Going forward, most people will be prepared for minor supply disruptions. I don't find hand sanitizer to be an essential item.

quote:

it's a restaurant supply store. Might stop by and see what they have.

A few local restaurants are taking advantage of the supply chain that they use vs. those that grocery stores use to offer limited grocery items as well. I've seen a few restaurants offering eggs by the dozen, ground beef, cheese, and bread. This makes a lot of sense because the restaurant suppliers are sitting on warehouses full due to the slow down.

quote:

places like Amazon putting local businesses out of business, that’s just market forces working

Remember that the next time you need hand sanitizer to survive and there's not a local source to be found. Before that happens, you may be reminded as government attempt to recoup lost revenues by increasing your taxes. Don't complain.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

it's a restaurant supply store. Might stop by and see what they have.

A few local restaurants are taking advantage of the supply chain that they use vs. those that grocery stores use to offer limited grocery items as well. I've seen a few restaurants offering eggs by the dozen, ground beef, cheese, and bread. This makes a lot of sense because the restaurant suppliers are sitting on warehouses full due to the slow down.

quote:

places like Amazon putting local businesses out of business, that’s just market forces working

Remember that the next time you need hand sanitizer to survive and there's not a local source to be found. Before that happens, you may be reminded as government attempt to recoup lost revenues by increasing your taxes. Don't complain.

You conveniently edited out the rest of the quote about market forces working as stated by Ludwig von Mises. Either way, he is correct.

quote:

Originally posted by PowerSurge:

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

I sell my organic eggs for $3 a dozen.

Shame on you for not beating Walmart's price!

Most people have no idea what it takes to operate a business. They are clueless when it comes to the cost to operate the business, and if a consumer can't buy what they want at the price they want, then somehow they're getting screwed or gouged.

Assume I own a small hand sanitizer store. I turn 100% of my product on a weekly basis. I get a new order on Monday, and am sold out Sunday evening. My price allows me to pay my company bills, and I make enough profit to pay my personal expenses.

Corona hits. My supplier is hit with orders from all of the heavy hitters, and I'm not going to get my next shipment for 90 days due to the new demand. I have one week's worth of product on the shelf.

Do I A) continue selling for the same price, run out of inventory, and go out of business? B) mark up what I do have so that I can survive the 90 days? Or maybe C) buy product that I can get at an increased cost, but that will require me to raise my prices?

Seems that most of you guys are short sighted enough to choose A.

Ok. Since all of us here are obviously less intelligent than you, at what point and what percentage increase does price gouging occur to you?

It doesn't occur, ever. If you don't want to buy a product at my price, don't buy it. If you do pay the price and it pisses you off don't come back after the shortage. That's your call, not mine. It's my call what to charge for a product as a business owner, not yours. It's not that complicated is it? I think the term your looking for is "capitalism".

I just returned from a trip out of state. An elderly family member who had been buying/ hoarding all manner of things for years had been previously moved in with a different family member and the costs associated with their care were creeping up.

I brought back several items that were either to be for use by the family member, or other family members...however, given the current panic buying I grabbed several cases of toilet paper, paper towels, and tissues, and a few gallons of cleaning supplies. My plan was to "kill two birds with one stone", start the clean up phase, sell some of the supplies to offset their care costs, and hopefully provide an opportunity for those who needed such items to buy them. Win-Win right?

I hadn't come up with a hard price but had planned on researching what comparable items were selling for in the area and adding maybe %10-%30 to cover some of my costs in retrieving them.

However, by the time I made it back into the state, apparently over 300 consumer complaints had been filed with the Democrat AG and he was going to become the 'caped crusader' for the common man and crack down on us despicable "gougers"...so, the TP, paper towels, and cleaning supplies spent years sitting in a corner, they will resume doing so in a new corner...and all those looking for toilet paper on our empty store shelves...well, they and their kids can deal with unsavory methods to wipe themselves and itchy backsides until the panic subsides and the supply chain catches up.

