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eBay bans sales of face masks and hand sanitizers to combat price gouging

179 points by prostoalex 7y ago

userbinator 7y ago
"Our first priority is to ensure the safety of our employees and customers around the world," an eBay spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. ...by restricting the sale of items whose purpose is to increase the safety of their users? The inflated prices are bad, but making it harder to acquire such items --- even at higher cost --- seems an even worse situation. The spokesperson added that eBay is also "taking significant measures to block or quickly remove items" on its marketplace that make unsubstantiated medical claims. On the other hand, I think this is a far more sensible thing to do.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  > The spokesperson added that eBay is also "taking significant measures to block or quickly remove items" on its marketplace that make unsubstantiated medical claims. > On the other hand, I think this is a far more sensible thing to do. it's sensible as long as the unsubstantiated medical claims are actually unsubstantiated. There's been a lot of stuff going around (including from the CDC) about how masks don't actually protect you from coronavirus and things of that nature - whereas the truth there is that the right kind of masks will protect you if used properly. But there's a limited supply, and telling the masses that they don't work makes getting supply for hospitals easier...
johnpowell 7y ago
I have the same "Coronavirus Protection Mask" in the screenshot and I got it from Amazon a year ago. It barely works for keeping dust out of my nose when I am using the table saw. I feel comfortable saying it will offer zero protection for airborne illnesses.
- paulryanrogers 7y ago
  Masks may do more to protect the vulnerable around you from what you may unknowingly have. Please don't rule them out entirely.
  - serf 7y ago
    they aren't ruling out masks, they're sharing an anecdote that the mask shown in a screenshot (presumably this screenshot: https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106422086-1583245914252coronavirusprotectionmaskebay.jpg?v=1583245945&w=900&h=506 https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106422086-158324591425...) isn't capable of filtering dust, let alone small pathogens.
  - johnpowell 7y ago
    These things are just a charcoal pad on the inside of a mesh with very large holes. If sawdust can come in my cough can go out. And I am not saying all masks are dumb. Just this specific one when it is marketed as protection from the current problem. It is fraud. I spent six hours on the cancer floors of the local hospital the other day getting injections and we had to wear masks in the lobbies. It was the only part of the hospital I know of that required them. But it is the cancer floors and people have very little immune systems. When I was a few months into chemo my WBC count was under 1200. So low they couldn't do anymore chemo. So every little bit helps. And perhaps I am a bit angsty thinking that people are using the masks for no reason when there are people that actually need them. Again, I am not talking about the ebay garbage mask. I am talking about the ones that actually could help our sickest people.
    - imglorp 7y ago
      ALSO be aware masks like that have one-way valves to make exhalation more comfortable. They're just a little rubber flap so the exhaled air is not filtered. So construction mask like that might catch some inhaled droplets but won't do protect others from exhalation if the wearer is ill.
      - dTal 7y ago
        I would imagine they will offer a similar protection to a surgical mask, which also cannot "filter" outgoing air as there is no seal; it's just a line-of sight protection, perhaps helped somewhat by absorbing moisture droplets. A piece of tissue paper inside the valve would probably have the same or better effect, if you could persuade people to do that purely for the benefit of others.
- falcrist 7y ago
  Cotton surgical masks are generally intended to protect other people from your germs... Not the other way around.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  FWIW I looked at this a week or so ago and the NHS (England I think), recommend the Alpha Solway 3030v (https://www.nhsggc.org.uk/media/251465/nhsggc-hs-guidance-on-ffp3-use.docx https://www.nhsggc.org.uk/media/251465/nhsggc-hs-guidance-on...) for FFP3 masks. But the mask users have to have training, and there are testing kits to check for correct fit. So, it seems there's a degree of skill needed to use them properly. They're also a single use product, up to 8 hours AFAICT. At the time, last week, there were no masks available in the UK except one or two non-mainstream suppliers [and no 3M FFP3 masks that weren't at gouge prices] - the sale price on ebay/Amazon was about 5 times the retail purchase price I could get. For IPA70 the sale price was about 10 times what I found. [I didn't purchase.]
pbreit 7y ago
That seems reactionary.
H8crilA 7y ago
So they jacked up the prices from high (few people can buy) to infinity (nobody can buy). How's that a good thing?
- platz 7y ago
