Where is the toilet paper and hand sanitizer?
Retailers trying to manage supply chains
When a blizzard is on the horizon, most people make a run for toilet paper and other essentials to help them ride out the storm.
Apparently, the toilet-paper-buying triggers apply to pandemics as well.
Chances are you’ve stopped at the store lately and noticed a void where the 2-ply would normally be. Also on the shopping list — but maybe not on the shelves — are cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer and medicine.
“Our stores are attempting to restock daily — sometimes twice per day — depending on what’s available at the supplier level,” Bill Lipsky, vice president, merchandising, Atlantic Region, Pittsburgh Division for Shop ‘n Save wrote in an email.
Shop ‘n Save, Target, Walmart, and Giant Eagle are among the retailers asking shoppers to limit the number of items they buy at one time so the merchandise is also available for others — trying to manage the demand even as the supply chain is working to keep up.
In its app, O’Hara-based grocer Giant Eagle notified users that it would temporarily limit purchases of paper towels and toilet paper to three packages per shopper.
“As is the case for all retailers, the availability of certain health, wellness and sanitizing products may differ across our stores,” said Dick Roberts, a spokesman for Giant Eagle. “Hand sanitizers and disinfectant wipes are currently the items in highest demand. At our corporate office, we are collaborating with our supply partners to keep our stores as wellstocked as possible.”
In a blog post, Walmart stated that online it is taking “a firm stance related to the potential for price gouging by third-party sellers. Violations of our seller pricing policy and seller prohibited items policy will not be tolerated and will be resolved quickly.”
Meanwhile, consumers are getting the message out to each other, posting competing photos of empty shelves and snarky notes.
Some customers took to social
media to complain about Costco being out of toilet paper, rice and flour, and rationing bottled water, while others said that pulling out of the Costco parking lot took longer than shopping.
The Target in North Fayette was limiting to six the number of disinfectant wipes packages, hand sanitizers, and hand and face wipes that each consumer could buy, according to one post.
One prescription drug distributor described planning for expected delays in getting medication down the road.
It’s hard to predict when consumers could start to face drug shortages, but it could happen sometime between April and June, said Greg Drew, the CEO of Altoona-based Value Drug Co. which distributes prescription medications to more than 500 independent community pharmacies across 17 states every night.
That’s because many of the raw materials for drug manufacturers — the active ingredients that actually make the medicines work, like acetaminophen in Tylenol — come from China. Drug makers in the United States and elsewhere turn those active ingredients into pills or injections.
Chinese manufacturing took a huge hit during the height of the COVID-19 epidemic there, and shipments out of the country fell.
The reason most places haven’t experienced any direct prescription drug shortages yet, Mr. Drew said, is because U.S. drug firms have been able to lean on their inventories.
There isn’t a whole lot consumers can do to stockpile their medications, Mr. Drew said, but some pharmacy benefit managers are allowing people to refill prescriptions earlier than normal.
He suggested that customers consult their pharmacists if they need refills ahead of time to begin a quarantine.