Empty Shelves & Crowd-Think

The herd on the move in good old-fashioned bank run.

Over the last week, especially, masses of people have descended on local stores like Biblical locust plagues, stripping shelves bare. Is such Hoarding Fever rational? The dynamics are murky but the solution is clear: don’t let The Fever get you. 

As a sort of social science experiment, I have done a small documentation of the Fever sweeping through my local stores. Back at the end of January, a friend suggested that stores might get ravaged over virus concerns. So, periodically, I took a photo of the rice and beans section in my local Walmart to document any ravaging. As you can see from the photos below, the locusts were only nibbling until last week. Then, they swarmed in.

The red spot marks the same place, even though I stood in slightly different spots.
Only a little change in stock: few less big bags of rice and fewer big bags of beans
About the same stock, but moved around to look less empty
The locusts have struck! Very little rice or beans left.

This past weekend, we stopped in a supermarket. The experience was eye-opening. The toilet paper aisle was empty (do you realize how much I wanted to say ‘wiped out’?). The fresh bread aisle, sports drinks, pasta, cleaning supplies — even the rice and beans!  Hoarding Fever has stuck my area too. Photos below.

The fresh bread aisle on Sunday afternoon
The toilet paper and paper towels shelves
The dairy case
The pasta shelves

(To be honest, not every aisle looked as bad as these. The locusts were very selective. The cereal aisle was fine. The produce counters were full. Canned veggies were plentiful. The meat counter was stocked.)

Before a major storm hits New England, we usually see some stocking up but nothing like this — particularly when there isn’t a defined event. Storms, for instance, are usually predicted to within a day of when they hit and people typically start to do something about it the day before. But this virus thing? It has no effective start date or end date. Why the rush? Does it indicate a fundamental breakdown or a temporary distribution problem?

Do that many people across the nation tend to keep only one roll of toilet paper in their house at a time, such that when they all went out to buy more at the same time they would be like locusts? I doubt it. People were buying large quantities as if it would no longer be produced. The average citizen seems to have fallen prey to Crowd-Think, behaving not-quite-rationally.

Gustave Le Bon wrote a book back in 1895 entitled “The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind,” in which he examines the dynamics of crowd behavior. It is a fascinating read, provided you allow Le Bon a bit of leeway on the occasional antiquated beliefs, such as Social Darwinism. Despite the little flaws, Le Bon explores how people in crowds behave differently than they would singly. People in a crowd influence each other more than you might think. There are herd instincts in humans. 

It is surprising how little the advent of the internet and Twitter really change crowd behavior. What social media does is widen the boundaries of a “crowd” beyond a geographic space. The influences are still there, they just get a virtual quality.

When it comes to shopping and perceived shortages, many of us become herd animals. We sense a shortage and want to run to grab the last (whatever) “before they’re all gone.”

Extended-Herd behavior

The buying public is not a traditional crowd — people all in the same place at the same time — but they share many characteristics of a crowd. One such trait is Lateral Cueing. This is when one animal decides its own moves based on what its herd mates around it do. If they’re running, he runs. If they stop, he stops. 

I got to see a wildlife example of herd behavior just last week. I saw a herd of deer in a (harvested) cornfield. I stopped the car to take a picture. For several seconds, they all looked at my stopped car with curiosity.

Deer: if one runs, they all run.

One of them decided there was something wrong with a car stopping on a remote backroad, so she ran. In a fraction of a second, the others ran away too. Nothing changed on my end. I had not moved. What changed was the one doe running and her herd mates taking their cue from her. Cueing is a useful survival tool for prey animals: it takes very little thought. A question is: do you want to behave like a herd animal?

Are we really running out?

Is the supply of X truly finite? Rather than ask a fellow herd mate, take a look for yourself at the whole product chain, not just the last step (the store shelves). Do some research on your own. Is this shortage a fundamental problem, like cows not giving milk or farmers not harvesting wheat? Or, to be more current, are toilet paper factories still making toilet paper or not? 

Seriously?

If the factories are still producing, the shortage is due to a distribution issue and therefore temporary. Production and distribution cannot change nearly as quickly as demand.  Let’s say a store typically sells 10 cases of TP a day. They order that amount and a factory makes 10 cases a day. The distributor owns enough trucks and employs enough drivers to deliver 10 cases a day.

But, if demand suddenly spikes to 20 cases a day, the shelves will be empty. It takes time for the factory to ramp up production. It takes time for the shipper to schedule extra drivers. Eventually, the factory is making 20 cases a day and the shipper is trucking 20 cases a day. Then, the shelves are no longer empty.  It was a temporary shortage.

Scarcity Genes

Is it Really ‘Now or Never’? We humans seem to be wired to fret over scarcity.  Marketers know this and use it against us. There are quite a few ads that claim “These are flying off the shelves,” (i.e. act fast or you might not get one) or “Only 4 left,” on web store pages (i.e. act fast or you might not get one), or “This deal ends in three hours!” (i.e. act fast or you might not get one). The goal is to create a sense of scarcity and urgency. It triggers our scarcity gene. Don’t fall for it.

