Everybody is complaining about panic buyers and hoarders

[conuly]

but nobody admits to doing it or knowing anybody who has - at most, they fess up to buying a little extra toilet paper (rice, peanut butter, soup...) after they got word they'd have to "shelter in place" or they noticed empty shelves at their local store.

When I point out that it sure sounds like there wasn't much widespread panic buying, they go "Oh, just look at the shelves!"

The thing is, while it's self-evident that widespread hoarding and panic buying will lead to empty shelves, the converse doesn't follow. Empty shelves can be caused by lots of things, most simply, everybody in an area independently deciding to buy one extra package of toilet paper etc. or choosing to go shopping every month instead of twice a week. In the first case, nobody is buying much more than usual, but because EVERYBODY is buying a small amount more than usual, the shelves empty. In the second case, people making the entirely rational choice to stay home as much as possible are getting dinged for purchasing exactly what they need to do that. And, I'm sorry, but I don't think anybody can honestly say they think that having two, three, or four weeks worth of food and toilet paper in the home is evidence of a hoarding mentality. Not even during usual times.

Empty shelves can also indicate the actions of profiteers who have decided to stock up and sell later. This IS hoarding, I suppose - but it's not panic buying. It's profiteering.

Empty shelves can also indicate issues somewhere along the supply line, but in the US at least it doesn't look like we're there yet.

The trouble is, once people see empty shelves they make the entirely rational decision to stock up a little more than they'd already planned, thus causing the crisis they want to avoid. This is a troubling cycle, but it's not irrational either.

So unless you can point to an actual person in your area who bought out a stock of staple goods "just in case", more than they could reasonably use in a month or twice their normal shopping period, whichever is the greater time period, please stop talking about the stupid crazy irrational panic shoppers who are keeping you from eating pasta. (Eyewitness evidence of somebody making multiple trips to buy the same product don't count unless you spoke to this person and confirmed that they're not, say, running errands for elderly or otherwise vulnerable people who should not leave the house at all if they can help it.) Bonus points if that person did it before shelves emptied where you are.

Comments

[redbird]

This is especially true since the CDC was advising people to stock up on food: it's not just that being told to stay home, I bought extra cans of beans.

[conuly]

And it makes sense to stock up on food if you're going to be staying home.

[the_siobhan]

Somebody told me today that the reason why paper products were in short supply for the first month is that manufacturers split their product into separate streams for household use and workplaces/schools - which makes sense, most office, factory and school bathrooms have those big wheel dispensers.

So with everybody suddenly pooping at home they ran low on the household version and it's just taking them a bit of time to get caught up. Most stores here are pretty much back to normal.

[lightbird]

Yep, where I am too they've caught up on paper products. The only thing they don't have, and seem to be lagging on getting caught up on, are the disinfectant wipes and antibacterial soap. Which makes sense.

[alexseanchai]

that and the amount that would ordinarily last a given household a month assumes things like, the kids are spending school days at school. using school toilet paper for a significant fraction of their toilet paper needs, instead of home toilet paper all the time.

of course the household is going to go through toilet paper faster than usual.

and both of those are before factoring in that sensible people are planning to go grocery shopping less frequently, and therefore need to buy more toilet paper per trip in order to maintain the same total toilet paper bought per month.

[redbird]

It's also not irrational to buy what would normally be two months' supply of canned beans, if you may be unable to go out and buy eggs, meat, fish, or cheese.

[ioplokon]

Oh I guess people had different experiences? I saw people like legit getting in fist fights and stealing stuff out of other people's carts? So I assumed that's what everyone meant by "panic buying"????

TBF tho, I do live in SoCal, which is the fucking worst.

[conuly]

Now, that's ridiculous. Here, people definitely did start upticking their shopping as school closing loomed, but there was more community spirit in the shopping - people helping each other reach items really far back on the shelf, stuff like that.

[alexcat]

MY BIL went to a local butcher shop and people were buying 30 - 40 pounds of hamburger at a shot. I pretty much call that hoarding. Many of our stores have put limits on goods since people were buying such large amounts of everything.

[conuly]

Maybe. I know people who routinely buy beef a cow or half a cow at a time.

[alexseanchai]

someone I follow on Facebook shared something like "I don't panic-buy, share if you can say the same" and I explained basically that (less eloquently though) and she told me no, she really was just buying what she usually needs, which I am not sure whether to believe (and if it's true, I hope it doesn't backfire on her on account of she runs out of something important and can't resupply), but whatever

and therefore I tweeted this:

how to conjugate an irregular verb:

I stock up

YOU overpurchase

SHE panic-buys

[the_siobhan]

Perfect.

[silveradept]

One of those things where everyone is rational to themselves and irrational to everyone else?

