Panic buying

[Hal Nail]

On 27/09/2020 at 13:07, MJI said:

We buy a pack when in use pack is getting low so never go below 30 rolls.

 

if everyone did this there would have been no panic buying.

Are you suggesting the way to avoid panic stockpiling is for everyone to have a 6 month supply sat at home already?

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Hal Nail

[Jonboy]

6 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

Are you suggesting the way to avoid panic stockpiling is for everyone to have a 6 month supply sat at home already?

 

Try someone in the house getting a long term digestive disorder, that 30 rolls will become a 2 week supply.....

[Keith Addenbrooke]

1 hour ago, Jonboy said:

Try someone in the house getting a long term digestive disorder, that 30 rolls will become a 2 week supply.....

There were plenty of digestives neatly displayed in the biscuit aisle when I went shopping last week, not at all disorderly.

 

Oh, hang on...

[TheQ]

After a lack of bog rolls a few days ago, now there is a bog roll mountain in the nearest Tesco Extra, mostly the big 24 packs

[MJI]

9 hours ago, Hal Nail said:

Are you suggesting the way to avoid panic stockpiling is for everyone to have a 6 month supply sat at home already?

 

 

That is OK is you go once a week and use a couple of pieces.

 

We eat plenty of veg and fruit.

[raymw]

The way to stop panic buying, is for the shops to stockpile, out of sight of the consumer. When the normal stock on the shelves are depleted, wait a day or two, and then replenish with ten times the amount, at a lower price. Rinse and repeat.

Edited September 29, 2020 by raymw

[cctransuk]

2 minutes ago, raymw said:

The way to stop panic buying, is for the shops to stockpile, out of site of the consumer. When the normal stock on the shelves are depleted, wait a day or two, and then replenish with ten times the amount, at a lower price. Rinse and repeat.

 

Supermarkets don't have that area of spare storage space - in fact, most have little or no storage space.

 

Try asking if they have a particular item - the answer is usually that, if it isn't on the shelf, they haven't got it!

 

John Isherwood.

[Andy Hayter]

I want to agree John but for some reason the system has deprived this post of the facility.

 

The shops storage space is the warehouse some tens or hundred kilometres away and its shelf space.  Nothing in between.

[TheQ]

38 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

Supermarkets don't have that area of spare storage space - in fact, most have little or no storage space.

 

Try asking if they have a particular item - the answer is usually that, if it isn't on the shelf, they haven't got it!

 

John Isherwood.

Correct, they all work on just in time delivery, if ever we get a real snowfall again, the Big City "extra" size stores will be wiped out of stock of everything in a couple of days. Then watch the panic buying...

[stewartingram]

And the cost of storing that stockpile is huge, driving up the retail price.

[melmerby]

28 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

I want to agree John but for some reason the system has deprived this post of the facility.

 

 

He's currently on the "naughty step" and is moderated so you can't add comments.

[melmerby]

I'm due my fortnightly delivery from Asda tomorrow but I have had a note added to my confirmation that due to high demand some items are now in short supply.

So the dried Pasta that I have been trying to order (third time of trying) is OOS again.

I normally buy 3kg bags but they haven't been avaiable so I orderd some 500g bags but they have also gone now.

Edited September 29, 2020 by melmerby

[woodenhead]

1 minute ago, melmerby said:

I'm due my fortnightly delivery from Asda tomorrow but I have had a note added to my confirmationation that due to high demand some items are now in short supply.

So the dried Pasta that I have been trying to order (third time of trying) is OOS again.

I normally by 3kg bags but they haven't been avaiable so I orderd some 500g bags but they have also gone now.

Took ages as well for the 3kg bags to be back, I think even Sainsburys had them before Asda.

[jonny777]

6 minutes ago, stewartingram said:

And the cost of storing that stockpile is huge, driving up the retail price.

 

Why? 

 

Someone is storing it somewhere, otherwise it can't be delivered 'just in time' and that costs too. Why is it so much more expensive for supermarkets to store it and cut shelf space? Do shoppers really need to see 100ft of cola bottles in order to buy one?

 

And if you are going to reply that supermarkets tend to be in high rates areas, then someone ought to slap on an environmental cost tax, for warehouses built on Greenfield sites. 

[Reorte]

13 minutes ago, stewartingram said:

And the cost of storing that stockpile is huge, driving up the retail price.

There's a bit of a balance to be done, it shouldn't be one extreme or the other, but when the only deciding factor is "cheapest right now"...

[cctransuk]

4 minutes ago, jonny777 said:

 

Why? 

 

Someone is storing it somewhere, otherwise it can't be delivered 'just in time' and that costs too. Why is it so much more expensive for supermarkets to store it and cut shelf space? Do shoppers really need to see 100ft of cola bottles in order to buy one?

 

And if you are going to reply that supermarkets tend to be in high rates areas, then someone ought to slap on an environmental cost tax, for warehouses built on Greenfield sites. 

 

Nope - if you watch any of the 'Inside the Factory' TV series, virtually everything goes straight from the production line  into the artic. lorries that deliver direct to the store.

