Empty Shelves & Crowd-Think

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.

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.

(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.

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? 

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?

—