You are a natural salesperson.I joked out loud that "this was the last of them" and "we probably won't get any more" and we all laughed. Well, something clicked and soon they were flying out the door. We sold all but 3 of them that evening and it was a real eye opening experience about herd mentality/impulse buying. Obviously, I never forgot about that experience and the fun we had that evening!
I don't know if this is true elsewhere, but here in New Orleans, it helps to shop around. People are saying that while one store might be out of something, another store will have it. Or, the first store might have it early on the next morning if they have been restocking overnight. I don't know this personally but this is what people have been saying online around here.
People also cannot stock up enough water for a hurricane.
On the other hand, I just saw a headline that the public has to be reminded that there's no fear of virus in the public water supply, and that tap water is safe to drink.
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Several hundred people in line this morning at Costco. It’s been like this every morning for the past few weeks. Normally once the toilet paper and disinfectant products sell out the lines go away but I tried again this afternoon and the lines were just as long. It was looking about 2 hours wait just to get into the store.
Part of the problem is that kids are out of school and most people are out of work, so nobody has anything to do. Almost all of the stores are closed around here. Health clubs are closed, no movies, no restaurants, nothing to do. Costco is the big activity for the day for everyone.
But while Costco is attempting to keep the stores from getting too crowded, the people waiting in line to get in the stores are standing right next to each other, which only makes the overall situation even worse.
It depends which store you go to. The Southest San Diego store was fine yesterday (except for being out of TP, water, eggs, rice, flour, tortillas and dried beans). There was only one person in the checkout line in front of me, and I was chatting with the bagger who said it was a huge relief after the crowds over the weekend.
The issue with this hoarding trend is not that folks think the stores will run out of certain goods and they won't be restocked. Rather, it's because they fear the virus will become so prevalent that it is dangerous to be around other shoppers at a store or perhaps that the gov't quarantines us. So, they think they should have enough of some items that they can stay home and not be in public venues for weeks (months?) if necessary.
Even at our house where DW and I are very much into eating fresh (consume little that comes out of a can, jar or the freezer), I've now stocked up on that sort of stuff and we are good for a few weeks of being home bound if it comes to that. But this isn't because we think that stores will run out of food/household supplies and not restock.
Our local news at 5 had a report of TP shortages. He did a live shot in a supermarket where they were restocking the TP shelf - the clerk who had brought out a carton of TP packages couldn't hardly get any up on the shelf as a steady stream of people came by and took a package (limit 1, you know). He moved around the store to show some skimpy supplies of meat and produce and came back to the TP shelf just as another clerk wheeled out a whole pallet of TP and plopped it down in the aisle. Nobody touched it as he went through the rest of his report. They looked, saw the massive supply, and moved on.
Amazon is now price gouging on some board games . I went to buy "Ticket to ride " and it was $59.99 and when I looked again it had gone to $69.99 on amazon so I got it at walmart online for $44.99.
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We have older relatives who might need our help, if we constantly go out to the stores, we might be infected and not know it.
Annoyingly this Covid-19 can take what seems to be a max of 14 days to show up, so if we really want to play safe, we have to isolate for 14 days and then go visit.
Then go to the store, and isolate for 14 more days
Kimberly-Clark, a producer of TP and Kleenex, has been running its plants 24/7 to meet demand. But the fact is that unless people's bathroom frequency changes, they still use the same amount of TP.
This means that eventually, when people start to use the TP they hoard and stop buying, the TP plants will throttle down to a lower speed. Feast and famine.
I don't know anything about the panic buying patterns because we didn't go to the store. I guess we're screwed now, although we have 2 weeks to live on. Will the hoarders just keep going back until their damn basements are filled?
The whole wood industry runs like that. New guys are buying new equipment one year and repossessed another.Kimberly-Clark, a producer of TP and Kleenex, has been running its plants 24/7 to meet demand. But the fact is that unless people's bathroom frequency changes, they still use the same amount of TP.
This means that eventually, when people start to use the TP they hoard and stop buying, the TP plants will throttle down to a lower speed. Feast and famine.
Bidet seats are selling out fast. We have two bidets in our house so we use far less toilet paper than the average household. Bidets have not traditionally been popular in this country but with the shortage of toilet paper I bet a lot of people are going to discover them. And the more people buy them, the less toilet paper they will need. So it will solve the shortage problem on its own.