Originally Posted by ArtyMcFly
If everyone panic-buys more than they need, for purely selfish reasons, you get a tragedy of the commons. i.e. If everyone tries to stock up, like you recommended, the shelves will end up empty for everyone, including you. If people just bought their usual amount, there would be no shortages.
Quote:
Originally Posted by duvvard
It's kind of a catch 22. If everyone only bought their usual amount at a grocery store (pure guess, but maybe the average person grocery shops 2-3x a week?) then they'd need to potentially expose themselves to the virus more often than if they stocked up and bought say 2-4 weeks worth of groceries each trip (leading to empty shelves when **** really hit the fan the last couple weeks).
Arty and duvvard,
Yes that was one of the things I raised, that it will become progressively more risky to venture into food shops where you are close to other people, as well as the risk of catching the virus from metal, plastic or cardboard surfaces.
I stand by my point that stocking up has stimulated increased production but I 100% agree that people going berserk, just because they can, people with deep pockets and lots of storage space and multiple freezers in their garage etc are acting immorally.
Arty you said that you had been adding bits and pieces of supplies but unfortunately not enough for what is now known to be a 12 week self isolate for you. So I will very respectfully, and I mean that, suggest that had you anticipated the 12 weeks that you too may well have stocked up for 12 weeks or certainly with more than you had done.
So sensible level stockists, which is what I think I am, one could argue have been tactically astute rather than greedy or immoral.
Another factor, mentioned a few posts ago and confirmed in C4's UK Tv documentary programme last night is that food consumption has now shifted a lot from inside the work place, restaurants, sandwich bars and fast food places etc near people's work place, to more into people's homes. Also most school children now at home so not eating school meals, so all of these factors in part explain and justify domestic shoppers buying more supplies for consumption within the home.
The C4 programme also showed some examples of the food industry ramping up its production to full capacity. It showed an egg farm and a toilet paper factory/distributor.
I am pleased that shops are limiting purchases per customer, having special exclusive shopping hours solely for health workers and that the government have just introduced a scheme/a help line for people self isolating, such as Arty to call to get essential food and medicines to them. We are a civilised country so this is right and proper.
As some extra info for you Arty, in case you are not already aware of it, I have been using my poker brain and more so my tactical skills and I have noticed a definite pattern whereby the smaller independent grocery/convenience stores nearly all have a much better, more regularly restocked, and variety of products supply than any of the big mainstream supermarkets.
So I am talking about Nisa, Costcutter etc. And I have worked out why they do. Firstly, shoppers' behavioural tendencies in these smaller shops have been way slower in moving towards stock piling than in the supermarkets because a) they typically don't have their car and it's boot capacity with them, b) they are usually popping in for a small number of items, e.g. just cigarettes and bar of chocolate, and c) shoppers are not yet thinking about nor taking the time necessary to have a proper look around all of the aisles and on all of the shelves of these types of shops which usually are crammed into a small footprint.
Secondly, I have worked out that the supply chain is very different for these smaller shops compared to the supermarkets, and that the smaller shops are receiving, usually on a daily basis, a disproportionate amount of a wide variety of goods to the number of customers they have compared to the supermarkets. I estimate disproportionate to a factor of the 2x to 5x range.
Example: A Costcutter with 1,000 customers per day is receiving 20 tins of tomato soup, but a large Tesco with 50,000 customers per day is only receiving 300 tins. The figures quoted may be quite off but I believe the approximate ratios are correct, particularly as I have observed the pallets of mixed goods being delivered to my local small food shops and that anything such as tinned food is bought up in an instant by shoppers in supermarkets.
So why is the supply ratio heavily in favour of the small shops?
I think the logical reason is that they are much better higher profit margin customers for the food and supplies distributors. Until now in this crisis, supermarkets have been in price wars with each other due to massive increased competition, e.g. Aldi, Lidl and Asda threatening the likes of Tesco and Sainsburys, so supermarkets until now may have been placing variable size orders from the distributors and naturally also getting lower wholesale prices because they are buying in bulk.
However, many of the smaller food shops are very well geographically positioned, being the only wide stock of products small food shop on a residential housing estate or on a high street etc. Certainly they mostly don't have the level of competition that supermarkets were experiencing.
These small shops are open during very long hours and charge much higher prices for that service, therefore historically have been placing much more regular full volume orders and paying higher prices to the distributors which they then pass on to their customers.
So they are more valuable and very crucial customers to the distributors.
So it appears to me that the smaller shops' piece of the total distribution pie is still at its pre Coronavirus levels.
I posted all of the above as info to help anyone who is struggling to get supplies or to help people helping them out to get supplies for them.
Last edited by Mikey_D; 03-23-2020 at 08:15 AM.