  These kinds of prices (gouging) are not at an idealized equilibrium. They don't reflect the true supply. They're just predatory on people who have incomplete information.
  - H8crilA 7y ago
    There is no supply. It's a supply-shock-like type of situation. There are not enough masks for all the people that want them, let alone all the people. You have to wait for new masks to be manufactured. And I wouldn't blame the Chinese if they halted the shipments with their equivalent of an Executive Order.
    - concerned_user 7y ago
      You are correct, in my country in europe only ones who wear masks are medical professionals and even then not all of them. Nobody wears one when they get cold or flu and still decide to go out. So in my country there is no buffer at all and I assume that people watched tv saw chinese wearing them and heard that china made it mandatory to wear when going out which led to panic buying of face masks. Because local press and tv say it doesn't protect a healthy person, which is true. I can see how it can be effective when every single person wears these masks outside, like china did, since it would prevent people without symptoms spreading disease as much, but in a situation when we can't supply everyone it is better to leave them for use by medical staff and people in need only.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    Prices are exactly how information about supply and demand are transmitted to the market!!!
    - 7y ago
koolba 7y ago
This would a great time to launch an eBay competitor.
- Someone1234 7y ago
  I feel like starting a business for the express purpose of profiting off of others abusing a public panic is going to end badly for all involved. It is immoral. Not illegal, just wrong. To me the best type of entrepreneurship is one where everyone wins. Plus then you can sleep at night.
- prostoalex 7y ago
  In theory, anyone can start their own online store on Shopify or other platforms. In practice, it will take a while to catch up with eBay on customer acquisition front.
  - koolba 7y ago
    That’s what I’m talking about. Being the place to buy and sell hand sanitizer and masks would be an angle to build an initial user base.
- Scoundreller 7y ago
  AliExpress gets better and better every day. Just bought an ultralight tent and sleeping pad off it, cheaper than Ebay.
  - 34679 7y ago
    Might want to have a look at the return address after they show up.
    - Scoundreller 7y ago
      Non-issue for viruses: They don't live outside their hosts for more than a few hours. Bigger concern is the reduced cargo capacity from China these days.
seibelj 7y ago
The best thing that can happen in an emergency is to let sellers increase prices. When gas is scarce, let the price of gas go up. This signals to people that they should carefully ration the supplies that exist, and only let the people willing to pay the most get it. Supply and demand solves the problem itself. When you arbitrarily constrain prices, you make people wait in lines and clever entrepreneurs stock up to sell at inflated rates on the black market. Terrible policy!
- perl4ever 7y ago
  I don't think it's as black and white as that. If demand exceeds supply, you have to have some means of making them match. But it doesn't have to be price. You just have to accept that it will be something and not pretend there is no issue. In WWII, people got through it with rationing.
- mytherin 7y ago
  In the long term supply and demand solves the problem, yes, but in the current situation that is not necessarily true. Raising prices incentivises people to hoard masks, buy up all masks they can from retail for lower prices, steal masks, etc to sell at a profit. By the time more production is available the outbreak is already over, thus the amount of masks is essentially fixed to what we have. "Who is willing to pay the most" is not necessarily the best metric of dividing essential goods in a crisis. What if nurses and doctors don't have access to masks because a few people that don't even need them buy up all supply, to then price gauge people later?
the_cat_kittles 7y ago
hilarious reading the comments here from people who refuse to acknowledge the intricacies of human behavior. you really think this is going to result in a worse outcome? i think it will deter some bad people from stockpiling and selling. i say this as someone who has sold thousands of things on ebay. i also majored in economics, so whatever econ 101 shit you are about to say is not going to impress me.
robomartin 7y ago
It might have been better to set a maximum allowed price per unit rather than to make the supply evaporate. To be clear, I think what a lot of these vendors were doing was just immoral. I've been buying these masks for years for our shop. Normal pricing is in the range of $12 for a box of 20 (or something like that). I would allow a 2x to 3x premium and that's that. I don't have an issue with someone who has an inventory that might be very difficult to replenish getting a reasonable premium. That's OK. When people take an item like this and use an emergency to charge $50 for a $0.50 product, well, that's just wrong.
- sneak 7y ago
  Why is it wrong? No one is forced to buy it. The only people buying it are ones who consent to that price—same as any other transaction. How can someone be a victim if they want to engage in the trade, and explicitly chose to do so?
