Its obviously written for public consumption, but it is all still true, so here is the announcement of the new site(s) going live. That is all four sites upgraded now, and for those following since I joined here, you will know this is the culmination of a few long standing ambitions - we have finally reached the starting line.

[cross posted from reddit]

Mr Snuff is now back online

We’re back! With a new and improved experience and lower prices, this update marks the beginning of a new era in Mr Snuff’s journey. Starting today, we are offering better prices, an ever-increasing selection of products, and continuously improving levels of convenience.

While the primary goal of this update was to establish a solid technological foundation for this new style of continuous improvement, we have also introduced some exciting enhancements to kick things off. Here are the highlights:

Key Enhancements

• Blazing Speed: Faster loading times and smoother navigation.
• Redesigned Menus: A more intuitive browsing experience.
• Consolidated Product Pages: All sizes for a product are now conveniently located on a single product page.
• Improved Product Grouping: Products can now be filtered by both brand and product type for easier searching.
• More Bargain Bundles: Even more value with our expanded selection of bundles.
• Permanent Overstock Sale Section: A rotating selection of heavily discounted products.
• ‘Notify Me When Back in Stock’ Feature: Stay informed about product availability.
• Dynamic Pricing: We guarantee competitive pricing on all products we share with our competitors—rest assured, we won’t be beaten on price!

And that’s just the beginning!

What’s Next?

Looking ahead, we plan to introduce AI-generated product descriptions synthesized from our growing library of expert reviews, snuff specifications, consumer feedback, and extensive historical data. It’s time to eliminate inaccuracies and fluff. If this update was about bringing Mr Snuff into the present decade, our goal now is to propel it into the next.

Our mission is to provide you with the lowest prices, the largest product selection, and the most accurate independently sourced expert information available anywhere. We want you to choose your products with confidence - free from marketing nonsense - and have some fun doing it!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’m here to help!

One concern I have is product descriptions. Old descriptions had become woeful and often seemed unrelated to the products, but I’m not convinced these new descriptions are ideal as many seem to be an obvious AI mish mash of text gathered from less than accurate sources. I’m sure this will improve in time, but can’t help wondering to what degree, given the wealth of poor sources on the web.

We haven’t released any AI descriptions yet!

I can’t remember if I invited you to join our working group that is putting together the snuff specifications. I know I reached out to all the gurus here. If you want to join, we would love to have you. That way, you could see what we are up to and help ensure what we produce is good enough.

All it involves is receiving free snuff in return for your honest opinion and the chance to make a real difference in the community.

I’ve had a good look through all the nooks and crannies . Here’s my thoughts

Pricing looks great . Even premium marques like SWS and Mullins and Wesley are in reach for the average shopper . I do still think you grossly undervalue your bulk sizes . Still way too cheap in my opinion .

I love the stock levels on display .

I miss the bulk section .

I like the tin selection , love the tapboxes . Some nice accessories building up . Will have to try a couple of tin sizes down the road . Something big enough to dump 20g Sharrow tins into .

I love the look of that new bundle but I do think it’s a bit misnamed . A toast , two dark plains and a fullbore schmalzer seems a bit adventurous for a beginners bundle . Maybe more an ‘intermediate’ level or the ‘managers special’ . It’s a lovely selection though .
10g Wilsons Bee M
5g Top Mill no 1
25g Poschl DoppelD
20g FnT HDT
25g Silky Dark
20g FnT Santo Domingo
10g Gletshurprise
Hanky
Empty tin
I wouldn’t throw that lot out of bed

I appreciate the offer, but time works against me and my contributions might not be particularly valuable. My previous comment should be considered on the basis that I post as I see and not as a comprehensive critique.

The menu is working a bit better today . I get more options to look through categories of snuff .

Oooh ooh , before I forget , you still have GH KB Plain listed as an SG product . They switched the label a while back .

I did have genuine payment problems last night , and it was at the processors end too .Hopefully just an isolated teething issue .

Here is what is involved: Take a pinch of snuff, open our standard snuff specification form on your phone, and fill it in. It takes maybe 10 minutes.

For that, you will receive one example of every snuff in our inventory, delivered for free in easy-to-manage batches.

The goal is to provide a range of truthful opinions to our AI, whose job will be to synthesize them into a single specification for each product. Armed with this distilled knowledge, it will then be able to differentiate good sources from bad and continue to learn effectively.

For what it’s worth, I have been a programmer for 40 years and have been involved in multi-objective optimization research as a sideline for much of that time. I am a published author of an evolutionary algorithm that represents some early steps in AI research. I have been a torch-carrying, glassy-eyed prophet of the coming technological singularity for decades.

