Speaking of the days when the worldwide lockdown was only a few days away, I was awestruck when I walked into our nearby grocery one day. It almost ran out of all the household essentials that we need in our day-to-day lives, and the 'toilet papers' had literally vanished! The mystery that remains to date is: Why toilet papers?

Does the toilet paper in any way play a role in preventing the virus? Though there is no easy substitutions to toilet paper, however, it is not an essential item (like food) that human beings cannot live without? I was clueless!

Supply chain disruptions

After a lot of research (as I did not want to indulge in that panic-buying) I found out that there was a tweet that had gone viral somewhere in Japan (although it didn’t catch my eye, me being a social media freak though!). It said that countries would soon run out of their stock of bath tissues due to supply chain disruptions emanating from the pandemic.

So that's it – now I could find some logic behind this consumer behavior that seemed to be the weirdest-of-all-times! China is reported to be the largest exporter of toilet papers. Hence, as the economies began shutting their doors and governments postponed overseas shipments, a dreadful scarcity of toilet papers was anticipated. Panic generated skyrocketing sales and the fear of scarcity generated real scarcity!

The role played by the internet

When history speaks of this 2020 pandemic, the ‘toilet paper crisis’ might boil down to the footnote, but it shouldn’t! The crisis speaks a lot about consumer behavior. To go down intently on the issue, the internet has played the most vital role in creating the ‘artificial’ crisis. Yes, the shortage of tissues and towelettes across groceries, as well as online stores, was artificially created.

Factory shutdowns, supply chain disruptions, import restrictions, etc. were short-lived enough not to create any supply shortage for essentials. So, had it not been for the internet swindle leading to hoarding by anxious shoppers, the grocery shelves across the globe would not have run out of tissues! In countries like Australia, the crisis came into being even before the government announced any sort of lockdown or trade restrictions either! Such is the power of the internet – it can spread news like fire or maybe, even faster!

Changes in the economics overnight!

Money is a medium of exchange – that’s what the subject Economics taught us in high-school. However, this was shortly altered by toilet paper of late! Yes, the globally anticipated toilet paper shortage has reintroduced the age-old barter system. Somewhere in Australia, a café was reported to accept toilet papers in exchange for a cup of coffee! In Hong Kong, an armed gang of burglars robbed a supermarket of nothing more than 600 rolls of those softies! That is almost incredible, isn’t it?

The crux of my research is that the tissue is not an essential commodity. Also, the pandemic has not really disrupted the world’s logistics so much so that the demand-supply plane goes topsy-turvy rendering a ‘demand-pull inflation’ (so far as these soft papers are concerned)!

In a nutshell, the virus outbreak has categorically explained to us what ‘panic buying’ entails in an exceedingly uncertain time and sheer fear and anxiety can lead to disastrous consequences as this one!