August, 2006 Retail Strategy: Branding, Banding, or B.S. What Drives Consumer Cigar Buyers? By Jeff Bolton In the end, it may be as simple as basic personal preference, but there's plenty of industry debate as to what influences brand-selecting decisions among cigar smokers. RTDA2006 Wrap-Up: Premium Picks for the Holiday Hits Story and photos by Richard Carleton Hacker This year's RTDA show offered a slew of fine cigar and accessories ideal for discerning holiday shoppers. Taxation Issues: Capping Cigar Taxes... By Dale Scott What began as a lonely long shot in the late 1990s has now been successfully repeated three times: rolling back an extremely high cigar excise tax rate and replacing it with a moderate flat tax per stick. The proven model could now be set to restore in-state cigar sales nationwide. Retailer and Tobacco Industry News SMOKESHOP's Industry news department, bringing you up-to-date information and breaking stories about manufacturers, distributors, and wholesalers. Supreme Court Confirms General Cigar's Ownership of Cohiba Trademark Engle Class is Decertified, Punitive Damages Removed Panama Tabac Group S.A. Forms Amid Growing Interest in Panamanian Tobacco Judge Issues Tobacco Lawsuit Opinion; Appeals Could Take "Years" Crossline Distributors, Phillips & King Merge Stanford J. Newman Dies at 90 Tobacco Plus Expo Replaces N.A.T.O. Conference & Expo Gifts and Accessories for Cigar, Pipe, and Cigarette Smokers Industry Fights Proposition 86! - by E. Edward Hoyt III What's Happening and Where in the Tobacco Industry Trends and Trendsetters in Specialty Tobacco Retailing Merchandise and News from the Pipe World Tobacco Products and Industry Promotions SMOKESHOP (ISSN 0146-9266), established in 1970, is published bi-monthly by Lockwood Trade Journal Co., Inc., 26 Broadway, Floor 9M, New York, NY 10004 USA. Copyright © 1998-2005 by Lockwood Trade Journal Co. Inc. HTML production and copyright © 1998-2006 by Keys Technologies. All rights reserved.