I mention all this to heighten the impact of the following statement: I have been left slack-jawed in utter, stupefied amazement at what the latest engines are capable of. They are not just cut-and-paste machines; each week that goes by, they become appreciably more capable; therefore, if you can spot our descriptions—except by their accuracy and quality—then we will have failed.

The point remains, though: in order for our agent to get started on its journey to becoming a snuff expert, it needs human knowledge to bootstrap itself. Without this, it has little chance of self-reinforcing along the correct paths.

So we need independently sourced specifications from experts. The more we have per product, the better equipped our agent will be at producing genuinely accurate and useful results.

Anyway, the offer is an open one. Just let me know if you change your mind.

Thanks for the site check and comments. Also, are you really complaining the prices are too low? I want to hug you.

You miss the bulk buy section? That is interesting. It would be easy to get it back, and might give another nice permanent member for the bargain basement. Good idea.

I reckon the bulk containers are the rare jewels of your inventory …and you should be getting jewel money for them .

The way I see it , you sell them off too cheap and you’ re taking future custom away from yourself . There’s no point having a few deliriously happy customers who don’t need to spend any more money with you .

Get them on the the hook with cheapie small pots , then get paid a fair profit when they come back with serious strong money .

While I can bash out lengthy forum posts, I’m a straight to the chase type when it comes to product descriptions and firmly believe the average consumer has limited capacity for unnecessary information where purchases are concerned. To be fair, there will be many to whom broader pictures appeal, but I want scents, grind and moisture, without conjured images of the setting sun in Marrakesh or Middlesbrough.

While I can pinch snuff and give a reasonable assessment of those essential qualities, I’ve never been certain that my olfactory system is as keenly developed as that of many who post opinions about snuff.

I also disagree with @Pikey on pricing If you want to concentrate on the North American market those prices could go up, but if the aim is to not be beaten on price across the board I can see the logic in current pricing.

Also wanted to mention one thing I noticed when browsing. It is likely intentional that Dr. Rumney’s is grouped with Fribourg & Treyer, but I can’t help thinking that such grouping means smaller brands are likely to be overlooked by anyone not actively seeking them. Same with Singleton’s, Hedges and J&H Wilson with WoS.

Some times the captcha check ( i’m human ) doesn’t appear at checkout so processing fails. you need to back button until you get to select, i’m human then it goes through. Been like this for a year or two.

Agreed bulk section is always my first stop.

Just more trouble shooting …

41 photo isn’t coming up under Indian snuff

Babaton isn’t coming up under South African .

Well yes, exactly. That is how I feel.

Descriptions should be utilitarian and above all, accurate. Opinions are useful, but should be confined to reviews, not descriptions.

Your observations are precisely the motivation for the project. We share the same objectives.

On it first thing. Thanks.

[edit] - on it first thing this time for sure.

[edit] - got distracted resurrecting the Bulk Buy page. On this tomorrow guaranteed

Right, I am going to listen to this.

If you can be bothered, can you give me an example please. The product, our price, what price you think would be better. Thanks.

I guess much depends on whether you want to continue the policy of not being beaten on price.

Your bulk is now considerably lower priced than the majority of online retailers, but just under the next cheapest.

I also get Pikey’s point as you can sell many smaller tins for every bulk purchase. The flip side is that bulk prices may be the determining factor in who gets an order, if bulk constitutes the majority of an order in terms of money spent.

ok this may make me unpopular.

Direct from Wilsons ( uk only )
WOS & Viking 500g £38.40 including free postage
F&T 500g £47.95 including free postage

However as Nisam has stated your lower pricing does probably increase your sales. I know it has in my case. Also the one stop shop for many varities does have appeal.

Iv’e always wondered why snuff manufactures don’t set RRP for resellers ?

@Pikey, matey, why the fuss?

Current seemingly ridiculously low bulk prices on Mr Snuff aren’t unheard of. They used to happen every now and then in the past, “accidentally”.

I have ordered some Indian and South African products in bulk amounts on the aforementioned occasions and found them… not very fresh, putting it politely.

I don’t think he’s refering to the overstock pricing. I think he’s refering to the regular pricing.

Prices are subject to change, as do grouping / categorizing etc.

Why wonder about higher prices on the manufacturer’s store? McCh are even worse in these terms. I would procure directly from the mills for freshness, first thing.

And what exactly is overstock?

ok i did say that post wouldn’t make me popular i just don’t want Mr Snuff to lose money. If thay can still purchase / sell and make a profit at those prices i’m all for it. As previously stated the lower prices @ mr snuff have got them sales from me personally over other outlets.

I’ve seen it, yes. But what exactly does it mean? A nicer way to name old(-er) stock? Surplus… I’m genuinely curious, just it.

I assume so. It’s probably a question for Jonny to answer

For… Snuff in drums/bags has substantially longer shelf life than the tinned products, or those in tap boxes.