[marahmarie]

It is exactly that and (as maddening as it can be) entirely normal; it's how we're wired. Saw an article on it somewhere. I'm at least fair about it (and fairly honest): If I'm gonna "stock up" then hey, you should too; when it's gone it's gone que sera sera (though I'm not nearly as happy about it as that might imply I'm...being fair).

Just don't touch the pasta.

[marahmarie]

the stupid crazy irrational panic shoppers who are keeping you from eating pasta

But PASTA. They're wiping the shelves clean where I live of it but it's one of the few things I can't figure out. Then again, I had a massive amount (for me: a few small shelves worth) I'd put together all year long so maybe perspective's everything. Starting from a box or two (or none) on your own shelf, you might want to build up to what I had say, "all at once", if it's going to carry you through a month or two of being unable - or unwilling - to get back to the store.

Still - seeing pasta shelves empty bites in a way even toilet paper hasn't bit me, so far.

[conuly]

Pasta keeps, and you can eat it - unlike toilet paper.

[highlyeccentric]

My understanding is that there was an initial rush of panic-buying (or pre-emptive stocking) in inner city Sydney and Melbourne in late February, long before anything shut down, specifically focused on toilet paper. This may have been because people had heard about a TP shortage in Hong Kong and extrapolated. Photographs of both the shelves and individuals buying trolleys full of TP went viral, spread to the rest of Aus and then abroad. (So in Aus particularly you got this thing where toilet paper stocks were critical a full MONTH before people were mass bulk-buying beans and pasta)

That bizarro blip then ran headlong into the actual supply chain problems of urban stores not having substantial stockrooms and rural stores needing longer to adjust their supply orders, meaning that 'panic buying' became a great excuse for 'the system was in no way calibrated for this'. Naturally supermarkets prefer to have that explanation being discussed than the operational explanations, and here we are.

[ruuger]

Yeah, in Finland I'd say that the main reason for empty shelves wasn't panic buying or hoarding, it was because loads of people (especially in cities) realised that they don't have more than a few days worth of supplies and then all bought two weeks worth of supplies at once. I'm originally from the countryside, so I'm used to always having at least two weeks of supplies, but I slowly upped it to a month's worth of supplies just in case already a couple of weeks before the 'panic buying'. If everyone had done the same, and bought their stockpiles earlier and in smaller batches, there would be no shortage.

Especially about the toilet paper people fail to take into account that when people work from home/children don't go to school, *they use a lot more toiletpaper* so you should 'hoard' it instead of going to the store every other day to get more. I've also been appalled by the ableism (and sexism) in a lot of the discussion when people (read: men) mock and refuse to believe those who say they need to use more toiletpaper than "one roll a month" (actual quote).

[conuly]

Those men should all drop dead and stop using toilet paper at all.

[fred_mouse]

I must admit to a certain amount of frustration at people who have complained about 'staples' being out of stock. The gluten free pasta we buy, and the (supposedly really common) regular soy milk are *frequently* out of stock. I absolutely hoard buy every time either of the types of pasta we eat are on the shelf, because at best there are 6 packets on the shelf, and we use 1 1/2 packets of one or 3 packets of the other for one meal (and eat pasta at least twice a week). The space allocated for each of these is about 20cm frontage on the shelf.

On the plus side though, while regular pasta is still limited to 2 per person, the gf is not -- I was able to buy four packets of one type in one supermarket, and three of the other in the other (each only had one of the brands on the shelf)

And as one of the commenters above mentioned -- we got the recommendation to pick up one or two extra items at our next shop. Within three days toilet paper was no longer available....

[sabotabby]

This is a good post and you should feel good.

(Also I hoarded toilet paper before the pandemic. A lot of things. I have a spinal fusion and can't carry more than 10 pounds. When my mum, who has a car, is able to help me buy supplies, I stock up.)

[gatheringrivers]

I did "overpurchase" some canned spinach yesterday morning. But I hadn't been able to find it for the last 3 weeks at ALL. (There's about a dozen cans now, so the spouse has canned spinach for a bit.) I specifically did not clean out the entire stock though - I grabbed several of one brand, and several of another, but there were plenty left of both when I was done.

Annoyingly, what I need to run out and buy now, will be things the spouse wants to eat that I don't, or fresh salad fixings for me.

Very much amused that I can have my pick of canning jars when the plastic storage containers are vanishing...

[rhoda_rants]

This, and I also think people might be vastly overestimating--or failing to estimate period--exactly how many rolls of toilet paper fit on a given shelf at a time.

[dewline]

Also, the ability to hoard/plan ahead - depending on your POV and needs - is limited absolutely by your ability to store what you buy for when you actually need/want the stuff.

