A cigar shop, A potential niche success?

I've always wanted to open a cigar shop on SL. I'm a big cigar aficionado IRL and want to spread it to SL.

I've made a couple of PROPER cigars on SLEX, not the usual generic ones you find in clubs etc.

I was thinking of a quaint little , old fashioned style store with a humidor (storage space for cigars) with cigars of all different brands.

Thing is, opening a shop is a reasonably large thing and I was wondering if I could draw in enough business, seeing as the cigars couldn't be sold for too much because they're small things. I wouldn't want to go belly up!

Would this be a good move, business wise?

I have no idea how successful cigars would be in SL and they really wouldn't suite me lol. It doesn't cost that much to open a shop, so you could have a go. It's a lot cheaper to rent a piece of commercial land than to rent a store in a mall etc plus if you rent land where you get full controls you have the advantage of being able to use places search. You could get a plot at 1.5 - 2L per prim per month so a 1024 area shop could cost you as little 351L a month plus advertising, not a lot to lose if it proves unsuccessful.

Depends what you class as sucsessfull. As you said you will not be able to charge much just selling cigars, so If you are simply going to build a shop to sell cigars, I predict it will not make a profit. However, i think maybe you could expand the idea, as well as a range of cigars with realistic smoke animations and 'cherry burning anims' you could also sell associated goods, original ashtrays for example, i rememebr when I was a kid my grandparents had really ornate stylish astrays that sat on the floor and were a few feet high, you could also sell smoking jackets, Cigaratte holders (joan collins stlye) and other related items such as pipes, my Av has smoked a pipe for 2 years, a big droopy one, sherlock homes style, couldnt find one at the time so made one. You could offer a large selection of pipes with different smoke anims. Basically I think you need to expand your original idea to make it 'special' enough to be noticed and to ultimately make you a profit.

Might I suggest checking out the competition?

Foxy's Smoke Shop in "search."

Yeah I'd have other accessories, A tobacconist shop is more the right word eh.

If Foxy's Smoke Shop is the market leader then Your best bet is to visit them and then do things diferently, offer an alternative. Allot of smoking parafanalia i've seen in SL has been related to cannabis, so you 'olde worlde' approach may be original, you need to check out your competition.

I think a cigar shop is a FABULOUS idea, but please remember that smoking indoors in public places is not allowed in the state of California where Linden Labs is based.......

Could you make a version that was only usable for one smoke then theyd have to buy another?


Im not sure selling only cigars would pay a tier fee but you never know what could happen!

It would have potential to be a really neet hang out spot if built correctly. Anyone remember the cigar joint over at Relic? thath was really neat.

Yes I wondered how well things that were temporary like cigars or alchohol would sell for the status they show, providing they had some genuine class to them, maybe scripted effects of sorts.

I would suggest that if this is something you've always wanted to do - do it!

Build it with passion and enjoy yourself. Do spend the L$30 to advertise the land in search places, spend another L$50 or L$100 to run a classified, but other than that - to start with - just build your dream for the sheer joy of building a dream.

Good luck, and have fun!

-Atashi

Not that we need more clubs but I am amazed no one has come up with Cigar smoking club or even very stylist Cigar smoking fetish escort service.
Not sure if there be demand for it. But its a idea. Think you might get more fun if it was happening club of people sipping brandy and smoking cigars, having interesting conversations and listening to good live music but not sure how you could make money at it. Maybe if you sold a long with it well made products relating to Cigar themes. It could help. But lot of people even virtually seem to be anti-smoking.

It cannot be anymore annoying than the 'Fart Hat' accessories, that apart from making rib tickling sounds, fill the sim up with large clouds of green haze.

I assume you will make animated matches to keep the cigars etc alight?

BTW, it is not only CA that has smoking bans in public places.. the UK also has those laws and judging by the powers to be, it will become widespread. Perhaps, to hedge your bets, you could sell NO SMOKING signs as well?

Ireland is no smoking too now and I went to Belgium the other day and it was there too. Rekon it will be the norm in Europe in the next few years.

The problem is that you can already get good cigars, cigarettes and pipes that are not temporary. One source of them has already been mentioned and there are others. As a consumer, why would I buy cigars that I'm going to keep having to return to the shop and replenish when I can buy from another maker and have them on hand always?

A variation on this that would have more appeal (it also already exists but that doesn't mean there couldn't be a competing product) might be a cigar box or tray that, when touched, gives a cigar that lasts only a set period of time. But in that case, even though the cigar is temporary, the box is not so the buyer can set it out and always have access to it.

For the OP, I think a good smoke shop would be welcome and could be successful, but do check out the competition and do your best to offer something as good or better, or different enough that people who are already aware of the other places will be interested in seeing what you have to offer.

I think this could do well; to stand out, though, you would really need to make sure that everything is perfect. Detailed textures, probably a sculpt cigar prim (real cigars aren't sharp-edged cylinders after all), good smoke and sound effects, custom animations... You could charge quite a bit for that sort of thing. Perhaps a "cigar HUD" with buttons to clip them, light them, smoke them in different ways, put them out, even smell them and so on.

A cigar box which allowed you to offer them to other people, again with the appropriate animations etc, would be good too.

It's a fair project to do all that of course. I can guarantee that you'd get a good reception in Caledon though.

if i will be able to smell them, i will shop at your store.

Yes, if only!

Why not bring your RL knowledge along too and have some lectures/discussions in the shop? Events might get more customers over the long run and depending on your knowledge you could establish a level of authority in-world. You could also get a group going and send out occasional notecards with reviews and recommendations. The payoff for you might not necessarily just be in the SL economy, but also in getting to know some other cigar aficionados you can chat with.

Simon,

I think this could be a fantastic little addition to Second Life. I do not think you will be profiting greatly from this business adventure, but I do think it could have a niche appeal, as well as add even more inter-reality to SL.

I see a lot of people with cigarettes in their mouth...why not cigars?

I'd like to see one of your Cubans.

Quite right. They're elongated dimpled spheres.

One of the strangest things I saw when playing There.com was soda machines where you bought a 10 cup soda bottle/cup and you had to click it to actually animate drinking it, when it was empty, you could replenish the contents..... it's a strange world out there/here.

I know a fair bit on cigars, I learnt most of the info I know from a clerk in the cigar shop I visit heh.

Only thing is, I can't script, so making unique scripts would be out of the question. Unless I hired someone

I'd love to have proper pipes, with matching anims, and a place to go and smoke them...something with a 19th century flair,preferrably. Caledon would be the right place I guess.

Hey now! The goverments force all these rules on you for your own good!!

Mmm, I have a nice little cigar a friend made, and an absolutely beautiful humidor. Not sure how much I would spend on such items, but there was a time I was thinking of making some myself. There is a Pipe and Cigar group, might want to look us up, too.

For me, smoking in SL is a very strong visual activity and how it "looks" is primary for me and, I suspect, others. This means the smoke must look good and the animations must look good. The current "state of the art" is pretty decent, but there is always room for improvement, especially in the animations.

If you want to make a high-quality product, do not even think of using the built-in SL smoking animation!

A HUD for control is currently available and it does make most aspects of controlling a cigar or ciggy much, much easier. However, like everything else, it too can be improved.

The scripting of the smoke, the organization of permissions and the creation of the animations are all fairly sophisticated (from what I am told). Perhaps you might do better through a partnership with someone who has done work in these areas.

In any case, good luck with whatever you do!