>Panic Buying Survey Report:
>
>
>Here is what "panic buyers" buy in order of preference:
>
>First Store surveyed> 1. Bread 2. Water 3. Lunch meats 4. Toilet
>paper 5. Flash lights and batteries
>
>Second Store surveyed> 1. Water 2. Bread 3. Milk 4. Eggs 5.
>Flashlights and batteries
>
>
>Primary Finding: People do not shop in preparation for a disaster until
>the disaster has unmistakably started -- when the snow starts falling,
>the hurricane is less than a half day away, or the river is already over
>it's banks and the temperature on the melting snow covered mountains is
>high.
>
>note: We have our work cut out for us as far as trying to convince our
>family and friends to prepare more than a day in advance. By knowing
>this we can take more solace in the results we do get.
>
>ALL food store managers surveyed agreed that never under any condition
>has the general public purchased food more than a few hours ahead of an
>expected emergency no matter how bad the disaster was promised to be.
>
>Another remarkable discovery is that even with devastation promised most
>folks only buy enough for an extra day or two. Most people get 10 items
>or less and go through the express lanes. The non express lanes still
>only have about 10 to 20 items for each person. After the emergency is
>over there is an equal amount of buying as people replenish what they
>used.
>
>The warehouse suppliers of both stores send in several extra pallets of
>water and several extra truck loads of bread in anticipation of the
>strong buying, based upon prediction of disaster, but only the night
>before.
>
>They all agreed that Bread and Water or Water and Bread where the two
>major items they only disagreed slightly on which was more prevalent.
>
>Here is the background survey data. This is a beach community that is
>hit by heavy storms on average once a year. We have two big grocery
>stores and five smaller ones to supply a static population of about
>40,000 locals. These same stores also provide for our summer resort
>population of about 250,000 by staying open 24 hours a day seven days a
>week in season. We have Sam's Clubs and Walmarts and Big Kmarts within
>40 minutes in any direction but these stores surveyed are competitive in
>price.
>
>I suggest you do a similar survey in your area. ALL these people agreed
>that NO MATTER the degree of predictability, expected devastation or
>expected duration of the predicted disasters -- that the buying habits
>of the public are unchanged since the 60's, in any geographical location
>in our country nor by the type of disaster nor by the the reason for the
>panic buying.
>
>Here is what I did and what I found:
>
>I went to the two Super Stores -- Super Fresh and Food Lion. I spoke to
>4 managers. One with 30 years in retail groceries one with over 20 and
>two with 10 years each. All of them had worked in numerous stores
>except one who had only worked in the one store her entire 10 years.
>
>I interviewed them about 25 minutes each to help me understand panic
>buying and preparation buying.
>
>Two managers had experience in snow country; Valley Forge Pa., western
>Pa., and western Virginia. Two had experience in metropolitan
>Philadelphia. Two had experience in metropolitan Washington D.C. and
>three had experience in metropolitan Baltimore. One had experience for
>12 years in the mid-western states where at times they got several
>"yards" of snow. One had 15 years experience in numerous places in
>California, Nevada, Idaho, Montana and Ohio where he had been regional
>step-in manager for any stores in the area where a manager would get
>sick, die, etc. All of them had worked a few years in smaller stores
>and then worked up to these bigger stores. One had started out in his
>own grocery with just him and his wife then sold it and gone to work for
>the big stores.
>
>One store has 12 check-out registers and 32,000 square feet of retail
>space. The other has 10 registers and about 26,000 square feet of
>shopping floor. Each of them has a deli, bakery, and extensive fresh
>fruit and vegetable section with two full isles of frozen foods in each
>store. They are very similar and very competitive. The main difference
>is that one has only 30 minutes of battery back up for it's registers
>and the other has a generator with over a days fuel to run the
>registers.
>
>Even the one that had stayed open during our 5 day storm of Feb. '98 had
>seen no obnoxious behavior to speak of from buyers who couldn't get what
>they wanted. During that storm we relocated about 30,000 people and
>FEMA had a Disaster Field Center set up here for two months. The storm
>and it's ferocity were predicted exactly and there was a two day relief
>between a two day storm part one and a three day storm part two. Buying
>habits of the populace did not depart in any way from the norm as
>written here.
>
>On another occasion this area had a predicted winter ice storm. In some
>areas we had no electricity for 10 weeks while waiting for poles to be
>cut and transported and erected. Buying habits did not change.
>
>We can expect the general population to buy and plan for y2k on New
>Years Eve Day 1999 and we can expect them to buy two extra loafs of
>bread each and two or three extra gallons of water 2 batteries and a
>flashlight.
>
>Oh and more thing; one manager said they sell 50% more frozen dinners
>per shopping dollar than normal in preparation of a possible power
>outage -- when I called the other managers back they laughingly agreed.
>
>We have much to do...
==============================================
Libertarian Self Reliance in the Face of Y2K
geocities.com
===================================================
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