Stories Privada Cigar Club

Privada — When your passion takes off, fulfillment shouldn’t slow you down

Privada Cigar Club

Orlando, Florida, US

Ecommerce

Stories Privada Cigar Club

What started as a personal cigar collection turned into a booming ecommerce business—and a fulfillment nightmare. With demand spiking and backlogs mounting, Privada Cigar Club needed a way to move fast without breaking the bank. That’s when they found Pio.

Fast. Organized. Scalable.

6x Faster Fulfillment

80% reduction in manual labor

Industry-leading accuracy

Staff trained in under 1 hour

The Challenge

Privada Cigar Club, a six-year-old ecommerce brand, has built a loyal community and strong following around its premium, rare-aged cigars.

What started as a way to offload a few cigars online quickly grew into something much bigger. By adding tasting notes and telling the origin stories of the cigars, Privada Cigar Club created a passionate customer base. Then came COVID—and business exploded.

But with popularity came pressure.

“Last year during our big November sale, we had a three-week backlog. We had all the staff we needed, but it still took weeks to get stuff out. That was scary.” says Founder Brian Desind.

Customers expected orders in one to three days, not one to three weeks. Speed was no longer a nice-to-have—it was survival.

That’s when the search began for a cost-effective, scalable fulfillment solution. One that didn’t require months of onboarding or massive capital.

The Solution

Many automation systems were either overkill or overpriced for a small business like Privada Cigar Club. Pio hit the sweet spot: fast, simple, and built for growth.

“There is no learning curve. If you can use a cell phone, you’re up and running in an hour.”

Pio transformed fulfillment from a bottleneck into a competitive advantage. The team went from barely keeping up to confidently scaling operations.

Results and Impact

After installing Pio, Privada Cigar Club saw a dramatic shift:

Lightning-fast Fulfillment: 700 orders shipped in under three days—something that used to take weeks.
Radical Simplicity: Training? Not needed. Staff was up and running in less than an hour.
Peace of Mind: Whether it’s peak season or unexpected sick days, they now have a fulfillment system that works—even if the founder has to jump in and pick orders himself.
Optimized Space: With the P100, the team reduced their footprint and streamlined operations instantly.

As Brian puts it: “It’s like a jet pack. You can do things with this that you just can’t do without it.”

Real ROI

For Brian, the math was clear:

“Let’s talk real numbers. There’s no other solution for $100,000 that lets you transform your business like this.”

Pio offered big-league automation at a small-business price point—finally closing the gap between ambition and access.

Looking Ahead

With fulfillment finally running like clockwork, Privada Cigar Club is thinking bigger. The team isn’t just planning for more orders—they’re planning for entirely new ventures.

From launching additional subscription-based businesses to a renewed focus on customer experience. Faster shipping means stronger trust. Better inventory control means fewer errors. And with less time spent putting out fires in the warehouse, the team can focus on deepening community engagement, content creation, and long-term brand building.

Privada Cigar Club isn’t just growing. It’s evolving—from a niche ecommerce shop into a modern, diversified brand with the infrastructure to support its ambitions.

And thanks to Pio, it’s doing it without compromise.

"It’s a jet pack. You can do things with Pio that you just can’t do without it."

Brian Desind

Founder of Privada Cigar Club

The Results

After integrating Pio, Privada Cigar Club scaled fulfillment in record time.

Faster fulfillment. Pick rates jumped from 3 weeks to 2,5 days, with 6× more orders per hour.

Peace of Mind. Knowing exactly where every product is—and being able to fulfill it in seconds—brought an unexpected sense of control and calm to daily operations.

Smarter Space. By consolidating 3,000 sq ft of inventory into their P100, they reduced their total footprint by 40% and eliminating the need for a fourth warehouse—while still only using ~50% of machine capacity.