Los Angeles, August 24, 2010 (updated) – The best part of compiling our national retailer rankings is that there is no way to know who will finish on top. And for the sixth time in our six ranking efforts, we have a new no. 1:
Holt's of Philadelphia.
Led by Rob Levin and a devoted retail, mail-order and wholesale distribution team, Holt's is the home of the Ashton, La Aroma de Cuba and San Cristobal brands among others and has placed in the top ten in our Retailer Rankings each and every time. Here's how the rankings were calculated:
We checked out 132 web sites which sold cigars at retail on July 21 and 22, ranking them by box prices on four very popular brands and sizes of cigars, all of which were roughly the same price: Excalibur No. III, La Gloria Cubana Wavell, Onyx Reserve Toro and the Romeo y Julieta Bully. A total of 51 sites had all four and qualified for the second round.
To test the breadth of sizes available from each of these retailers, we added 12 additional cigars - three more each for Excalibur, La Gloria and Romeo y Julieta, one more for Onyx and two sizes of Saint Luis Rey. The box pricing of all 16 of these cigars was averaged and 15 sites had them all and qualified for the final round.
The final 15 were then reviewed for (a) breadth of brands - on whether they carried 10 other popular national brands - and graded on their (b) shipping policies and (c) whether their sites offered real-time inventory controls. The scores for all four of these elements were combined, with 50% of the score attributed to the 16-cigar pricing average, 20% each for breadth of brands and shipping and 10% for real-time inventory display to shoppers.
In the end, our top ten spots were dominated by the large national retailers who are so well known to so many smokers. But we did have some turnover from our 2009 list. The top 10:
(1) Holt's Cigar Company (Philadelphia, Pa.): Despite being in the top 10 for each of the five prior rankings, Holt's had never been higher than sixth. This time, it was no. 2 on pricing and strong in all other areas and scored 94 out of 100 points to rank first. Congratulations!
(2, tie) Cigars International (Bethlehem, Pa.): Keith Meier and his team are not just survivors of the Cigar Boom, but are now a significant part of the earnings of parent company Swedish Match. C.I. was best in price, scored well on breadth of brands, and shows real-time inventory on the site, bringing them to 92 points and the no. 2 spot on the list. It's now six-for-six for Cigars International in our top 10. (We were previously wrongly informed that the site did not show real-time inventory; this has been corrected with apologies for the error.)
(2, tie) Serious Cigars (Houston, Tx.): Ron Lesseraux's shop has been making a lot of noise of late, entering our top 15 in 2008, moving up to seventh last year and now second. Third-best on price, Serious scored 92 points to move up five places over last year to second overall.
(4) BestCigarPrices.com (Stone Ridge, N.Y.): Fourth-best on price this time, Best had made our top-ten in all six rankings and was our top-ranked retailer in 2006. In fact, Best has never ranked lower than fourth and duplicates its third-place finish from 2009.
(5) Mike's Cigars (Bay Harbor, Fl.): Another perennial on our list, Oscar Boruchin and Oded Ben Arie were champions in 2007 and have never been lower than seventh in our six rankings. Only seventh-best on price, Mike's garnered perfect scores for breadth of brands, real-time inventory and shipping costs for 88 points to end up fifth overall.
(6) Famous Smoke Shop (Easton, Pa.): Another cigar retailing giant with a strong history of high finishes, five times in our top ten. Arthur Zaretzky's independent powerhouse was sixth-best on price and had perfect scores for breadth of brands and real-time inventory to stay right there.
(7) J-R Cigars (Burlington, N.C.): The world's largest cigar retailer - maybe ever! - topped our rankings in 2008 and was fourth last year. Only ninth on price, excellent scores in all the other categories assured J-R's place in the top ten. It should be noted that although a change in shipping policy after our survey would have cost J-R a couple of points here, the wild pricing from the erroneous publication of a wholesale price list as the most recent catalog would have moved them up close to the top.
(8) Cigars-For-Less (Rehoboth, De.): Cigars-For-Less has been consistently good, making our top-ten list in our first ranking in 2004 and then finishing 12th in 2007 and an unlucky 11th last year. This time, perfect scores in breadth-of-brands and real-time inventory put them back in the top ten.
(9) Bonita Smoke Shop (Bonita Springs, Fl.): Also no stranger to our rankings, Bonita makes our top-ten list for the third time in six years, after finishing third in 2008 and 13th last year, primarily on the strength of its fifth-place finish in the pricing derby, which accounted for 50% of the overall score.
(10) Mom's Cigars (Somerset, N.J.): Tenth in our rankings last year and again in 2010 for Alex Goldman and his Mom's team. With the wholesale-oriented House of Oxford division being merged into Harold Levinson Associates, Goldman will have even more opportunity to further develop his highly-respected retail program.
Unfortunately, two members of our 2009 rankings did not repeat. Longtime scorer and our first rankings leader in 2004, AtlanticCigar.com of Elmsford, New York, finished 11th this time, and our 2009 leader, Quality Fresh Cigars (cigarfox.com) was 38th in the four-cigar price test and did not quality for the second round.
For a fuller presentation of the scoring details, click here. Over the next few weeks, we will be updating our exclusive Comparison Shopper to include Bonita and Cigars-For-Less. After all of this effort, we're pleased to say that the next update will come in summer 2011.
~ Rich Perelman
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