  - zaarn 7y ago
    If someone is in a personal emergency, even if it's just perceived, that they need to protect themselves against a virus, their consent is no longer freely given. It's coerced consent, not by the seller, but by circumstances. In plenty of european countries, price gouging is illegal for that reason. You can't charge what you want, especially in situations like this.
    - sneak 7y ago
      No third party has any business telling the first and second that they can’t transact at a price to which they both agree (or threatening them with violence if they ignore them and do anyway). Governments that do so are infringing upon their rights. All this feel-good sort of law does is make the thing that they feel they need, which would otherwise be expensive, now be totally unavailable. That doesn’t benefit the buyer or the seller, and in fact makes the situation worse for the buyer who it supposedly wished to protect: it just makes some busybody who is not even party to the transaction feel good about themselves. There’s no such thing as “coerced by the circumstances”. We all need to enter into transactions to not die; we buy food, water, medical care even outside of emergencies. Sometimes those things are expensive due to supply and demand. This instance is no different.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
lend000 7y ago
eBay is a somewhat unique case, because the goods are often resale items. However, the reaction of many social-economics-warrior types suggests they have failed to realize that this kind of behavior is exactly why there is such a shortage of masks in the first place, despite somewhat recent scares with SARS and Ebola. Letting prices rise is one way to increase production in a hurry. If the mask producers only get to make the same profit margin regardless of demand, why bother fronting the money to increase stock or investing in extra storage space, if there is no guarantee they will be able to recoup those costs during black swans?
- prepend 7y ago
  Mask manufactures are selling at retail. Rising prices on eBay don’t help them at all.
  - darkerside 7y ago
    Doesn't help them directly, but if an imperfect substitute is offered at higher prices, that removes a barrier to charging more for your product.
  - aeternum 7y ago
    By letting prices rise, it may be worthwhile for factories that manufacture a similar product, or have manufactured masks in the past to retool back to mask production. While it may be too late for this immediate epidemic, it also incentivizes middlemen to warehouse goods like masks which will help for the next epidemic.
    - AlexandrB 7y ago
      This may or may not be good economics, but it's terrible health policy. If the goal was stopping the spread of COVID19 and masks were an effective preventative measure you would want them to be as cheap as possible to encourage use. This is a scenario where the magic hand of the market will get people killed.
      - 7y ago
joshvm 7y ago
The panic buying has also trickled over to isopropanol/IPA. I needed to buy some anyway and I picked up a litre earlier this week for about £6. At the time Amazon had a lot for sale, now they're all out. Given that consumer hand gel is basically just IPA diluted down to 60% (see edit), I also bought a few tubes of aloe vera to mix it with... I suspect a lot of other people had the same idea. It looks like there's a lot still available on eBay, so if you really want to by sanitiser, you might as well make your own. Just remember to dilute it a little, 99% won't do too much damage, but it's not particularly kind to your hands if you rub it in on purpose. It's also extremely flammable! EDIT: The WHO has published guidelines on making your own gel: https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf Interestingly Wikipedia seems to suggest that you should use at least 90% alcohol to kill flu. And that lower concentration formulations are potentially ineffective because they evaporate before killing stuff off. Hospitals use 70-95%. Obviously the higher you go, the more flammable things get. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_sanitizer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_sanitizer This article tested a number of gels vs rinses: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(02)08426-X/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... > Based on our efficacy data, we do not consider any of the tested alcohol-based hand gels to be suitable for hand antisepsis in the health-care setting because their antimicrobial efficacy may be insufficient to prevent the spread of pathogens. Future ethanol-based hand gels used in hospitals should contain at least 80% (v/v) ethanol as the active ingredient and should be as effective as the EN 1500 reference alcohol within 30 s.
- xvedejas 7y ago
  But my sanitizing gel says it kills 99.99% of all bacteria and viruses!
  - gibolt 7y ago
    Doesn't specify the effective area. Does every use wipe out the vast majority on the planet?
  - IgorPartola 7y ago
3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago
