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I heard that even the TP crisis made sense, people stopped using TP outside of home (work/school/etc.) and that put stress on the home TP supply chain.

by sytse 3y ago

anonporridge 3y ago
There was plenty of TP, it was just packaged incorrectly for individual consumption. The supply chains couldn't quickly change the packaging. There were even stories of TP available from Mexico that couldn't legally be sold because the labeling was in Spanish and not up to American regulations. Same thing happened for other items like flour. Suddenly everyone was baking at home and restaurants weren't buying 50lb sacks of flour anymore. Plenty of flour, improperly packaged.
some_random 3y ago
It's kind of crazy to me that we all lived through that and most people still don't understand why it happened. Like you said, many all working from home more, so demand for TP went up. Suddenly shelves are empty more and the news starts talking about a TP shortage, so next time you're at the store and see TP in stock you buy a case even if you don't need it yet. Actually who knows when it'll be in stock again and at what price, you so might as well buy another case too. The shortage got worse and worse, and in order to absolve themselves of any personal responsibility people imagined that evil preppers were going around and buying up all the TP and hand sanitizer and PPE. The problem is that in reality the system was irrational (people buying TP they don't really need) but individuals were behaving rationally (stock up when you can).
- klyrs 3y ago
  That definitely caused the TP "crisis" but it was sustained by lag on the supply side. Paper manufacturing was tooled up to make "commercial" toilet paper, which saw an immediate drop in demand when we suddenly stopped going to the office. Manufacturers had to re-tool for residential toilet paper, which saw an immediate and sustained rise in demand. In retrospect, I'd say that the first wave of people overstocking TP weren't totally irrational.

I heard that even the TP crisis made sense, people stopped using TP outside of home (work/school/etc.) and that put stress on the home TP supply chain.

by sytse 3y ago

I heard that even the TP crisis made sense, people stopped using TP outside of home (work/school/etc.) and that put stress on the home TP supply chain.

anonporridge 3y ago

There was plenty of TP, it was just packaged incorrectly for individual consumption. The supply chains couldn't quickly change the packaging. There were even stories of TP available from Mexico that couldn't legally be sold because the labeling was in Spanish and not up to American regulations. Same thing happened for other items like flour. Suddenly everyone was baking at home and restaurants weren't buying 50lb sacks of flour anymore. Plenty of flour, improperly packaged.

some_random 3y ago

It's kind of crazy to me that we all lived through that and most people still don't understand why it happened. Like you said, many all working from home more, so demand for TP went up. Suddenly shelves are empty more and the news starts talking about a TP shortage, so next time you're at the store and see TP in stock you buy a case even if you don't need it yet. Actually who knows when it'll be in stock again and at what price, you so might as well buy another case too. The shortage got worse and worse, and in order to absolve themselves of any personal responsibility people imagined that evil preppers were going around and buying up all the TP and hand sanitizer and PPE. The problem is that in reality the system was irrational (people buying TP they don't really need) but individuals were behaving rationally (stock up when you can).

klyrs 3y ago
That definitely caused the TP "crisis" but it was sustained by lag on the supply side. Paper manufacturing was tooled up to make "commercial" toilet paper, which saw an immediate drop in demand when we suddenly stopped going to the office. Manufacturers had to re-tool for residential toilet paper, which saw an immediate and sustained rise in demand. In retrospect, I'd say that the first wave of people overstocking TP weren't totally irrational.