Patience, shoppers: Hard to find items have become a thing
The definition of a luxury problem, according to Olivia Kraus, a lawyer in Mount Vernon, New York, is the inability to buy something expensive that one can afford. As such, she has lots. This past August, Kraus ordered a generator through an electrician. It came in January, she said.
That month, she went to a Jacuzzi dealer, who told her that she was “in luck,” that they had a Jacuzzi unspoken for arriving in January and two similar models arriving in February.
No other hot tub would be available until October.
She picked one that could be scheduled to arrive in February. It arrived two weeks ago.
Apparently, Kraus said, “the factory in California was seriously slowed down for social distancing.”
All over the United States — or at least, all over the parts of it where people have jobs, disposable income and time to spare — shoppers are encountering the same thing: products that are sold out or on back order. That they are “hard to find,” or HTF in online parlance, naturally increases their desirability, sort of like “hard to get” used to be in relationships.
The reason some things are unavailable seems straightforward enough. Millions of people who before the pandemic weren’t at home much spent the last year testing the limits of their clothes dryers, dishwashers and stoves, and their living spaces groaned under the unreasonable demands.
Top brands like Viking, Bosch and Miele are in high demand.
Dyson’s V8 vacuum cleaner, lauded for its ability to erase pet hair, was nowhere to be found at the packed Home Depot in New York’s Chelsea neighborhood on a recent Sunday (though it’s now back in stock).
The descalers responsible for cleaning out mineral buildup from the Breville Espresso maker sold at Williams-Sonoma have also been elusive.
Marina Zenovich, a documentarian whose films include “Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic” and “Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired,” ordered her replacements in February.
A few weeks later, she opened her computer to a message informing her they would not be coming until late May, citing “temporary delays from our suppliers, vendors and artisans.” (She’s still using the machine to make her coffee, for what it’s worth.)
At Restoration Hardware in New York’s Meatpacking District, a person at the front desk said last week that “most” sofas are still being delivered in 10 to 12 weeks, the normal time frame. But “most” doesn’t include the track arm sofa that Chris Peregrin, global director of partnerships at the photography agency Magnum, ordered in April.
It is due to arrive in early August, thanks to what the person at the front desk said are issues obtaining velvets and Belgian linens. And a salesperson at Truemart Fabrics in Chelsea said that it’s just as hard to get silks and cotton prints because there isn’t as much production in the cutting rooms.
Break out the tiny violins, right? If you can locate some.
Restaurants that offer food to go have a shortage in ketchup packets, the result of both a boom in takeout and the decision by many restaurants not to use bottles of it because of sanitary issues. Never mind that most evidence suggests COVID-19 rarely spreads via contaminated surfaces. Long-battered Heinz stock is on the rise.
According to Bloomberg, another toilet paper shortage may be on the way, thanks to drama in the Suez Canal. A global semiconductor shortage has caused spikes in the prices of electronics.
Katie Sturino is the founder of Megababe, a 4-year-old company that makes cruelty-free beauty products. She worried at the beginning of the pandemic that the stay-at-home economy could claim her business. The opposite happened. Freed from having to go to the office, perhaps, women began to experiment more with newer, more natural deodorants, just as they did with less structured bras. Sales of Rosy Pits, Megababe’s best-known product, soared, Sturino said.
It’s still available at Target, but she’s unable to offer sales through her own website.
Dr. Lara Devgan, a plastic surgeon on the Upper East Side, has had a similar experience with her line of skin care products — believing at first that they would be unnecessary, and finding instead that they were sold out.
“It’s not only that we’ve been looking at unflattering Zoom angles, watching our Botox wear off and our gray hairs grow in,” she said. “It’s that people are wearing much less makeup than they’ve ever worn before, so they’re taking things into their own hands.”