Everything is Gone or Sold Out

[StanfordGuy]

Today I brought 15 rolls of toilet paper. It was very satisfying for me to see envious eyes of others

[MrMan]

Some companies are earning obviously huge money because of this corona-virus hystery. Sounds to be to be an artificial shortage made on purpose.
It is impossible for USA to be sold out of food items, toilet paper and other daily articles within a few weeks.
Somebody is holding back stuff in large warehouses etc. and will sell later with higher prices.

I am here in Japan and everything is normal, everywhere you can buy whatever you need.
We do not have any stock at home, just food for a few days or so. We use very little toilet paper, as we have - like many Japanese - a full automatic washlet in our restroom.

It seems unlikely to me that toilet paper companies would hoard their own products to create a shortage. The big manufacturing companies have managers that are familiar with just-in-time inventory, lean manufacturing, and those types of concepts. They would be trained to keep work-in-progress inventory low so as to keep their capital from being tied up in inventory. This would especially be true with relatively low tech toilet paper manufacturing where the raw materials are reliable and easy to get. The system wouldn't be set up to hoard toilet paper rolls. Plus, it eats up a lot of space to store that, and rented warehouse space either costs money or there is an opportunity cost for the space.

I knew that in the South, southerners go buy up the bread and milk right before a quarter inch of snow. They might not do it for ice. My mom said they do that with toilet paper, too. I must not have needed toilet paper while shopping in the south before snow, so I never noticed it. But that may be on the list of things US shoppers stock up on if they think they will be stuck at home for a while.

There are people who stocked up because they did not want to go out and get the virus. There are people who stocked up because they thought they might be locked down by an over-protective government. Then there are people who stocked up to get the stuff before the other two groups bought up all the supplies. You end up with a totally rational run on products.

Keep in mind that it is common in the US, where there is a lot of land, for people in suburbs and rural areas to have large houses with lots of storage space. A lot of Americans have large refrigerators. There are those big warehouse stores like Sam's and Costcos that sell in bulk to regular consumers. So it makes sense in the US for people to be able to buy up stuff like this. In countries where people shop at corner stores several times a week instead of stocking up large quantitites of goods, there may not have been runs on consumer products.

I hear Costco put up a sign that they do not accept returns on hand sanitizer and toilet paper. That should discourage the people who tell themselves they will stock up now and return them. Some of these products last a long time so if people return to work and school in a couple of months, families can use toilet paper months down the line. I don't know how long it would take a familiy to go through a giant container of hand sanitizer if there is no germ scare, though.