Costco Limiting Purchase Quantities

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Alpha8472
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Costco Limiting Purchase Quantities

Post by Alpha8472 »

Costco is limiting quantities of items such as Costco brand toilet paper and bottled water. People are hoarding again. Costco says that there is no shortage. The company claims that there is a 2 to 3 week delay in getting it delivered.

I have noticed that toilet paper is sold out when I go later in the day. Instead of Costco toilet paper, I have found other brands that seem to be of better quality.

There is plenty of toilet paper at other stores.
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Re: Costco Limiting Purchase Quantities

Post by mbz321 »

My location has been running very low on TP almost every day for the past few weeks. By late Saturday afternoon, we were sold out completely across all the brands, and were out of Kirkland paper towels as well. The only thing we had a lot of backstock of was Bounty. Today, some Kirkland TP and towels came in, but not a significant quantity. I forgot to glace at the aisle before I left today, but I don't think there were many sell units of either left. Also, the majority of the Kirkland paper towels that we've been receiving were meant to be sold in the Canadian market (Made in Canada prominently called out on the package, as well as Bilingual printing).

Of course, the 'Costco shortage' story is all over the mainstream media, so as soon as people come in, they throw a paper towel and TP in their cart whether they need it or not.
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Re: Costco Limiting Purchase Quantities

Post by SamSpade »

It also made ESL international news. My partner is Taiwanese-American and made sure to alert all our friends that TP and paper towels would be going out of stock and to have a 2 - 3 month supply thanks to supply chain issues. Sourcing the story was a 'cribbed' report from Norah O'Donnell (CBS Evening News).
Last edited by SamSpade on September 28th, 2021, 12:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Costco Limiting Purchase Quantities

Post by buckguy »

I stopped by the Costco at Pentagon City in Arlington, VA---limits of 1/customer on paper goods--Kirkland and branded, but none on water. They had many pallets of both items. That store has a big "small business" trade (more so than most Costcos I've seen here or elsewhere) so I would imagine that they'll try to avoid limiting water which always gets a lot of customers there.
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Re: Costco Limiting Purchase Quantities

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

I just don't get it. Sure, last year we got caught flat-footed and people engaged in panic buying (and I plead guilty to that myself) but that was more of a supply chain issue which seemed to work itself out as we got more into 2021. I don't know about anybody else, but I've got enough TP, Paper Towels, table napkins, etc. to last me who knows how long. And if it was a problem with imports, maybe I could understand these items being in short supply but I honestly don't think I've ever purchased any imported paper products. I imagine we import some but not on a scale where it would trigger a shortage. This whole thing probably started when somebody saw an empty pallet on the floor and then went on their favorite social media outlet and mentioned it then people just presumed there's a shortage and it was off to the races-kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.
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Re: Costco Limiting Purchase Quantities

Post by storewanderer »

I am hopeful some retailers have adjusted orders and are keeping more product on hand so the shortages are not as pronounced. I have noticed a lot of Walgreens for instance who have clearly "upped" the order quantity on paper product as those aisles are, for lack of better words, stacked very high, much moreso than they used to be.

In any given grocery store right now there are thousands of out of stocks. What I find interesting is this seems to really be hitting at center store the hardest (doesn't seem to be happening in dairy/frozen for example). It isn't as obvious to the consumer what is going on- in some cases it is the unique flavors/sizes missing so they stretch out what is there. The stores are good at having the core item in stock- they may have the regular Folgers but are missing 3-4 of the more vague blends so they just have additional facings of regular Folgers.

I don't think there is any reason to crazy panic buy but perhaps a 2-3 month supply is a good idea.
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Re: Costco Limiting Purchase Quantities

Post by buckguy »

Social media is full of pearl clutching rumors and anecdotes about shortages and if you're not the sort who responds to that, you still might feel like you should replenish anything that is getting now before the people who buy into the fear deplete the stores.

The supply chain management is probably going to have hiccups for one thing or another for at least the next year or more. The supply chains are now so complicated that even if there is adequate staffing or logistics in one place, raw material supply or onward distribution can still be a problem, plus there are businesses throughout a chain that may have closed. Given that we're past the adjustment to spending more time at home, I have to wonder how much of the buying/delivery is recreational or pathological rather than driven by necessity. I no longer see Door Dash for trivial items, but I have neighbors who account for a disproportionate amount of the local deliveries and returns.
TW-Upstate NY wrote: September 28th, 2021, 12:37 pm I just don't get it. Sure, last year we got caught flat-footed and people engaged in panic buying (and I plead guilty to that myself) but that was more of a supply chain issue which seemed to work itself out as we got more into 2021. I don't know about anybody else, but I've got enough TP, Paper Towels, table napkins, etc. to last me who knows how long. And if it was a problem with imports, maybe I could understand these items being in short supply but I honestly don't think I've ever purchased any imported paper products. I imagine we import some but not on a scale where it would trigger a shortage. This whole thing probably started when somebody saw an empty pallet on the floor and then went on their favorite social media outlet and mentioned it then people just presumed there's a shortage and it was off to the races-kind of a self fulfilling prophecy.
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Re: Costco Limiting Purchase Quantities

Post by jamcool »

Try and find flavor varieties of diet soda in cans, other than Diet Coke/Pepsi/Dr Pepper. Maybe in 2 liter bottles, not cans
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Re: Costco Limiting Purchase Quantities

Post by TW-Upstate NY »

jamcool wrote: September 29th, 2021, 6:54 am Try and find flavor varieties of diet soda in cans, other than Diet Coke/Pepsi/Dr Pepper. Maybe in 2 liter bottles, not cans
I'll agree with that but with a little different slant. My favorite soda is caffeine free regular Coca-Cola and earlier this year it completely dried up in the stores. It's not a huge seller I'm sure but probably does just well enough for Coke to keep it around. So when aluminum cans became in short supply, they suspended production of it. I then switched to Sprite-there's plenty of that and it's actually not half bad. Fast forward to maybe June or July and 2-liter bottles start showing up again. Then at the end of July, 12 packs of the stuff were available at Target along with 2-liter bottles. I bought enough of it to carry me through to some point earlier this month. When I went to that same Target again almost a few weeks ago, they had the cans and 2-liter bottles but every last one of the bottles were past their freshness date. The cans were a different date than the first batch I bought in July so that tells me they're going ahead with producing it in cans but looks like the bottles have stopped. What I also find interesting is it appears Coke is limiting where they place the product. I shop at Hannaford and they haven't had the cans of it and still don't (I was there yesterday) but they do have the 2-liter bottles which are now expired there as well. They had the same expiration date as the ones I saw at Target almost two weeks ago-no excuse for outdated product sitting that long especially since it's Coca-Cola themselves stocking those shelves.
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Re: Costco Limiting Purchase Quantities

Post by SamSpade »

storewanderer wrote: September 28th, 2021, 6:40 pm In any given grocery store right now there are thousands of out of stocks. What I find interesting is this seems to really be hitting at center store the hardest (doesn't seem to be happening in dairy/frozen for example). It isn't as obvious to the consumer what is going on- in some cases it is the unique flavors/sizes missing so they stretch out what is there. The stores are good at having the core item in stock- they may have the regular Folgers but are missing 3-4 of the more vague blends so they just have additional facings of regular Folgers.
WinCo had so many folded over shelf tags (item posted but price folded off) on my visit and did exactly what you described. It was a little weird.
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