People should be wearing these masks in public. I’m not sure why this is being so actively discouraged. You don’t know if you’re infected. You may be asymptotic for days. That’s why we should be wearing face masks — to prevent us from accidentally spreading it when we’re sick.
forkexec 7y ago
I got several 3M 1870's just in time then. Heh. They weren't that expensive. It was a pretty good deal actually. To play the devil's advocate: price gouging is market efficiency because subsidized products in times of scarcity can be over-bought and resold for more. It reduces demand to those who actually need it. To play the angel's apprentice: price gouging is wrong when people who aren't made of money need a particular product and need to use it now (inelastic demand). The rich can also bid a product up beyond what a poor person could afford, and always prevent them from acquiring it. I think in this situation, it might be better for the federal government to crack open the enormous strategic stockpile, distribute masks to make people chill out and seem like they're doing something on-the-ground. Even if it's ineffective if worn properly, the emotional support value may make the difference in mood and trust.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  It reduces demand to those who actually need it. And have money to afford it, something which is not accounted for in the simplistic models of supply and demand that people are promoting with religious levels of certitude up and down this thread.
  - dTal 7y ago
    So it would seem that the real problem is wealth inequality (again!) rather than "price gouging" as such. If everyone had the same purchasing power, there would be no ethical problem whatsoever with rising prices in the face of increased demand and limited supply - your willingness to pay would accurately reflect how much you needed the product. Essentially creating a command economy for a particular good is missing the larger picture.
    - anigbrowl 7y ago
      It's a lot simpler to create a command economy for particular goods under emergent circumstances than to reorder the entire economy such that everyone is resembles homo economicus. Command economies are fallible because they are run by humans with varying levels of trustworthiness and accountability. But they have their uses, and are often far mroe efficient than trying to automate the human factor away completely and live in a idealized model.
ce4 7y ago
Hopefully they enforce the action worldwide. I guess the ebay listings don't only include resale masks, but also stolen goods. Berlin's Charite Clinic just had an incident where a shipment of up to 60.000 masks was stolen from the delivery truck (news in german): https://www.bz-berlin.de/berlin/mitte/charite-wurde-komplette-lkw-ladung-mit-atemschutzmasken-gestohlen https://www.bz-berlin.de/berlin/mitte/charite-wurde-komplett... Edit: it was stolen from an intermediate storage room, not the truck.
- BSVogler 7y ago
  Friend of mine working in a hospital reports the same. The staff is stealing masks to sell them online.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Last week I saw 3M FFP3 masks, box of 5, for £235 on Amazon UK. Lord alone knows what they're priced at now we have Covid19 deaths in the country.
agoodthrowaway 7y ago
In California we have a declaration of emergency. This declaration makes price gouging illegal for essential needs.
- sneak 7y ago
  Neither masks nor hand sanitizer are essential.
pishpash 7y ago
This will simply cause a bigger panic buy next time. It would have been much better for retail to raise prices until they are always stocked, that way at least no one will have to pay shipping and eBay fees. If government wants to have enough for healthcare workers, then pay up, they can get as many as needed.
- mentos 7y ago
  I agree with this criticism the most I think best move is for eBay to put a price maximum in play.
blargmaster33 7y ago
eBay comes out as communists! Start messing with supply and demand and you will be in for an world of hurt.
elken 7y ago
This seems like a terrible move. Even if the prices are extortionate, how can eBay take away people's right to protect themselves? Surely educating and empowering the general population to take their own measures to prevent the spread is the best thing we can do in this situation. If this is a matter of supply shortage. Why the heck have the people in charge not covered this?
sneak 7y ago
Censorship (even private censorship, like this) in markets is deeply offensive to me. It’s not eBay’s place to tell people who want to buy these things that they should not be able to.
cosmodisk 7y ago
I live in London.As of at least last week,one can't buy masks or hand sanitizers. This is a country of 60M people.Yet, when I commute to work,I see probably 1-2 people with mask,which makes it about 0.1% of all people I see on daily basis.So my question is,who has all the masks and who's wearing them?
jacquesm 7y ago
They shouldn't ban the sale, they should cap the price.
- tomp 7y ago
  Why not just buy all of them and resell them on your own website (without the cap)?
hurricanetc 7y ago
The only way we’re going to get more masks is to pay manufacturers a premium up front and then absolve them of legal responsibility for the mask not working. Prices are high because demand is high and supply is low. Demand isn’t going anywhere so the only answer is more supply.