 

Storage of production is a thing of the past, as is storage of ingredients / raw materials. Most farm produce is harvested to order direct from the supermarkets.

 

John Isherwood.

[Andy Hayter]

7 minutes ago, jonny777 said:

 

Why? 

 

Someone is storing it somewhere, otherwise it can't be delivered 'just in time' and that costs too. Why is it so much more expensive for supermarkets to store it and cut shelf space? Do shoppers really need to see 100ft of cola bottles in order to buy one?

 

And if you are going to reply that supermarkets tend to be in high rates areas, then someone ought to slap on an environmental cost tax, for warehouses built on Greenfield sites. 

 

If it is in the centralised warehouse, the stock can be sent to any of the stores as and when they need it.  If it is in a store say at the easternmost range of the warehouses supply, and a store at the westernmost side runs out, shifting the stock from east to west is a very expensive operation.  

[cctransuk]

1 minute ago, Andy Hayter said:

 

If it is in the centralised warehouse, the stock can be sent to any of the stores as and when they need it.  If it is in a store say at the easternmost range of the warehouses supply, and a store at the westernmost side runs out, shifting the stock from east to west is a very expensive operation.  

 

See my post above - warehouses are an (expensive) thing from the past.

 

John Isherwood.

[PhilH]

4 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

See my post above - warehouses are an (expensive) thing from the past.

 

John Isherwood.

They don't seem to agree down this way..one of many extant and proposed.

https://www.basingstokegazette.co.uk/news/18546187.plans-revealed-warehouse-development-m3-junction-7/

[jonny777]

So we are all meant to bow down to the all-powerful god of 'cheap is good' and maximise profits at all cost? 

 

I wonder if the empty shelves, every time there is a tightening of lockdown rules, are trying to tell us something? 

 

 

[Sidecar Racer]

27 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

See my post above - warehouses are an (expensive) thing from the past.

 

John Isherwood.

 

Some one ought to mention that to Morrisons then .

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.1552294,-2.9819433,1230m/data=!3m1!1e3

[ejstubbs]

Popped in to my local Sainsbury's again today - actually just to collect an Argos order,  but I had a look round some of the rest of the shop as well. Plenty of pasta and rice.  A few gaps on the loo roll aisle but those were the own brand stuff of which there was a huge display on another aisle near the entrance (for some reason likely known only to Sainsbury's).  Good stocks of Andrex, Cushelle etc. Didn't check the flour aisle but will be doing a full shop tomorrow so will find out then.  AFAICS at the moment Edinburghers are not panicking.  (Mind you, even at the best of times it's tricky enough to get Edinburghers to part with their money!)

Edited September 29, 2020 by ejstubbs

[cctransuk]

47 minutes ago, Sidecar Racer said:

 

Some one ought to mention that to Morrisons then .

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@51.1552294,-2.9819433,1230m/data=!3m1!1e3

 

1 hour ago, PhilH said:

They don't seem to agree down this way..one of many extant and proposed.

https://www.basingstokegazette.co.uk/news/18546187.plans-revealed-warehouse-development-m3-junction-7/

 

I think that, if you were to look into what happens in these buildings - and I pass the Morrisons depot every time I go 'up country' - you would find that they are distribution depots, rather than warehouses. The giveaway is the vast number of artic loading bays along the length of the building.

 

Goods come in from the manufacturer / supplier by the artic-load and are automatically sent, by computer-controlled conveyors, directly to the loading bay for a particular store. The 'wares' are not being 'housed'; they are being sorted, and probably don't remain in the distribution depot for more than an hour or so.

 

My brother, as an architect / planner, has been directly responsible for the planning and design of several of these vast 'wiggly tin sheds', as he calls them; and confirms that nothing is stored in them.

 

John Isherwood.

[cctransuk]

1 hour ago, jonny777 said:

So we are all meant to bow down to the all-powerful god of 'cheap is good' and maximise profits at all cost? 

 

I wonder if the empty shelves, every time there is a tightening of lockdown rules, are trying to tell us something? 

 

 

 

Surely you have realised that that particular 'god' motivates all commercial activity worldwide - I'm afraid that particular crusade was lost very many years ago!

 

John Isherwood.

[Fat Controller]

7 minutes ago, cctransuk said:

 

 

I think that, if you were to look into what happens in these buildings - and I pass the Morrisons depot every time I go 'up country' - you would find that they are distribution depots, rather than warehouses. The giveaway is the vast number of artic loading bays along the length of the building.

 

Goods come in from the manufacturer / supplier by the artic-load and are automatically sent, by computer-controlled conveyors, directly to the loading bay for a particular store. The 'wares' are not being 'housed'; they are being sorted, and probably don't remain in the distribution depot for more than an hour or so.

 

My brother, as an architect / planner, has been directly responsible for the planning and design of several of these vast 'wiggly tin sheds', as he calls them; and confirms that nothing is stored in them.

 

John Isherwood.

I believe the system used is something called 'cross-docking'. Suppliers are given a time at which the goods have to be on site; if the vehicle arrives late, then it has to wait the next available slot, which might be the next day. There are often no parking or other facilities for these late-runners.