Lessons Learned

One way to avoid The Fever is to have at least a couple-weeks’ supply of whatever commodities are important to you — food, medicine, diapers, TP, whatever.  That way, when there is a temporary shortage, you do not have to rush out, hoping to snag the last pack of TP. You can wait calmly for distribution to catch up. Since you’ve looked at the big picture and know there will be more TP in the future, you can consume from your stash knowing that you can replace it later.

The trick, (if there is a trick to it) is to try and maintain that two-week buffer before the shortages hit rather than try to create a two-week supply once the locusts are flying. That takes discipline — like keeping the top half of your car’s gas tank full and not letting it get to “E” before filling up.  Some people get caught on “E.”

Be informed. Don’t rely on fellow herd mates for cues. If you see a fundamental shortfall coming (cows stop giving milk), then you know to stock up. If producers are still producing, then it is a temporary hiccup in distribution. Since you have your two-week (or more) supply, you don’t have to stampede.

Long Term?

If this shortage has jolted you into thinking about your own supplies and dependencies, think of ways to make yourself less dependent upon others to supply your needs. The breadth of that topic is beyond the scope of this post. But think about whatever you were rushing out to buy just a little bit more of. Could you produce some of that for yourself? Could you have stored a bit more of that at home? If so, you would be just that much less at the mercy of the supply chain.

Use this shortage as a teachable moment. What do you wish you had done differently back in early January or before? How would that have changed your situation now?


4 comments for “Empty Shelves & Crowd-Think

  1. Chuckling as a friend I wonder if your a calm voice in a hurricane or a calming presence before a thundering herd. One might be lucky to get back up and scrub the dirt off them.

    Supply and demand normally does the job pretty well until a Nor’easter storm (for non-new Englanders) or in this case an invisible possibility deadly little plague occurs.

    THEN there is Government responding to the Herd DEMANDING they DO SOMETHING. That’s were the fine logical ideas fall down. Nothing, No Situation is so bad that the Government cannot make it worse.

    That herd behavior somehow ALLOWED those folks to survive and allow their children to survive, just like those Deer.

    Proverbs 22:3 speaks to this:

    New Living Translation
    A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.

    And 1st Timothy 5:8 says:

    New International Version
    Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

    And the Bible speaks to those that choose to be leeches living off others thusly.

    2nd Thessalonians 3

    A Warning against Idleness

    6Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to keep away from any brother who leads an undisciplined life that is not in keeping with the tradition you received from us. 7For you yourselves know how you ought to imitate us, because we were not undisciplined among you, 8nor did we eat anyone’s food without paying for it. Instead, in labor and toil, we worked night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you. 9Not that we lack this right, but we wanted to offer ourselves as an example for you to imitate. 10For even while we were with you, we gave you this command: “If anyone is unwilling to work, he shall not eat.”

    11Yet we hear that some of you are leading undisciplined lives and accomplishing nothing but being busybodies. 12We command and urge such people by our Lord Jesus Christ to begin working quietly to earn their own living. 13But as for you, brothers, do not grow weary in well-doing.

    14Take note of anyone who does not obey the instructions we have given in this letter. Do not associate with him, so that he may be ashamed. 15Yet do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother.

    And finally Micah 6:8 8He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

    Toilet paper is a nice but spiritual preps are perhaps more important as this long term situation plays out.

    Pray for wisdom, He will give it.

    • Hi Michael,

      Good point about the government screwing things up. That’s part of keeping an eye on the whole distribution chain. If the government steps in to “help” by trying to “better” manage distribution, then yes, expect them to screw things up. If we see that, expect rationing and other soviet-style measures to come shortly afterward. In that case, the unprepared will face even emptier shelves. The prudent among us (per Proverbs 22:3) will try to snag a bit more to stay topped up before the shortages that come along with rationing begin. The key take-away is to keep our eyes on production and distribution for early signs of trouble.

      Per 2nd Thes 3: even the early church was beset with leeches who were content to let others provide for them, hence Paul’s warning to them to ‘get a job.’ The herd that has thus far survived have done so in a world that provides a lot for them. For those who don’t work, society has gifted them an easy existence (but over which they have zero control). For those who DO work, our cash-centric culture has let people “provide” for themselves abstractly. They earn a buck doing something tangental and use that buck to buy necessities. The abstract system breaks down when that tangental job no longer provides the buck and they find themselves having to provide necessities directly (food, water, etc.) yet have little (or no) skills for that.

  2. Some good thoughts, Mic. I couldn’t agree more. I feel a little bad chuckling at the cleaned out store shelves. I have seen things like this coming since 1995. Took a lot of good natured teasing from friends and family who happend to wander into our basement storm shelter and stores. Now my friends are asking for my advice, instead making fun of my cases of can goods. I think we are going to be just fine. People seeing what we prep for will undoubtedly bring more into our flock. That’s a very, very good thing.

    • Hi Shake Spear,
      I, too, wonder if this experience will move a few more of the herd into being preppers — at least at the entry-level of keeping more supplies in stock at home. Hopefully, for some, the empty shelves will be a wake-up call. This virus thing has been a black swan, which goes to prove that black swans CAN happen. How much better to have some basement shelves full rather than face the empty shelves in the stores? We’re living in a big “visual aid” for prepping.

Comments are closed.