The Psychology Behind Panic Stockpiling
As the COVID-19 outbreak spurs mass buying, people are flocking stores for toilet paper, but why?
Last Saturday afternoon, Lucia, a 27-year-old marketing consultant, decided to head to her nearest shop in Madrid, Spain, to pick up some routine food supplies. What started as a quick errand turned into a four-hour nightmare, wandering several stores, seeing people fighting over toilet paper and canned tomatoes and navigating checkout lanes filled with hundreds of shoppers amid a state of emergency declaration over the COVID-19 pandemic.
This apocalyptic scene of people desperately panic buying toilet paper has become one of the most repeated images seeping through social media. From Wuhan and Hong Kong to Milan and California shoppers have been clearing grocery store shelves in response to coronavirus outbreak. This psychological action is often referred to as “panic buying.”
As the outbreak of the virus has escalated, many have left their homes in search for supplies and basic necessities to deal with the possibility of the coronavirus keeping them in confinement for weeks or even months to come. First were surgical masks, then hand sanitizers and soon coronavirus panic buyers starting to snatch up one commodity in particular: toilet paper. Comparable panic…
