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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHe Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-amazon-sellers.html
Amazon cracked down on coronavirus price gouging. Now, while the rest of the world searches, some sellers are holding stockpiles of sanitizer and masks.
By Jack Nicas
March 14, 2020
Updated 1:33 p.m. ET
On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tenn., they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.
Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods, his brother said. The major metro areas were cleaned out.
Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, it was crazy money. To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic.
The next day, Amazon pulled his items and thousands of other listings for sanitizer, wipes and face masks. The company suspended some of the sellers behind the listings and warned many others that if they kept running up prices, theyd lose their accounts. EBay soon followed with even stricter measures, prohibiting any U.S. sales of masks or sanitizer.
</snip>
Amazon cracked down on coronavirus price gouging. Now, while the rest of the world searches, some sellers are holding stockpiles of sanitizer and masks.
By Jack Nicas
March 14, 2020
Updated 1:33 p.m. ET
On March 1, the day after the first coronavirus death in the United States was announced, brothers Matt and Noah Colvin set out in a silver S.U.V. to pick up some hand sanitizer. Driving around Chattanooga, Tenn., they hit a Dollar Tree, then a Walmart, a Staples and a Home Depot. At each store, they cleaned out the shelves.
Over the next three days, Noah Colvin took a 1,300-mile road trip across Tennessee and into Kentucky, filling a U-Haul truck with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods, his brother said. The major metro areas were cleaned out.
Matt Colvin stayed home near Chattanooga, preparing for pallets of even more wipes and sanitizer he had ordered, and starting to list them on Amazon. Mr. Colvin said he had posted 300 bottles of hand sanitizer and immediately sold them all for between $8 and $70 each, multiples higher than what he had bought them for. To him, it was crazy money. To many others, it was profiteering from a pandemic.
The next day, Amazon pulled his items and thousands of other listings for sanitizer, wipes and face masks. The company suspended some of the sellers behind the listings and warned many others that if they kept running up prices, theyd lose their accounts. EBay soon followed with even stricter measures, prohibiting any U.S. sales of masks or sanitizer.
</snip>
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He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them (Original Post)
Dennis Donovan
Mar 2020
OP
PoliticAverse
(26,366 posts)1. ...
The Genealogist
(4,723 posts)2. He could peddle them door to door like Girl Scout cookies
maybe put the merchandise in a little red wagon. Or open a hand sanitizer stand in his yard. "Our Product Kills More COVID 19 than lemonade."
Afromania
(2,768 posts)3. I'm not going to read this story.
This guy knows where he can go.
WhiskeyGrinder
(22,345 posts)4. The tone of this article is infuriating
coti
(4,612 posts)12. Yeah, they let him engage in an awful lot of rationalization
without raising the proper counterpoints.
caraher
(6,278 posts)17. I took it as...
giving him enough rope to hang himself
lunasun
(21,646 posts)5. Hope they'd donate them but seems the types to let them go bad in a hot garage if need be damn it
TexasTowelie
(112,180 posts)6. I don't have a lot of sympathy for price gougers. nt
Brainfodder
(6,423 posts)7. We kinda burned this one out in another thread already today?
Totally Tunsie
(10,885 posts)8. Good. He can bathe in it now.
Progressive Law
(617 posts)9. If he was running EBAY auctions, that's not really "price gouging'
because it's the bidders that determine the final price
Dennis Donovan
(18,770 posts)10. Not with Buy It Now auctions, so much
Progressive Law
(617 posts)14. "But it Now" sales are not auctions.
I'm referring to the auctions where people bid on an item.
JDC
(10,127 posts)11. That fucking guy can go fuck himself.
He tries to profit off of a crisis and tragedy. I hope his whole inventory sits while the manufacturers catch up. If he goes broke, he can experience a very real part of capitalism: Failure.
MFM008
(19,808 posts)13. aawwwww he looks sad
asshole.
Thought he was gonna make a fortune.
KARMA.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)15. To Bad
Initech
(100,075 posts)16. Womp womp!
Chainfire
(17,538 posts)18. I have a suggestion
as to where he needs to stick them.