179 points by prostoalex 7y ago

"Our first priority is to ensure the safety of our employees and customers around the world," an eBay spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. ...by restricting the sale of items whose purpose is to increase the safety of their users? The inflated prices are bad, but making it harder to acquire such items --- even at higher cost --- seems an even worse situation. The spokesperson added that eBay is also "taking significant measures to block or quickly remove items" on its marketplace that make unsubstantiated medical claims. On the other hand, I think this is a far more sensible thing to do.

DuskStar 7y ago
> The spokesperson added that eBay is also "taking significant measures to block or quickly remove items" on its marketplace that make unsubstantiated medical claims. > On the other hand, I think this is a far more sensible thing to do. it's sensible as long as the unsubstantiated medical claims are actually unsubstantiated. There's been a lot of stuff going around (including from the CDC) about how masks don't actually protect you from coronavirus and things of that nature - whereas the truth there is that the right kind of masks will protect you if used properly. But there's a limited supply, and telling the masses that they don't work makes getting supply for hospitals easier...

johnpowell 7y ago

I have the same "Coronavirus Protection Mask" in the screenshot and I got it from Amazon a year ago. It barely works for keeping dust out of my nose when I am using the table saw. I feel comfortable saying it will offer zero protection for airborne illnesses.

paulryanrogers 7y ago
Masks may do more to protect the vulnerable around you from what you may unknowingly have. Please don't rule them out entirely.
- serf 7y ago
  they aren't ruling out masks, they're sharing an anecdote that the mask shown in a screenshot (presumably this screenshot: https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106422086-1583245914252coronavirusprotectionmaskebay.jpg?v=1583245945&w=900&h=506 https://image.cnbcfm.com/api/v1/image/106422086-158324591425...) isn't capable of filtering dust, let alone small pathogens.
- johnpowell 7y ago
  These things are just a charcoal pad on the inside of a mesh with very large holes. If sawdust can come in my cough can go out. And I am not saying all masks are dumb. Just this specific one when it is marketed as protection from the current problem. It is fraud. I spent six hours on the cancer floors of the local hospital the other day getting injections and we had to wear masks in the lobbies. It was the only part of the hospital I know of that required them. But it is the cancer floors and people have very little immune systems. When I was a few months into chemo my WBC count was under 1200. So low they couldn't do anymore chemo. So every little bit helps. And perhaps I am a bit angsty thinking that people are using the masks for no reason when there are people that actually need them. Again, I am not talking about the ebay garbage mask. I am talking about the ones that actually could help our sickest people.
  - imglorp 7y ago
    ALSO be aware masks like that have one-way valves to make exhalation more comfortable. They're just a little rubber flap so the exhaled air is not filtered. So construction mask like that might catch some inhaled droplets but won't do protect others from exhalation if the wearer is ill.
    - dTal 7y ago
      I would imagine they will offer a similar protection to a surgical mask, which also cannot "filter" outgoing air as there is no seal; it's just a line-of sight protection, perhaps helped somewhat by absorbing moisture droplets. A piece of tissue paper inside the valve would probably have the same or better effect, if you could persuade people to do that purely for the benefit of others.
falcrist 7y ago
Cotton surgical masks are generally intended to protect other people from your germs... Not the other way around.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
FWIW I looked at this a week or so ago and the NHS (England I think), recommend the Alpha Solway 3030v (https://www.nhsggc.org.uk/media/251465/nhsggc-hs-guidance-on-ffp3-use.docx https://www.nhsggc.org.uk/media/251465/nhsggc-hs-guidance-on...) for FFP3 masks. But the mask users have to have training, and there are testing kits to check for correct fit. So, it seems there's a degree of skill needed to use them properly. They're also a single use product, up to 8 hours AFAICT. At the time, last week, there were no masks available in the UK except one or two non-mainstream suppliers [and no 3M FFP3 masks that weren't at gouge prices] - the sale price on ebay/Amazon was about 5 times the retail purchase price I could get. For IPA70 the sale price was about 10 times what I found. [I didn't purchase.]

pbreit 7y ago

That seems reactionary.