[sciatrix]

Also by your purchasing power to buy a whole lot of stuff at once! Which is a big thing especially right now for, say, hourly retail workers who are on or fear they will be going on furlough. If you don't have a lot of liquid cash, it is absolutely more difficult to buy a lot of things at once quickly.

[sciatrix]

Yes, this. My roommate is a grocery worker, and admittedly we live in one of the poorer parts of town, but while she reported a lot of people buying a bit more than usual I don't think she mentioned a lot of people rushing on the store to buy out entire sections. Admittedly, her chain (HEB) was very well prepared and imposed limits on a lot of things quickly, but she said that there was a lot of people looking after each other (paying for the carts of the next four people in line, that sort of thing) and very little in the way of people arguing that they needed more than limits or trying to buy out entire aisles.

So I have been rather suspicious of the claims of hoard-purchasing, because both at her chain and at the Costco which is the other place we purchase groceries, I have mostly seen/heard of people being kind to one another with a very few asshole exceptions, most of whom have been quickly and sharply challenged by bystanders. I'm much less concerned about hoarding-buying and much more concerned about racism to Asian-American folks in town, honestly, based on the reports I have seen/heard around me.

[conuly]

HEB was amazingly well-prepared if the article I read about it is any indication.

[pwcorgigirl]

Where I live, there was an actual case of profiteering. The guy was shut down by Amazon and gave an interview to the New York Times that resulted in a visit from the feds.

Otherwise, though, I don't think people have so much been hoarding as suddenly faced with needing to have several weeks of provisions and food in the house when many households spend little time at home and eat many meals away from home. This could cause panic over buying that helped empty the shelves.

We also observed that one of our local grocery stores, which is one of only two in the chain in the county, is having a terrible time getting stock from its own chain. So all the store brand items are gone and it looks like there's been a price hike, but it's just that shoppers are left with only the national brands.

[conuly]

I remember that asshole, whining and crying like somehow he's the victim, and then trying to play off "my stockpile was confiscated" as "I donated the remaining goods out of pure charity".

[thewayne]

It's a supply chain problem caused by MBAs reinforced by greed/Wall Street. Everything has to be JIT delivery: Just In Time. Eliminate warehouses full of stuff just sitting there, which is money that is not moving, which is an expense on the books. So if everyone clears out shelves in a supermarket, it disrupts the supply chain and it's hard to get everything moving again smoothly because it's very hard for the paper products makers to ramp up production to make more.

[alexseanchai]

…*facepalm* I knew these things, I just didn't think to connect them to the current etc, and I do not know why I failed to make that connection

[zhelana]

new zealand government said they sold enough flour to feed the country for YEARS in one day. That is hoarding on a large scale, regardless of whether it waas one person or everyone.

[al_zorra]

Rich people swooped in like locusts, for just one example, at our local Trader Joe's. I heard a woman on her phone saying this was her 6 range rover load in week, and she was taking it to their big house in the Hamptons. I overheard another woman at our supermarket complaining that TJ's was now limiting how much could be purchased at one time, and now she's discovered this down market place, and o my dear they have everything, except the parking is so damned hard to do, and there's nobody to carry her groceries to her vehicle.

Reports from friends all over the country is how these people are coming into their places and buying everything -- including a guy determined to buy all the meat in the meat department for his nice summer home to which he's come early -- and probably bringing the virus with him. He was stopped from taking All the Meat and said he was going to his house and coming back with his shot gun and taking it then.

Lots of stories like this from friends around the country who are locals in these nice 'vacation' spots.

Rhode Island and Vermont aren't letting in people with NY plates unless they have a job to do.

So... I dunno. What do we call this kind of behavior? I started stocking up for two months stuck at home a little past the middle of February. And I'm really glad I did since we can't go out due to nobody obeying the protocols of DISTANCE and masks and gloves. The runner and bikers and dog walkers all just push right by one, often literally pushing one out of the way -- and bikers are by regulation not to be on the sidewalk -- and these days the streets are deserted. I dunno. All this seems part and parcel.

Among my my personal circles though, I just see lots of smarts and generosity and sharing. I'm privileged and fortunate, unlike the check out people. Who are now getting sick.

[low_delta]

Like just before a snowstorm all the bread and milk are gone. Maybe that's because stores only stock a day of these things, and suddenly you have an extra day's worth of shoppers in the store a day early, because they won't want to go out for the next two days?

[conuly]

Yup.

[cellio]

Another factor: we actually are using more TP *at home*, because we're not using it at work or when out shopping or at restaurants but the body emits what the body emits. So why does that matter -- doesn't that mean that offices etc need less TP so there should be more in stores for people to buy for home use? Well no, because the production lines are different -- different roll size (those big dispensers so they don't have to refill as often), lower quality, different production lines, different vendor agreements... It seems quite reasonable to me that stores are seeing more demand for at-home TP without anybody behaving badly.