cigars then are shipped back to the customer.
At retail, cigars range in price from $100 to $160. It costs $2 per cigar to engrave cigars sent in by customers, and there is a $10 setup fee for orders less than five boxes and a $25 setup fee for custom designs. Retailers are given a wholesale discount.
Taylor also would like to engrave and sell his cigars at events such as the Daytona Beach Bike Week or the Kentucky Derby. He’d only need his laser and a laptop computer to create cigars revelers can smoke right away or take home as a souvenir. The lowest-end laser can engrave 25 cigars in seven minutes, he says.
Courtesy of Signature Stogies |
Get your name out there
Among Denver-based Great White Bottling, Inc.’s products are “custom” products even a small retailer can afford—a humidor solution and highly effective smoke eliminator they can label with a shop’s name, address and other pertinent information.
About 13 years ago, Great White President Steve Visser created a custom formulation for small, independent companies that couldn’t afford private labeling. “They’d love to be able to put their name on a product,” he says.
A year ago, he invested $100,000 in digital printing and die-cutting to offer short-run production at an affordable price.
“Having your name on a product...it creates a bit of customer loyalty,” Visser says. He also notes it could be the key to more sales. If a customer purchases Great White Bottling’s humidor solution or air freshener from a tobacco store, its label will contain the store’s information.
“They’ll think of the store and think, ‘Oh, do I need to go back there and get more solution?’” he says, adding that when the customer returns to the store for more solution, he or she might pick up some cigars as well.
A case of 24 12-ounce bottles of humidor solution is $96, with a two-case minimum order. A case of 24 4-ounce bottles of smoke eliminator, a fragrance-free spray that decimates smoke and other odors, costs $60. A two-case minimum is required. There is a one-time art setup fee of $75, which allows the business to e-mail Great White its name, artwork or logo. Both products have free shipping.
In addition to cigar and tobacco products, Great White offers household cleaners, commercial cleaning products, massage products and more.
Great White also has a new product on the way. By April or May, it plans to introduce privately labeled jars of humidification gel for humidors, Visser says.
Private labels can help boost a tobacco retailer’s identity.
“There’s a vanity part to it, but there’s a bit of pride at having a product with your name on it,” Visser says. |