Which is why i don’t buy McCh even though i like there snuffs they IMO aen’t worth the price they charge nowadays.

That’s exactly what i was referring to. If a customer is buying a tub and a few tins, whoever is cheapest on the tub stands a good chance of getting the order.

Mr Snuff have stated they won’t be beaten on price, or words to that effect, which puts current bulk pricing in context.

Stock control and turnover seems good enough with the big two these days, that freshness isn’t generally an issue.

I’d imaging overstock is measured in terms of existing stock, against average sales of any given product.

Of course it could also mean old stock, but plenty has been cleared in the last year and I’m guessing (on this occasion) that it’s not too old. I’ll find out soon enough!

There’s definitely a conversation to be had about 31 pound Sharrow drums on a higher risk gray exporter site with discounts codes running . I’ve mentioned this in the past . I don’t see how there’s enough profit in the turnover to pay your bills .

However I think the 6photo bulk is what stands out to me .
At the time of writing (disregarding stock levels for a minute)

Super Chetak £2.33 for 150g
MG Madras £3.14 for 100g
Special £3.30 for 200g
Motia £3.30 for 200g
Med. 666 £5.57 for 200g
Kaliash £3.30 for 200g
Indian Curry £5.57 for 200g
Gold Rush £5.57 for 200g
And so on …and so on through their bulk range . It seems to me you could be justifiably doubling or (in some cases) tripling these prices and it’s still a great deal for everyone . They have a strong intrinsic value , good shelflife(with the exception of MG Madras), and long home cellaring potential . I think it’s the nicest way to buy 6photo.

As it stands , where’s the incentive for you to keep ordering the large sizes ? They are big ,expensive to ship…and then reship . You could be making more profit just with 30g tins .

If it were me , I’d price MG Madras to sell , keep it moving and turning over. £6-7 ?

The ‘modern’ ranges , the Medicateds 6es and Gold Rush, Choco, Coffee Kick etc , I’d be looking for £10-12 .

Chetah , Super Chetak , LA Natural etc £7-9

The ‘traditional’ ranges , Motia , Anarkli etc …up to £12 ideally but whatever the market would bear . I don’t hear a lot of chatter about this sort of snuff anymore .

When I first started buying snuff online , most of the draw of Indian snuff was it was strong …wild…and cheap . You could try everything and it was no big deal .

For a while Indian snuff priced itself out of contention . These new price drops have bought back the old romance to it . I love seeing 30 pence thimbles and £3.30 variety packs on the shelves.

This is interesting. Its easy to get caught up in your own bubble-speak and forget that not everyone shares the same terms.

Overstock is not the same as old stock. It refers to the misallocation of business capital in stock. At is most trivial, business is buy low, sell high, and make a profit; but within that boundless nuance exists.

One of these nuances is how best to deploy the limited resource of capital. If I have £100 in stock that takes 3 months to sell then I have made each pound cycle through to yield its profit margin once every three months. Now I have £50 in stock that cycles once per month. It only takes two months to harvest the same profit as that £100 and it only costs me £50 of total capital allocation to do it. Much more efficient.

Overstock is stock that has been identified as less efficient in term of tied capital as some other stock, it has nothing to do with age except, and this is where the idea comes from, any stock that is old is almost certainly overstock, because any stock that is sitting long enough to become old is very clearly a misallocation of capital.

In a well run business should be no such thing as ‘old’ stock. That is anathema. Yes, it is good that the punters get fresh snuff, it was one of the first things I set about fixing, and that should be a given. Old stock is anathema because it represents pounds cycling slowly and therefore generating less profit than pounds that cycle quickly.

The Overstock sale contains products that are not selling fast enough, or that we have too much of. The point here is to sell it, even at what would naively be called a ‘loss’, because the capital freed up can then be deployed elsewhere and put to work cycling round and around making profit on each turn.

Blimey, I kind of went off on one there. Didn’t mean to, but this stuff is really interesting to me

It’s the kind of answer I like.

*everyone shuffles off to the overstock section

I’m going to have to stay away from the site until those £7.75 drums of Jockey Club sell .I’m not to be trusted around that sort of bargain .

I agree with this. It is easy to fall into the trap of charging what the market will bear thinking that this is maximising your profit. You see people buying your product at £5 so you raise it to £6, not much difference, raise it to £7, still buying how about £8, oops, there you go, sales level off and so drop it to £7.50 - and you have your price.

That is grand, and definitely not wrong, but it is dreadfully wasteful. You have eliminated everybody that would have bought it at £1…6 and £7.

