America's #1 Online Cigar Auction
first, best, biggest!

If so that is very disappointing.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but we are no longer auctioning Padron cigars. This is due to Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP). We are trying to negotiate the possibility of Quick Buy purchases only.

That's a bummer... you can't even use promotional discounts on Padrons... anywhere...

I like Padrons, but I like them at a somewhat reasonable price point.

Full retail on the better Padrons is kind of obnoxious especially because you can pretty much find them at any smoke shop you go to, online or brick and mortar.

I might just have to hoard what I got, and smoke them sparingly, lol.

Luckily I got quite a few.

Lol,sight unseen and the price for the ashtray is already$34

Uh,no thanks I saw the prices Cbid wants for Fuentes now

I'm okay with the Ashtons going away but MF and Tats...that's another story.

the other-other place still has them though

^this

Just a quick (serious) thought about this issue. Isn't MAP a form of price-fixing and isn't that illegal? Just asking!

Good idea but that didn't work too well with Cuban Cigars. There are just too many people willing to pay the freight, no matter how outrageous.

Why mess with cigars when a Padron ashtray is going for $61 !

Only if competing premiums say Fuente, Padron, and what's another brand thats set map? Got together and agreed none of them would price their products below $x. If they do it individually its fine.

It can become price-fixing when several competitors all set minimum pricing policies, working together to make sure retailers are not pricing products to consumers so that nobody is undercutting the other. Either by all agreeing on nothing below a certain $$ amount or certain % of MSRP, or some other formula that protects their profits.

A long time ago regulators went after Coke and Pepsi distrubutors for having minimum pricing and sale policies that made sure that both products were never on sale at the same time as well as what the minimum prices on each product would be. In effect, they set a base price on both products and then "took turns" as to which brand would be on sale.

This was the 80's though and regulators and courts were on a big anti-trust kick for a while. One famous decsion, when talking about WHY a company would try to get away with breaking the law in order to price fix, noted that about 250 years ago the Lord Chancellor of England said: "Did you ever expect a corporation to have a conscience, when it has no soul to be damned, and no body to be kicked?

It seems to me that still goes on but I guess they a bit more careful about how things are done now or perhaps the regulators don't care as much about soda...

Cigars would be harder to go after since they are, arguably, more differentiated products than cola. You would have to show that you basically have the same customers for, for example, AF's and Padrons and that those customers are not going to buy some other cigar if those prices are higher but they would switch between the two based on price, so creating complimentary MAP's do - in effect - "fix" the price on that product.



Here is an interesting article on "cooperative" sale pricing

http://mindyourdecisions.com/blog/2011/09/06/why-are-coke-and-pepsi-never-on-sale-at-the-same-time-an-answer-from-game-theory/#.VUjwWflVhHw


And here is one of the legal actions on Coke and Pepsi (with that famous quote)

http://www.leagle.com/decision/19881551695FSupp856_11433.xml/U.S.%20v.%20ALLEGHENY%20BOTTLING%20CO.

This goes back to my questions above.
What's an even more interesting question, is what percentage of net profits comes from shpos, versus online retail. There could be an 80/20, or 70/30 situation there, with respect to gross sales versus net profit.

Maybe they look at the auction phenomena, and as noted, there may be a perception that it "cheapens" the brand.
I think it's more than that.
I think they're finally figuring out, that there are now too many botl who refuse to pay $10-12 for a cigar from a shpo that is often available at auction for $5 or less.
It's not so much that they want to protect the shpo.................they just want to increase their margins from the online sector.

What you don't want an Opus X power ranger from here?Starting bid just $25.95.I thought Fuente took action on vendors gouging the price of Opus X(I regularly get 'em for $13 each). Just asking

I just tried my 1st Padron the other day. Think it was the 1926 and it was very good maybe the best I've smoked so far but I'm just not going to pay the crazy prices these b&m"s charge. It is rare I pay more than 10 - 12 bucks for a stick because there are so many good ones at that price point. Why pay more? Shame they won't sell them here anymore because I was looking to try some of the cheaper 3000 and similar series.

Good thing I had been amassing them because it on the list of things I won't pay MSRP for because they are good but not their MSRP good.

Jacks comments don't warrant texting mommy. Plus Jack is my friend and he already booked a camping trip.

As one of the other posters pointed out; this is not technically "price-fixing" because Padron did not get together with other cigar makers to set prices on their product. In my mind, and probably yours as well, this is specious reasoning because it is the market that should determine prices. You know, the "supply and demand" thing? What you should (and apparently are) do is refuse to buy any MAP cigars. I don't know how well this will work because there appears to be too many azholes willing to pay outrageous prices for, what they consider, to be "boutique cigars."

That's kinda like what I posted earlier Jack,but the sad thing is they sold them at that price with the possibility to go higher

+1
The other issue?
LOTS of folks do NOT have a B&M within several hours of where they live.........
Or, if they have a "cigar store".........it's really a glorified head shop/bong palace, stocked with cigars most of us would not buy.
It limits one's options a bit.

Unless government regulation is preventing someone from setting up near those folks, it is still the fair market to blame. If there was a demand, there'd be a shpo.

Noticed the Cbid admins have gone silent on this subject and the customer feedback they are getting.

Its not their fault if Padron will no longer allow their sticks to be auctioned.