Coronavirus (COVID-19) Panic Buying?

[lovetravellingoz]

Indeed, I get the impression Aussies are too busy emptying supermarket shelves to go on holiday!
cheers skip

Not at the supermarkets I frequent. And at Costco, when don't shoppers here have full trollies?

I think it is more that hand sanitiser has a run on.

 

[equus]

IGA - Independent Grocers Australia.

Whilst there are some "groups" of IGA stores, IGA is sort of a generic brand used by a bunch of basically independent stores.

In order to compete, and for economies of scale, they do have some central warehousing and distribution, but no store is forced to use anything (as they are independent). OK, there is some economic incentive, as the volume they contribute affects their pricing etc., but basically, most of them will use the warehousing arrangement for grocery staples, but lots will tend to have their own local arrangements for things like fruit and veg, meat, seafood, eggs, milk etc.

As a result, they can tend to have shorter supply chains - of course, this is not as ""efficient" (cheap) when everything works, but much more resilient when issues arise.

Another factor is that they are not totally reliant on a single delivery vector - so if one delivery doesn't make it due to disruptions, it won't necessarily prevent deliveries of other products. A bit more redundancy in the system.

 

[Must...Fly!]

My brother tells me the shelves in Perth were looking sparse at Coles. No pasta. And witnessed and older bloke with about 20 trays of meat in a trolley yelling at another customer to put his mask on.

Let's do the time warp again....

 

[jakeseven7]

Annoyingly, some items are marked "in store only". What? Why can't the personal shopper pick it up off the shelf rather than force people into their shop to collect items along with Covid!

Its automated to display that when inventory levels drop below a certain number for some skus because they know there's a very good chance it won't be
able to be shopped by the personal shopper anyway. They also do this for super fast selling sale items sometimes. You'll just have to do it yourself, or if you are isolating - try WiseList or Uber or similar. They won't rely on the supermarket systems to go and look.

 

[Must...Fly!]

Amazon is another place to go if you need long shelf life items (e.g. pasta, some cereals, bathroom etc). You can often pay to have quicker shipping (i.e. same or next day)

 

[Hvr]

Amazon is another place to go

Prime is good for quick and free shipping with Amazon. For $59 per annum it's easyh to recoup the cost in delivery fees if you order at least a parcel a month. Plus they have pay tv included which offers some interesting viewing.

 

[Katie]

We did our grocery shopping on Sunday at Coles, and I stopped by Woolies today for something random.
Both supermarkets had sparse meat shelves. I'd joked to a friend I saw while shopping at Coles that this week was going to be vegan week! Luckily we bought mince from Costco for the puppy on the way home from the coast on 8 Jan, and we don't need to make him more food for a while. That being said, there was enough mince to choose from on Sunday.
(I don't think the puppy approves of the Costco mince ... and he might have preferred the chicken frames to be whole rather than me mincing them in my new mincer attachment that I got for Christmas!)

Both stores were empty of loo paper and tissues, and some random other shelves were sparse. Aldi has generally had lots of loo paper.

I'm now extra sad our local shopping centre no longer has a butcher or fruit and veg store, though it does have Coles, Woolies, and Aldi. In one of the 2020 panic buy moments, the butchers were the only store in the centre who could keep up with the demand for mince. Especially as there's no on-site butchers for Coles or Woolies.

 

[jakeseven7]

Amazon is another place to go if you need long shelf life items (e.g. pasta, some cereals, bathroom etc). You can often pay to have quicker shipping (i.e. same or next day)

I would rather support local businesses. Amazon has really horrific employment conditions and track record for many of its staff and I can’t bring myself to order anything from them.