A much better strategy is to focus on costs, not price. Drive down the costs, relentlessly pursue every last penny in your cost chain, and pass it all on to the customer. Down, down you go. But as long as you costs are following you you still make margin. The two good things happen:

1. The competition reacts or dies. Maybe they are as efficient as you, in which case good for them; otherwise they die under the relentless price pressure and more fool them.
2. You total addressable market grows. As you get cheaper more and more people can afford your product, the margins are lower but the product flow is higher and product flow is always a good thing. Fresh product, fast capital reallocation, nimble reflexive purchasing because the product is in then it is out.

My goal is to raise the throughput of product, and if that means lower prices then my customers are just going to have to suck that up

However; there is a counter argument. Whilst accepting all of the above, there is a point below which people don’t care, or the super low price starts to act as a disincentive (what’s wrong with this stuff, maybe its old and stale). Then you are just leaving money on the table.

Given your background, I’m guessing overstock sales in no way influence future purchasing?

It does, as in future purchasing decisions (not sure if that is what you meant). We have recently implemented a two strike and you are out rule. It works like this:

When we identify a product is overstock, and we have two meetings a month to look at just this, where we examine supporting sales analytics and draw up the hit list, then it goes into the overstock sale to convert it back into worked capital as quickly as possible.

Once that is done we assume that the product fell on hard times through no fault of its own, bad luck, bad timing, incorrect pricing, who knows. So we order it again and give it a second chance. It gets a back in stock boost, maybe we lower its price a little to give it the best chance.

If it then reappears back in overstock we basically give it away to convert it back into capital then we strike it off the inventory.

We deliberately constrain the number of inventory slots to 1000. That way the products have to compete with each other to stay on sale. Appearing as overstock twice means death to that product, but life to another.

Interesting indeed, and was worth your time! Thank you for a thorough explanation.

Please consider cross-posting this on r/nasalsnuff. Also, wouldn’t hurt shedding the very same light on Overstock on your store.

Cross posted as requested. Not sure about it though. This forum feels more comfortable for straight up business chat.

Part 2

I spent the day resurrecting the Bulk Buy section and it can now be found as a menu item and as a permanent member of the Bargain Basement.

Can’t have you pining for the fjords!

The missing menus are now fixed. Thanks

This is a bit tricky. The problem is that, right now, I can only associate one brand name with each product. So if I swap to Dr. Rumney’s then that may be better but it creates the opposite problem of people not being able to find it when they are looking at F & T.

What is really needed is the ability of each product to have more than one brand, that way they can belong to multiple brand lists, and people who know it one way or the other will still be able to find it.

I will have a go at this now.

Then… Following this principle (although I suspect I didn’t get it right…) wouldn’t you end grouping everything produced by Wilsons & Co - F&T, Hedges, Singleton’s (bar Van Erkoms Singletons, this should fall under South African / Van Erkoms), J&H Wilson, Viking, Dr. Rumney’s, Mullins & Westley and Wilsons of Sharrow - together?

Speaking of Dr. Rumney, no one associates it with F&T.

OK, I take your point. So I really just need to correctly separate out the Wilsons sub-brands as primary brands. I have done this for most of them but there are a few I got wrong, like Dr. Rumney’s and Van Erkoms Singleton

@volunge

I have pulled out the Wilsons sub-brands and in fact we don’t have a Wilsons brand anymore, instead we have Wilsons of Sharrow, plus the other brands you mentioned.

I hope that gets us closer. Thanks for your help.

Samuel Gawith missing from snuff > British

I definitely prefer spreading them out into distinct brands . Sharrow , GH and 6photo were far too crowded before .

Thats the Samuel Gawith menu fixed. Thanks for the spot.

I’m getting a 404 error trying to look at Wilsons through the ‘brand’ option .

…and now it’s back

Wilsons is dead. Long live Wilsons of Sharrow!

I wouldn’t have spotted it, if it wasn’t going to be tricky to resolve

Feels appropriate to follow up on Jonny’s response to the overstock discussion. Overstock tub of Persica arrived today and production date is March 24. 11 months old is basically fresh from the mill and no older than I’d expect the average tin to be from an online order - maybe half a decade fresher than a lot of stock sitting in many tobacconists.

Good to know, thank you for the follow up! Indeed not too old for a drum, even by my standards.

Noticed Red Bull stated ‘from £x’ and couldn’t help wondering what the options might be. Turned out it was tap boxes of Red Bull strong and sachets of Red Bull Aromatic. As these are completely different products it might make more sense to give them a page each - especially when descriptions are updated as one would have to be inaccurately described if they remain on the same page.

I am on it. Thanks for the report.

Update: Its still on my list honest.

It was a mistake that crept in during the great ‘variantisation’ effort when we switched the site over from individual products to product variants.

Actually, you could really help. Can you (or anyone else reading this) post a brief description? It would take a few mins if I had that. Thanks.

Unfortunately I’ve never tried Red Bull Aromatic.