Count me firmly in the camp that believes there is no such thing as gouging...only a free market in which prices rise and fall depending on Supply and Demand.

3 dollar egg guy nobody is complaining about you. Your eggs cost 3 dollars before and they cost 3 dollars now. That isn’t gouging. If it was every bunch of “organic” anything is always gouging. Which is another topic anyway. Lol

Courtesy of skins2881, from the toilet paper hoarding thread.




Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...gyg&feature=youtu.be

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

it's a restaurant supply store. Might stop by and see what they have.

A few local restaurants are taking advantage of the supply chain that they use vs. those that grocery stores use to offer limited grocery items as well. I've seen a few restaurants offering eggs by the dozen, ground beef, cheese, and bread. This makes a lot of sense because the restaurant suppliers are sitting on warehouses full due to the slow down.

Stopped back by today. I have a co-worker that just has to have some disposable gloves. They were reasonably priced. $6 for 90 count. Picked him up a box since he hasn't been able to find any. That's less than I pay normally for my food prep/gun cleaning gloves. Luckily I saw the writing on the wall and picked up a few boxes of the ones I normally use pre-corona craziness and have a couple hundred on hand, not for coronavirus, but for car/cooking/guns.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Here in MI, Wretched Gretchen supposedly went after Menards for price gouging.

I prefer to refer to her as Jennifer 2.0. For those of you who don't live here, we were stuck with Jennifer Grandholm about ten years ago. She was a piece of work.

To the original topic: I live in a small town. We are all pulling together to support our local business people in whatever way we can. By the same token, if anyone took advantage of the situation by price gouging: I live in a small town. And we all have long memories. More than one person has found out how quickly you can run out of customers and friends in a small town.

I recall how droves of people left MI to escape Granholm. Snyder came in and began to change things until Flint water toppled him. Now back to Granholm part deux.

I guess I am fortunate to be in a tiny town in America's Heartland.

gouging wouldn't last long in a wide spot in the road with 1200-1600 people.

after the first four days your store would be kryptonite ,

Well, hoarding essential items and gouging will get you a visit by the FBI now.

At least you get paid "fair market value" which is some unknown number.


https://www.foxbusiness.com/li...nforcement-operation

quote:

“If you are amassing critical medical equipment for the purpose of selling it at exorbitant prices, you can expect a knock at your door,” Attorney General William P. Barr said. “The Department of Justice's COVID-19 Hoarding and Price Gouging Task Force is working tirelessly around the clock with all our law enforcement partners to ensure that bad actors cannot illicitly profit from the COVID-19 pandemic facing our nation.”

quote:

Originally posted by Mars_Attacks:

Well, hoarding essential items and gouging will get you a visit by the FBI now.

We're gonna need more agents.

The tiny town grocery store is about 5000 sq. feet.

it's always been pricey , about 20% to 35% more than Wal Mart , up in the big city .

there are people here that never go in to the city , they are much better off financially than I.

in the last visit to to the tiny town grocery ,
it was only half stocked

literally half empty, the owner has put in five orders for food all of them over $7,000.00.

and he get about half of the order in .
but !

the price of every darn thing that they have in stock has doubled in the last four weeks.

so now , what they have left in the store is 65% to 80% more than Wal Mart (11 miles away)

if the store goes under , it's going to hurt about 65 little old lady ,widows, considerably .

is it profiteering if the grocery store has to pay more from the distributor?

Ok. I understand business. At least mine. I could charge more for my serices because there is a shortage. You have to be able to sleep at night. I will admit that I will enjoy buying a new car soon and getting rock bottom pricing. It is a car dealership. No worries.

A little old lady would not get the same deal even if the salesman belonged to the same Church.

There may be supply issues here. I do not know. I like the way you think about these things.

quote:

Originally posted by Modern Day Savage:


Count me firmly in the camp that believes there is no such thing as gouging...only a free market in which prices rise and fall depending on Supply and Demand.

agree

-------------------------------