H8crilA 7y ago

So they jacked up the prices from high (few people can buy) to infinity (nobody can buy). How's that a good thing?

platz 7y ago
These kinds of prices (gouging) are not at an idealized equilibrium. They don't reflect the true supply. They're just predatory on people who have incomplete information.
- H8crilA 7y ago
  There is no supply. It's a supply-shock-like type of situation. There are not enough masks for all the people that want them, let alone all the people. You have to wait for new masks to be manufactured. And I wouldn't blame the Chinese if they halted the shipments with their equivalent of an Executive Order.
  - concerned_user 7y ago
    You are correct, in my country in europe only ones who wear masks are medical professionals and even then not all of them. Nobody wears one when they get cold or flu and still decide to go out. So in my country there is no buffer at all and I assume that people watched tv saw chinese wearing them and heard that china made it mandatory to wear when going out which led to panic buying of face masks. Because local press and tv say it doesn't protect a healthy person, which is true. I can see how it can be effective when every single person wears these masks outside, like china did, since it would prevent people without symptoms spreading disease as much, but in a situation when we can't supply everyone it is better to leave them for use by medical staff and people in need only.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  Prices are exactly how information about supply and demand are transmitted to the market!!!
  - 7y ago

koolba 7y ago

This would a great time to launch an eBay competitor.

Someone1234 7y ago
I feel like starting a business for the express purpose of profiting off of others abusing a public panic is going to end badly for all involved. It is immoral. Not illegal, just wrong. To me the best type of entrepreneurship is one where everyone wins. Plus then you can sleep at night.
prostoalex 7y ago
In theory, anyone can start their own online store on Shopify or other platforms. In practice, it will take a while to catch up with eBay on customer acquisition front.
- koolba 7y ago
  That’s what I’m talking about. Being the place to buy and sell hand sanitizer and masks would be an angle to build an initial user base.
Scoundreller 7y ago
AliExpress gets better and better every day. Just bought an ultralight tent and sleeping pad off it, cheaper than Ebay.
- 34679 7y ago
  Might want to have a look at the return address after they show up.
  - Scoundreller 7y ago
    Non-issue for viruses: They don't live outside their hosts for more than a few hours. Bigger concern is the reduced cargo capacity from China these days.

seibelj 7y ago

The best thing that can happen in an emergency is to let sellers increase prices. When gas is scarce, let the price of gas go up. This signals to people that they should carefully ration the supplies that exist, and only let the people willing to pay the most get it. Supply and demand solves the problem itself. When you arbitrarily constrain prices, you make people wait in lines and clever entrepreneurs stock up to sell at inflated rates on the black market. Terrible policy!

perl4ever 7y ago
I don't think it's as black and white as that. If demand exceeds supply, you have to have some means of making them match. But it doesn't have to be price. You just have to accept that it will be something and not pretend there is no issue. In WWII, people got through it with rationing.
mytherin 7y ago
In the long term supply and demand solves the problem, yes, but in the current situation that is not necessarily true. Raising prices incentivises people to hoard masks, buy up all masks they can from retail for lower prices, steal masks, etc to sell at a profit. By the time more production is available the outbreak is already over, thus the amount of masks is essentially fixed to what we have. "Who is willing to pay the most" is not necessarily the best metric of dividing essential goods in a crisis. What if nurses and doctors don't have access to masks because a few people that don't even need them buy up all supply, to then price gauge people later?

the_cat_kittles 7y ago

hilarious reading the comments here from people who refuse to acknowledge the intricacies of human behavior. you really think this is going to result in a worse outcome? i think it will deter some bad people from stockpiling and selling. i say this as someone who has sold thousands of things on ebay. i also majored in economics, so whatever econ 101 shit you are about to say is not going to impress me.

robomartin 7y ago

It might have been better to set a maximum allowed price per unit rather than to make the supply evaporate. To be clear, I think what a lot of these vendors were doing was just immoral. I've been buying these masks for years for our shop. Normal pricing is in the range of $12 for a box of 20 (or something like that). I would allow a 2x to 3x premium and that's that. I don't have an issue with someone who has an inventory that might be very difficult to replenish getting a reasonable premium. That's OK. When people take an item like this and use an emergency to charge $50 for a $0.50 product, well, that's just wrong.

