The Cost of Free

A wise man, who happened to be a car salesman for a major domestic brand once spoke these words to me:

"Ephram, if anyone ever tells you you're getting something for free, be skeptical. When we tell you you're getting an undercoating for free, you're paying for it. Your free upgrade to the winter package? You're paying for it. Every bullshit sales tactic is at our command in that moment. Trust me, there's no tree behind our lot that grows extra floor mats. If someone offers you something for free, ask what it really costs."

So with that in mind, here's the state of our Pepin Garcia humidor:

I have, maybe 50 cigars left from Pepin's brands. I've got a couple My Fathers, and a couple Black Label Cuban Classics.

I have told this story to our customers, maybe twenty times in the last week, but here goes again...

On our last shipment, Pepin had a promotion going. Due to industry 'rules' I cannot actually explain what this promotion was. However, it basically resulted in us, the retailer, getting a free box of cigars.

There's that word again.

Now, Pepin has a bad shipping department. I say "bad", but what I really mean is "worst in the industry". So when we didn't receive our most recent shipment, we wrote it off for a few days.

"Whatever, the Pepin shipment is late again. Big surprise."

After a few more days, we called. And found out there was a past due amount on our account with them, and that they were holding our order because of it.

"What past due amount? They bill our company card immediately."

Care to guess how much that past due amount was? Well, I'll tell you it was equal to exactly the amount our "free" box of cigars costs, wholesale.

Needless to say, we were not happy. They held our order over a "free" box of cigars. They're currently, at this moment, costing me hundreds of dollars in revenue over a "free" box of cigars.

So we paid the damn invoice. Even though we could have straightened it out and gotten our "free" box, we ended up paying for it just so they would release our order. That's the true cost of "free".

So now, I'm sitting here smoking another brand while I wait for Pepin's order to get here. Hopefully, we'll see it soon before they decide to offer us free shipping, then hold the entire order because we neglected to pay for shipping.

-Ephram Rafael Nadaner

Current Smoke: Aging Room Maduro, Robusto size.