Onlinehumidor.com

Hey Everyone,


Some of you know I'm still kind of a newbie at all of this, and I keep hearing the term "gray market" when it comes to missing barcodes on boxes, and I don't fully understand the reasoning behind it.

From what I can gather Habanos SA has different distributors for different countries/areas.

Those distributors are not supposed to sell outside their area?

So I'm told and I've read that that vendors will remove barcodes to protect those distributors.

I understand Habanos SA knowing which barcodes were sent to which distributor, and I assume a distributor may or may not keep records of which boxes were sold to vendors. (websites, cigar shops, etc)

But why pull the barcodes? Once a consumer has a box... how could that possibly be linked back and hurt a distributor regardless of continent the box ends up on?

am I missing the whole point/reasoning?

Please educate me. I look forward to the responses.

[quote author=CigarsAreAwesome17 link=topic=43084.msg174736#msg174736 date=1508173257]

So I'm told and I've read that that vendors will remove barcodes to protect those distributors.

[/quote]

The barcode is removed, in most cases, by the regional distributors, so it can't be traced back to them.

Habano SA turned a blind eye, because they are making money. That is the reason more and more boxes are coming with intact barcodes. It was not the case years ago.