Hey, there! Log in / Register
Shades of spring, 2020
By adamg on Sun, 10/24/2021 - 8:20pm
This was the paper towel/toilet paper aisle at the Dedham Stop &;amp; Shop late this afternoon. Maybe it was just one of those things, or are people stocking up on the paper goods again?
They did have a pallet of six-month packages of Scott paper towels at the other end, along with a pallet of one of paper towels under one of those foreign brand names you'd never heard of before, oh, April 2020:
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
Getting ready for Mischief Night?
Did you check if there were any eggs in stock?
BJ's in Waltham had signs
BJ's in Waltham had signs limiting purchases of paper towels and the like to one, and only had the BJ's brand left; there were no tissues at all.
TP
I've seen similar empty aisles in a few Targets... I'm wondering if people are scrambling to stock up because of all the talk of a disrupted supply chain?
Probably panic buying
There are some supply chain issues domestically (where most tp is produced) because of a shortage of truckers and a couple of other factors, but it's pretty minor from what I've read.
The bigger problems are with international supply chain as there are significant delays that have happened overseas (e.g. when a production area is shut down to cut off a virus spike) or that things are really backed up in the ports so ships are stuck waiting to offload. Tie that with increased demand in anticipation of the holidays and that's where more of the supply chain issues are.
I think there's just more demand
and that the supply side takes a long time to ramp up to respond to sustained demand changes. In addition, there are transient supply chain disruptions that are reverberating around the system, so the already lean supply chains more easily show up as empty shelves.
(Anyway, it's not really panic buying if you observe intermittent shortages and think "well, I'd better keep more on hand to weather the outages". That's rational and not even selfish behavior.)
Could be Halloween?
That said, shopping the other day I could not get junior his usual school snacks. The shelf was very bare.
Market Basket
I was at my local Market Basket Saturday and didn't notice any bare shelves and plenty of MB branded TP and paper towels.
Which now reminds me, I should go grab some if this is gonna become a thing. I'm almost out of both & have been holding off for when they go on sale.
The Somerville MB had no problems yesterday.
Looked normal. All the paper goods where they should be.
Is something funny going on in Dedham?