sneak 7y ago
Why is it wrong? No one is forced to buy it. The only people buying it are ones who consent to that price—same as any other transaction. How can someone be a victim if they want to engage in the trade, and explicitly chose to do so?
- zaarn 7y ago
  If someone is in a personal emergency, even if it's just perceived, that they need to protect themselves against a virus, their consent is no longer freely given. It's coerced consent, not by the seller, but by circumstances. In plenty of european countries, price gouging is illegal for that reason. You can't charge what you want, especially in situations like this.
  - sneak 7y ago
    No third party has any business telling the first and second that they can’t transact at a price to which they both agree (or threatening them with violence if they ignore them and do anyway). Governments that do so are infringing upon their rights. All this feel-good sort of law does is make the thing that they feel they need, which would otherwise be expensive, now be totally unavailable. That doesn’t benefit the buyer or the seller, and in fact makes the situation worse for the buyer who it supposedly wished to protect: it just makes some busybody who is not even party to the transaction feel good about themselves. There’s no such thing as “coerced by the circumstances”. We all need to enter into transactions to not die; we buy food, water, medical care even outside of emergencies. Sometimes those things are expensive due to supply and demand. This instance is no different.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

lend000 7y ago

eBay is a somewhat unique case, because the goods are often resale items. However, the reaction of many social-economics-warrior types suggests they have failed to realize that this kind of behavior is exactly why there is such a shortage of masks in the first place, despite somewhat recent scares with SARS and Ebola. Letting prices rise is one way to increase production in a hurry. If the mask producers only get to make the same profit margin regardless of demand, why bother fronting the money to increase stock or investing in extra storage space, if there is no guarantee they will be able to recoup those costs during black swans?

prepend 7y ago
Mask manufactures are selling at retail. Rising prices on eBay don’t help them at all.
- darkerside 7y ago
  Doesn't help them directly, but if an imperfect substitute is offered at higher prices, that removes a barrier to charging more for your product.
- aeternum 7y ago
  By letting prices rise, it may be worthwhile for factories that manufacture a similar product, or have manufactured masks in the past to retool back to mask production. While it may be too late for this immediate epidemic, it also incentivizes middlemen to warehouse goods like masks which will help for the next epidemic.
  - AlexandrB 7y ago
    This may or may not be good economics, but it's terrible health policy. If the goal was stopping the spread of COVID19 and masks were an effective preventative measure you would want them to be as cheap as possible to encourage use. This is a scenario where the magic hand of the market will get people killed.
    - 7y ago

joshvm 7y ago

The panic buying has also trickled over to isopropanol/IPA. I needed to buy some anyway and I picked up a litre earlier this week for about £6. At the time Amazon had a lot for sale, now they're all out. Given that consumer hand gel is basically just IPA diluted down to 60% (see edit), I also bought a few tubes of aloe vera to mix it with... I suspect a lot of other people had the same idea. It looks like there's a lot still available on eBay, so if you really want to by sanitiser, you might as well make your own. Just remember to dilute it a little, 99% won't do too much damage, but it's not particularly kind to your hands if you rub it in on purpose. It's also extremely flammable! EDIT: The WHO has published guidelines on making your own gel: https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf Interestingly Wikipedia seems to suggest that you should use at least 90% alcohol to kill flu. And that lower concentration formulations are potentially ineffective because they evaporate before killing stuff off. Hospitals use 70-95%. Obviously the higher you go, the more flammable things get. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_sanitizer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_sanitizer This article tested a number of gels vs rinses: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(02)08426-X/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... > Based on our efficacy data, we do not consider any of the tested alcohol-based hand gels to be suitable for hand antisepsis in the health-care setting because their antimicrobial efficacy may be insufficient to prevent the spread of pathogens. Future ethanol-based hand gels used in hospitals should contain at least 80% (v/v) ethanol as the active ingredient and should be as effective as the EN 1500 reference alcohol within 30 s.

xvedejas 7y ago
But my sanitizing gel says it kills 99.99% of all bacteria and viruses!
- gibolt 7y ago
  Doesn't specify the effective area. Does every use wipe out the vast majority on the planet?
- IgorPartola 7y ago

3fe9a03ccd14ca5 7y ago

People should be wearing these masks in public. I’m not sure why this is being so actively discouraged. You don’t know if you’re infected. You may be asymptotic for days. That’s why we should be wearing face masks — to prevent us from accidentally spreading it when we’re sick.

