I'm out, last round I really only just bought a few extra cans. The Lord will provide.
Side note, what will the panic buy item be this time? People won't fall for toilet paper again (okay they probably will but it'll look suspicious. What other aisle is easy to clear out with large inexpensive items?
Toilet Paper was never a 'panic buy'; real market forces caused it be sold out.
Before the lockdowns, about half of all TP usage was commercial TP (in those big rolls) and half was home. Once the lockdowns hit, that went to 90/10 or worse. This means commercial TP isn't getting used and home TP is getting used a lot more. If you just needed 'TP' you could always buy the big commercial rolls, but the residential rolls were what disappeared from store shelves.
TP is a low margin industry that's completely replaceable, which means any company in the space is working off of extremely tight margins made possible by very efficient manufacturing plants. This means they can't just ramp up production because trying to do so efficiently means more plants, which takes a long time (and would be unprofitable as soon as the the lockdowns stop).
This is why residential TP took so long to stabilize, and why we still see shortages and purchase limits.
I'm out, last round I really only just bought a few extra cans. The Lord will provide.
Side note, what will the panic buy item be this time? People won't fall for toilet paper again (okay they probably will but it'll look suspicious. What other aisle is easy to clear out with large inexpensive items?
Toilet Paper was never a 'panic buy'; real market forces caused it be sold out.
Before the lockdowns, about half of all TP usage was commercial TP (in those big rolls) and half was home. Once the lockdowns hit, that went to 90/10 or worse. This means commercial TP isn't getting used and home TP is getting used a lot more. If you just needed 'TP' you could always buy the big commercial rolls, but the residential rolls were what disappeared from store shelves.
TP is a low margin industry that's completely replaceable, which means any company in the space is working off of extremely tight margins made possible by very efficient manufacturing plants. This means they can't just ramp up production because trying to do so efficiently means more plants, which takes a long time (and would be unprofitable as soon as the the lockdowns stop).
This is why residential TP took so long to stabilize, and why we still see shortages and purchase limits.
He works for Big TP.