Covid-19 and the cost of stockpiling

When President Cyril Ramaphosa announced a travel ban as a means of minimising the spread of the coronavirus on 15 March, the number of confirmed cases was just 61. The day after the announcement, South Africans flocked to supermarkets to stockpile. In some cases, entire aisles were raided clean of essentials such as toilet paper, soap, cleaning agents, disinfectants and sanitisers. 

On 19 March, Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel announced regulations to control the pricing of goods after noting price hikes implemented by retailers. The minister also advised retailers to place restrictions on the number of goods sold to individual buyers with a particular focus on essential goods. The minister also warned retailers against increasing prices of goods as a response to stockpiling.

“Today we issue directions under the Disaster Management Act and regulations under both the Competition Act and Consumer Protection Act, dealing with pricing and supply matters during the national disaster to ensure that we do not have unjustified price hikes or stock-piling of goods,” said Patel.

“We are doing so in order to protect consumers and ensure fairness and promote social solidarity in this period.”

With over half of the nation’s population surviving on less than R41 a day, the impact of stockpiling is bound to affect the most vulnerable. 

Ncumisa Fandesi-Ndelu, who founded the Facebook group, “1 Family 1 Stockpile”, says the group has been stockpiling for four years.

“1 Family 1 Stockpile is a Facebook group that I started about four years ago[...] to teach women how to use their money wisely and how to use their money correctly,” says Fandesi-Ndelu. The group has over 90 000 members.

“It involves members of the group sharing ideas on how to purchase goods correctly. For example, all members of the group are required to share whatever specials they see with fellow members. And if there's something happening that will save a fellow member, a rand or 10, a member is required to share that with the group.”

Fandesi-Ndelu says the only change she has noted in her group members’ buying habits is an increased interest in hand sanitisers. Other than that, they seem to be purchasing in the same manner as before the outbreak of Covid-19.

She says the type of stockpiling she and group members do is very dependent on strict budgeting and prioritising items that are on special.

“Budgeting is everything. You can’t just randomly buy things that will sit in your house indefinitely. You need to buy things that your household is using, or will use on a daily basis,” she says.

“Stockpiling as a lifestyle is something that you can do for as little as R100 a month up to anything else that you can afford, depending on what you want to keep in your household.”

While Fandesi-Ndelu has applied the same principled shopping she has been advocating for years, many South Africans have responded emotionally to the outbreak of Covid-19. 

Clinical psychologist Thandi Mvakali says the panic-buying that has occurred since the announcement of a state of national disaster can be linked to the human need for self-preservation.

“The critical thing is that people will react differently to the same situation. People’s reactions are also informed by their context and their circumstances,” says Mvakali.

“People now prepare themselves or think about how they can secure themselves from a safety point of view and it's all about survival. Part of emotional intelligence is what we call choosing yourself.”

However, in light of the effects that panic buying can have on vulnerable groups, Mvakali says it is important for people to remember their humanity.

“As humanity, we are connected, so we need to take responsibility for slowing the spread of the virus and to avoid massive and unnecessary suffering among those of us who are more vulnerable – the elderly, perhaps those that are uninsured, the poor people who are living from pay cheque to pay cheque, and those people that are living without any safety net,” says Mvakali.

“In essence, self-isolation and social distancing are not really about any individual. They are about protecting the people that are vulnerable.”

One of the ways in which some have avoided stockpiling is by shopping online. 

Wendy Mbhele, 22, is a professional shopper based in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal. She says the recent bout of stockpiling has had both negative and positive impacts on her work.

“With us that do shopping on a daily basis we have witnessed this with almost every item,” says Mbhele.

“Customers place [their usual] orders for, example, 20 items and sometimes we don’t even find half of what they want and at times we find even less than half the items they wanted.”

Mbhele, who has been a professional shopper for more than a year, says that based on the observations she has made around people’s buying patterns, the recent hike in stockpiling is bound to disadvantage a large number of people.

“Since people are buying in bulk it also affects other people that don’t always have money – people get paid at different times of the month.” 

“Right now it’s around mid-month and all people that got paid last month don’t have money to buy right now – [panic buying] – is affecting those that do not have money negatively because they are now worried that everything is going to shut down and they don’t have money to buy and stock things at home as well.”

Apart from those living paycheque to paycheque and who can only afford to shop at one period in the month, consumers who shop regularly on a small scale have also been disadvantaged by stockpiling. 

“What about people that work? They can’t do shopping during the day – they do shopping in the evenings. It also affects them negatively as well.”

And while online shopping has been cited as a means to reduce social contact and, by extension, the risk of exposure to and spreading of the coronavirus, professional shoppers who carry out orders face anxiety of their own.

Siphesihle Nkosi delivers groceries to online shoppers, and says he encountered a customer who informed him that he was in self-quarantine. 

The 24-year-old shopper says the customer he was delivering to asked him to place his groceries on the floor and take three steps back.

“He told me he is in quarantine because he might have [contracted] the coronavirus,” says Nkosi. 

Wendy Mbhele says professional shoppers are at risk because their work requires them to be in constant contact with others. She also notes that the directive for citizens to practice social distancing has had a positive impact on her line of work.

“The business is growing. Since people are staying at home, a lot of people are now depending on buying online.”

Online shopping has provided an avenue for South Africans to practice social distancing without resorting to stockpiling, says Mbhele.

If practised in line with the regulations announced by Patel, online shopping can be an effective way to reduce the spread of Covid-19 and to ensure that all South Africans have access to essential goods to protect them from contracting the virus. DM