forkexec 7y ago

I got several 3M 1870's just in time then. Heh. They weren't that expensive. It was a pretty good deal actually. To play the devil's advocate: price gouging is market efficiency because subsidized products in times of scarcity can be over-bought and resold for more. It reduces demand to those who actually need it. To play the angel's apprentice: price gouging is wrong when people who aren't made of money need a particular product and need to use it now (inelastic demand). The rich can also bid a product up beyond what a poor person could afford, and always prevent them from acquiring it. I think in this situation, it might be better for the federal government to crack open the enormous strategic stockpile, distribute masks to make people chill out and seem like they're doing something on-the-ground. Even if it's ineffective if worn properly, the emotional support value may make the difference in mood and trust.

deleted 7y ago
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anigbrowl 7y ago
It reduces demand to those who actually need it. And have money to afford it, something which is not accounted for in the simplistic models of supply and demand that people are promoting with religious levels of certitude up and down this thread.
- dTal 7y ago
  So it would seem that the real problem is wealth inequality (again!) rather than "price gouging" as such. If everyone had the same purchasing power, there would be no ethical problem whatsoever with rising prices in the face of increased demand and limited supply - your willingness to pay would accurately reflect how much you needed the product. Essentially creating a command economy for a particular good is missing the larger picture.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    It's a lot simpler to create a command economy for particular goods under emergent circumstances than to reorder the entire economy such that everyone is resembles homo economicus. Command economies are fallible because they are run by humans with varying levels of trustworthiness and accountability. But they have their uses, and are often far mroe efficient than trying to automate the human factor away completely and live in a idealized model.

ce4 7y ago

Hopefully they enforce the action worldwide. I guess the ebay listings don't only include resale masks, but also stolen goods. Berlin's Charite Clinic just had an incident where a shipment of up to 60.000 masks was stolen from the delivery truck (news in german): https://www.bz-berlin.de/berlin/mitte/charite-wurde-komplette-lkw-ladung-mit-atemschutzmasken-gestohlen https://www.bz-berlin.de/berlin/mitte/charite-wurde-komplett... Edit: it was stolen from an intermediate storage room, not the truck.

BSVogler 7y ago
Friend of mine working in a hospital reports the same. The staff is stealing masks to sell them online.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
Last week I saw 3M FFP3 masks, box of 5, for £235 on Amazon UK. Lord alone knows what they're priced at now we have Covid19 deaths in the country.

agoodthrowaway 7y ago

In California we have a declaration of emergency. This declaration makes price gouging illegal for essential needs.

sneak 7y ago
Neither masks nor hand sanitizer are essential.

pishpash 7y ago

This will simply cause a bigger panic buy next time. It would have been much better for retail to raise prices until they are always stocked, that way at least no one will have to pay shipping and eBay fees. If government wants to have enough for healthcare workers, then pay up, they can get as many as needed.

mentos 7y ago
I agree with this criticism the most I think best move is for eBay to put a price maximum in play.

blargmaster33 7y ago

eBay comes out as communists! Start messing with supply and demand and you will be in for an world of hurt.

elken 7y ago

This seems like a terrible move. Even if the prices are extortionate, how can eBay take away people's right to protect themselves? Surely educating and empowering the general population to take their own measures to prevent the spread is the best thing we can do in this situation. If this is a matter of supply shortage. Why the heck have the people in charge not covered this?

sneak 7y ago

Censorship (even private censorship, like this) in markets is deeply offensive to me. It’s not eBay’s place to tell people who want to buy these things that they should not be able to.

cosmodisk 7y ago

I live in London.As of at least last week,one can't buy masks or hand sanitizers. This is a country of 60M people.Yet, when I commute to work,I see probably 1-2 people with mask,which makes it about 0.1% of all people I see on daily basis.So my question is,who has all the masks and who's wearing them?

jacquesm 7y ago

They shouldn't ban the sale, they should cap the price.

tomp 7y ago
Why not just buy all of them and resell them on your own website (without the cap)?

hurricanetc 7y ago

The only way we’re going to get more masks is to pay manufacturers a premium up front and then absolve them of legal responsibility for the mask not working. Prices are high because demand is high and supply is low. Demand isn’t going anywhere so the only answer is more supply.