Have you cleared your old cigarettes out to make way for the new UK duty-paid marked packs? Remember, July 1 is the deadline. Many retailers have drawn the short straw on this one, particularly since the big tobacco companies took their time in notifying them of their intentions about the clearance of old stock. One retailer, who identified himself as "one of the many Singhs" in London's Shepherds Bush, wanted to publicly praise Imperial Tobacco for its uniform policy of taking all the old stock back at full price. Mr Singh also wanted to tick off Rothmans and Gallaher (while preserving his anonymity because he didn't want to be removed from Gallaher's points scheme). He had rung Rothmans a dozen times from the start of the year to establish its policy (Rothmans records all calls and has corroborated this to him). In the end it showed up at the beginning of June and offered him £2.92 per packet. "If they had told me that back in February, I could have knocked something off the price myself and still bettered their offer," he grumbled. He has lost around £60 on Rothmans' stock and £60 on Gallaher's. "If they are doing this to everyone, they must be making millions. "I've spoken to all the retailers around here and my retailing cousins who are all over the country, and it's the same for us all. If Imperial can do it right, why can't the others?" The very nature of the product, with its good keeping qualities, means that retailers may have a lot of stock. There's not much you can do now, if stuck, other than write it off to promotional activity. But keep a weather eye out for further regulations. There is the threat of an EU directive which would demand larger on-pack warnings. So, it could happen all over again. {{GROCER CLUB }}