By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

Wholesalers yesterday urged Bahamians to get a grip on coronavirus-related panic buying that has gone “through the roof” and increased demand by up to 25 percent.

Philip G Smith, the d’Albenas Agency’s sales and marketing manager, told Tribune Business: “We have had no supply chain disruptions, but the problem is the demand has gone through the roof. They will be out of stock in the stores because we don’t have a million trucks to get orders to the stores every other minute. We have not had any disruptions in our supplies as yet.

“Have you seen the panic in the stores recently? That is the main reason we are having the problems that we have. Demand has gone through the roof, we have a line outside of our cash-sales door almost to the gate, and every wholesaler is going through the same thing. The demand for products, especially sanitising products and cleaning products, and then food products as well, everybody is trying to stock up, stock up, stock up.”

Asked to quantify the increase in demand, Mr Smith replied: “It’s hard to say because I haven’t had a chance to run any numbers, but it has increased tremendously. This pales in comparison to a hurricane threat, or the imminent hit by a hurricane, because that is a limited timeframe. You know the hurricane is going to be here on Friday, so you started shopping maybe at the end of last week, but this has been going on for probably over two weeks, maybe three weeks.

“We have enough trucks to be able to handle the load. One of the main problems is getting the orders filled fast enough to get them on the trucks and get them out. We have a large complement of order fillers and they do a very, very good job, but probably the orders have increased at least by 20 to 25 percent and then the size of the orders as well.”

Mr Smith added: “Ever since the coronavirus became prominent in the news in the US, and there were cases in the US - and cases especially in Florida - Bahamians became hyper-aware of coronavirus.

“Last week there was a huge glut in the food stores, and when the news hit on Sunday that the coronavirus is actually in The Bahamas, the food stores were crazy. I mean, Super Value number ten on Cable Beach and also the Quality Markets on Cable Beach, and then you have the Golden Gates Super Value. All of the food stores are under stress. Even the Meat Max is under stress.”

“Food stores have limited storage space in their back rooms. It’s not a large area they hold stock because the stock goes straight to the shelf. So they depend on weekly deliveries, bi-weekly deliveries. We are trying the best as we can. Some of the larger stores, we will have two deliveries this week.”

Mr Smith said cleaning and sanitising products have been “flying out” of the D’Albenas warehouse. “We had an order that just came in last week from the dock and put in stock on Wednesday of last week, and by Friday we had gone through half of that and we are getting very low now. People have been coming in here and buying that up by the case,” he added.

There had also been “unprecedented demand” at the wholesaler’s cash sales store, where customers can come in directly to buy cases. “You have Joe citizen and his wife that comes in and they are lining up outside of our cash sales door and buying things by two or three cases,” Mr Smith added.

“People are also saying if we give everything to Mary, and Mary will come to d’Albenas, she will get our items and we will divide it between us. We have an unprecedented demand through our cash sales and just about all of the wholesalers are having to do the same thing.

“Yesterday we had to stop people coming into our cash sales at 4pm because it would be the only way we can serve people already in line and be able to close at a reasonable time.”

Disclosing further supply chain challenges, Mr Smith said he has had to put toilet tissue on “allocation”. He explained: “For example, if a store comes and asks how many types of a particular toilet tissue do we have in, and I say we have 200 cases, then they would tell me that they want to buy the entire 200 cases.

“I would tell them no, but instead I would sell them 20 cases because I am not going to let one customer take everything that I have because I service all of The Bahamas. So I am going to make sure I have enough to go around to everybody and, if I run out, then I run out, but I am not going to give everything to one store.”

Mr Smith added: “Where we have to allocate, we will allocate, and we will make sure everybody has enough to sell. We have shipments coming in and the only problem there is how fast can Tropical Shipping and MSC get shipments out of Miami and into The Bahamas, and then we will get them off of the dock.

“Then the other problem is how fast we can put entries though Customs, because there again that is increasing tremendously, and then you know with Click2Clear we had several problems with that. But so far we have had no problems with Click2Clear and everything has been sailing smoothly, and I hope everything keeps going smoothly with Click2Clear so we can get things on the dock, off the dock, in the warehouse, out of the warehouse and into the stores.”