Selling Like Hotcakes

[Yak]

http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/pipe-sm ... d=26081188

Notice the correlation of sales velocity with price point.

[LatakiaLover]

The problem with fads is that they are... fads.

What kills them is when the thing stops being cool...

Cool stoppage occurs when major news outlets/networks "discover" the thing and declare it cool.



The good news is that some percentage of today's kids who got into pipes because they are cool, will discover what they are actually about and continue to smoke them after the herd moves on to monocles or top hats.

[d.huber]

Cool article.

IAWG. We'll see what happens.

[socrates]

I started smoking a pipe my parents gave me for Christmas. They didn't want me to take up smoking cigarettes so they gave me a nice Danish pipe and my first pouch of tobacco. I was 17 years old. What they didn't know was I had been smoking cigs since I was about15 I think.

By the way I am soon to be 69 and hate cigarettes but love pipes after all these years. I can't smoke because of health reasons but will occasionally open a ziploc bag and smell some custom tobacco given me by someone that sold me some pipes. If I could I would be writing this while puffing on my FAD lol.

[Alden]

A pipe fad is ok with me. Compare it to the cigar boom that came and went. That was a fad too, but what it left in its wake was a widespread base of cigar smokers and social acceptability.
If there is a "pipe boom" I think the end result is the same. The posers leave when it's no longer the thing, but a core group will find pipes as a result and the non smokers are more familiar with us instead of assuming we have crack in our pipes when we light up.

[LatakiaLover]

...instead of assuming we have crack in our pipes when we light up.

Ah. So you ARE smoking crack while eating beans & rice and shooting firearms in your back yard. Thought so.

Nothing else could explain how you got so good at pipe making so fast.

[Alden]

I've been smoking the rice and shooting crack. You mean to tell me I'm doing it wrong??

[caskwith]

A pipe fad is ok with me. Compare it to the cigar boom that came and went. That was a fad too, but what it left in its wake was a widespread base of cigar smokers and social acceptability.
If there is a "pipe boom" I think the end result is the same. The posers leave when it's no longer the thing, but a core group will find pipes as a result and the non smokers are more familiar with us instead of assuming we have crack in our pipes when we light up.

I would argue a pipe boom would be slightly different to the cigar boom. Cigars are a lot like cigarettes in that you can go buy some, smoke them and nothing is left over except a box/band. Pipes are with you forever, a constant reminder, a bigger investment and something less likely to be done on a whim.

[Thomas Tkach]

This is one thing I love about pipes. The consumable part of the hobby is dirt cheap, but the expensive part lasts forever. If I collect expensive cigars, I either look at them or smoke them, but not both. With a nice pipe, I can have my cake and eat it, too!

[Alden]

I agree with you Chris, a pipe takes a lot more dedication. We may not see a boom in the way of cigars, but a long term fad, hell even a brief brilliant fad will bring more people around to the idea of pipe smoking. If most of them give it up, it will at least bring some who do not.

[Dnemets]

Watching shows for the past couple of years the crowd has changed as well. It's neat to see new and young people getting into it.

The very worst thing that happens is the estate market gets flooded with really nice pipes.. No complaints on my end.

[Yak]

The very worst thing that happens is the estate market gets flooded with really nice pipes.. No complaints on my end.

Well, Smokingpipes lists 614 of them this morning -- a number that seems to reflect a general increase in re-sellers stocks.

What probably comes next is price wars as deflation exascerbates oversupply relative to purchasing power overall -- same as during the last big depression. (That's one of Gerald Celente's megatrends this quarter, FWIW).

[Tyler]

http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/pipe-sm ... d=26081188

Notice the correlation of sales velocity with price point.

I've read the article 3 times trying to find this correlation. I can't.

[Tyler]

The chicken little tone of this thread is a bit mystifying. Sales are up year over year, and that's bad because it will go down again? I'm confused.

[d.huber]

http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/pipe-sm ... d=26081188

Notice the correlation of sales velocity with price point.

I've read the article 3 times trying to find this correlation. I can't.

I think Yak is insinuating that Lewis' price point is a large part of why his pipes are "selling like hot cakes."

[d.huber]

The chicken little tone of this thread is a bit mystifying. Sales are up year over year, and that's bad because it will go down again? I'm confused.

Mmm... I don't think that it's bad that sales are up year over year. I think at some point the trend will shift, a lot of people will bail, and a lot of pipe makers are going to vanish just like the cigar boom. I don't mean to be pessimistic, I just expect history to repeat itself.

[Joe Hinkle Pipes]

I dont think it will effect pipemakers with established names. I have heard this discussed with other groups and the consensus is the people that are making cheap crappy pipes will be the first to go, followed by the semi-serious "bandwagon jumpers" that dont even smoke a pipe. I think we are talking 5 years down the road though. We havent even hit the peak of this trend yet. The tough will survive. They always do.

[Thomas Tkach]

I think one reason for the uptick in sales that hasn't been mentioned is the shift from buying 'pipe tobacco' instead of RYO cigarette tobacco. In 2009 or so, they punched the tax on a lb of RYO up to $24 or something. Pipe tobacco is less than $3. Lots of cheap brands re-branded to skirt the tax, and the RYO crowd followed. I think there's legislation in the works to do away with that difference, though.

[d.huber]

I think one reason for the uptick in sales that hasn't been mentioned is the shift from buying 'pipe tobacco' instead of RYO cigarette tobacco. In 2009 or so, they punched the tax on a lb of RYO up to $24 or something. Pipe tobacco is less than $3. Lots of cheap brands re-branded to skirt the tax, and the RYO crowd followed. I think there's legislation in the works to do away with that difference, though.

That's a good point. I know that a lot of online retailers have seen their biggest bump in pipe tobacco. You may be onto something there.

[Tyler]

http://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/pipe-sm ... d=26081188

Notice the correlation of sales velocity with price point.

I've read the article 3 times trying to find this correlation. I can't.

I think Yak is insinuating that Lewis' price point is a large part of why his pipes are "selling like hot cakes."

But the point of the whole article is that pipes in general are up, not just the cheap ones. There is no correlation that can be drawn from this article at all.