Here in the north side of Central Florida, we are experiencing shortage in frozen vegetables, along with beverages of sports drinks like Gatorade, along with canned soups being picked over. The last time I was at the store, a woman there told me that she and her husband had arrived from Pennsylvania several days before, and that area was having shortages in toilet paper and frozen vegetables. Meats were in good supply but expensive.

J KB is reporting shortages of various supplies in the Carolinas.

Things like shampoo, body wash, mouth wash, cleaning supplies, foot spray, OTC drugs, were low, especially the store brand generics.

Any other shortages in other areas of the country?

Today I went to Walmart at lunch and it took was low on a lot of non-food supplies.

Categories: EconomyUncategorized

10 Comments

MakeMineTexas · October 4, 2021 at 2:40 pm

My neighbor broke a pair of shoes yesterday. Went shopping for shoes this morning only to find none of the stores had any. Target told her they’d been having trouble getting them in for months. Haven’t shopped for clothing lately, so I don’t know what that’s looking like, but I’m sure gonna hang on to the extras for now.

We’re turning into our Depression-era parents and grandparents.

Sarin · October 4, 2021 at 4:17 pm

Might have something to do with the absurd number of container ships outside along Beach and also stacked up on the East Coast. The NY Slimes even reported it as recently as 9/23.

I suspect that the insane price of shipping containers from China to Long Beach, combined with the unionization of the dock workers and associated silliness, coupled with the power woes in China and their holiday that ends Thursday, things will be in short supply for a hot minute or longer.

Big Ruckus D · October 4, 2021 at 4:27 pm

Spent many years in retail – both as my first job and as a second part time job after getting a better career going – so I can easily spot logistics and fulfillment problems. I also know all the tricks of revising a planogram (trade term f or the “blueprint” of an aisle layout that lists all SKUS, number of facings for each product, etc.) on the fly to hide the holes. Each retailer has slightly different systems, but follow a generally similar pattern for noting and tracking outs. For those who physically note dates on a shelf sticker, it can be spotted how long an item has been MIA, or at least the last time a physical scan was done to note it as an out of stock.

I still retain the mindset of looking at an aisle and intuitively seeing where outs were covered with adjacent product, and of course anyone can see the soviet style practice of pulling all the product forward such that it is only 2 or 3 units deep. Comedian Yakov Smirnoff wrote of this and the contrast to the (then) American retail bounty on his arrival here in his humorous autobiography in the 80’s.

I avoid pretty much everything but the grocery store and Home Depot/Lowe’s/Menards anymore (so no wanker-mart or red menace as I prefer to call Target), but can readily see the problems in those places I do frequent. It may not be so obvious on casual observation but paying a modicum of attention reveals that even in-stock products are frequently very thin in terms of quantity on hand.

Hard times are here. Harder times are coming.

it's just Boris · October 4, 2021 at 7:00 pm

In central-northern New Mexico, as of a couple of days ago: Ice cream, although not as much as previously, and spotty; fruit flavors were plentiful, but things with chocolate, mint, etc less so. Shelves that normally hold potato chips and pretzels, specifically, were quite threadbare; corn chips on the other hand were plentiful.

Miguel GFZ · October 4, 2021 at 7:21 pm

Water and paper was being rationed at our local Costco in Middle TN. Beef was available but expensive as hell. Pork and chicken still affordable. still.
All of the sudden I have an urge to stock up on rice and beans..also assorted canned meats.

ChuckInBama · October 4, 2021 at 10:50 pm

Nothing drastic showing as out here. Local owned stores seem to have more instocks than Wally World or Kroger. Haven’t checked on clothing or footwear. May have to do some looking at things other than edibles. Lubricants and auto parts about usual, but wait times longer for items on order. Nothing serious – yet.

greg · October 5, 2021 at 12:55 am

Nobody has diesel motor oil. Rotella, Delvac, ect. Parts store, walmart, none anywhere. Pueblo Colorado

Fading Banana Republic · October 5, 2021 at 4:05 pm

Just read that comrade kommissar Beijing Big Guy (CCP) plans to mandate the not-a-vax for interstate commerce, stock up like mad!
Locally it is still trash bags, coffee filters, some animal feed, toilet paper, bottled water and going on Monday AM is the best bet even with the union stock crew and 16 mandatory breaks.
This society is destroyed by egalitarian stupidity and it isn’t ending well.

D · October 5, 2021 at 8:20 pm

Find a local farmer who raises cattle and buy a whole cow. Toss it in your freezer. If you aren’t out in farm country, ~1,000 pounds of beef probably isn’t going to fit, but you can probably find people who are willing to buy some of it.

Hell–Walmart is over $5/lb just for ground burger and ribeye is over $18/lb. I just got a 1,200 pound cow and the cost came out to $4/lb including cut and wrap.

Buy in bulk, direct from the source. Don’t have to pay more to support all those $15/hr Walmart employees or help cover all the new corporate taxes…

TRX · October 8, 2021 at 9:50 am

Bottled water has been hit and miss here; mostly unavailable for the last few months. Local city water is horrible; we use the cheapest bottled water for drinking.

The most visible shortages have been at the local Lowes. A few months ago, iron pipe vanished. All of it. And most of the copper pipe. Then the iron pipe came back, but there are no fittings. Copper pipe and some fittings came back, but only in the two smallest sizes. Brass fittings and adaptors are sparse. I’ve bought almost half of the bits I’ve needed for a remodel from eBay, some at triple that the local store price was a year ago, except they’re not there any more, and apparently the eBay sellers figured it out long before I did.

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