What’s Up with the Toilet Paper?

Marlin Abel

University of Central Florida

ENC1102: Researching Literacy Practice and Rhetoric in Times of Covid-19

Dr. Steffen Guenzel

April 19, 2021

Abstract

During the Covid-19 pandemic, unusual habits arose from shoppers, and certain products

were bought sporadically or even out of stock entirely. The products of sanitizer, masks, and

toilet paper were major supplies that people cared about stocking up on. I want to analyze

reasons people bought these particular products, but also other factors that could lead to empty

stock. This topic interests me because it was such important news for several months, and most

people wondered how and why stores were lacking important products for so long.

Everybody acts different in emergencies, and the degree of severity that Covid-19

entailed was also different depending on who you asked. This psychological element is

something that can affect these 3 products, and has a lot of depth to it. The government can also

change the supply of such goods. Tariffs, travel bans, offering replacements are all actions that

greatly change the products available. This can also tie into the psychological side of things,

depending on how much the citizens trust their government. An obvious and simple way that

affects the stock of supplies is the production of said supplies. The logistics and manufacturing

of sanitizer, masks, and toilet paper are all different from each other, and can yield similarities
between them being out of stock. This paper investigates the factors leading to stock shortages of

supplies during Covid-19, namely toilet paper, masks, and sanitizer. The main question to be

answered is “what caused certain shelves to be empty during the pandemic?”

Introduction

A global pandemic isn’t something anyone can plan for 100%, and unpredicted outcomes

are sure to arise. During the Covid-19 pandemic, unusual habits arose from shoppers, and certain

products were bought sporadically or even out of stock entirely. With this said, what are the main

reasons shelves were empty? Three easily identifiable factors could be defined as: The

limitations of manufacturing, role of the government, and customer choices. I want to figure out

which factor impacts the shelves of masks, sanitizer, and toilet paper the most.

Results

1. Manufacturing/Logistics

Our products’ journey starts with manufacturing, and the three products mentioned earlier

have very different production chains from one another. Toilet paper is especially different from

the other 2 products. Due to toilet paper being a paper product, it has very small profit margins.

The net profits for the paper and paper products industry was only 5.43% above the industry

average in Q4 2020 (CSIMarket 2021). Paper products are inherently large volume, and due to

their low profit margin, leads companies to store low amounts of it. Instead of warehouses full of

excess products, manufacturers make just enough to satisfy demand. Paying to manage storage

might counteract the small profit paper manages to make, so this is the cost effective choice.

Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of what buyers would like to hear in a pandemic. High
demand made toilet paper out of stock quickly. The large volume quality of paper products had

another effect, namely logistics to stores. The price of shipping pulp and raw materials is cheaper

than shipping the rolls themselves, so TP is made locally instead. This is actually for the better,

as producers can accommodate for the higher demand and distribute rolls faster (Wegner, 2020).

Hand sanitizer production was not restrained by the same barriers that toilet paper was. It

is much easier to manufacture, and isn’t bound to the tight profit margins that paper is. This is

good news, because the high demand for it was something that wasn’t going away. Unlike toilet

paper, sanitizer was needed several times more than pre-pandemic. The World Health

Organization expects 35 billion litres needed per year of the pandemic, up from three billion

normally (Hegarty 2020). This demand is something producers have had a hard time keeping up

with, mainly due to lack of alcohol. Ethanol and isopropyl alcohol are ingredients crucial in

killing germs, and was very hard to come by. While there might be enough alcohol to make

plenty of sanitizer, many other industries use alcohol too. Zidac Laboratories is a UK-based

skincare products company that has been making sanitizer for Herts Tools. The director of Zidac,

Jurica Weissbarth, usually buys a tonne of ethanol for £700. Due to shortage, he now gets offers

of £10,000, and celebrates when he can buy a batch for only three or four times regular price

(Hegarty 2020).

2. Government Influence

Laws and systems put in place by the government can have a large impact on what

products are available to the public. The first interference that might come to mind might be

tariffs, which is something the US had put in place before covid struck. This included 25%

Section 301 tariffs on disposable medical headwear and hand sanitizer, and 15% on medical

protective clothing (Kaplan). The government issued over 200 exemptions to these tariffs in
March 2020, but still left $1.1 billion subjected to 25% tariffs. Many of these supplies come from

China, where the World Trade Organization says 25% of the world’s supply of masks is made.

The Chinese government also tried to cut exports of medical supplies, and increase imports (De

Luce, Williams 2020). China was not the only country to limit exports of crucial supplies. As

mentioned earlier, isopropyl alcohol (IPA) is a crucial ingredient in making sanitizer. France is a

leading producer of IPA, and was limiting the exports of the chemical to neighboring countries.

This sparked some controversy, and people worried it would make other european nations follow

suit (Hegarty 2020). Instead of limiting the amount of products that can reach shelves, a country

might put in place a system like Germany did. Anyone over 60 or has pre-existing conditions are

eligible for free masks. This cost the federal government €2.5 billion to distribute masks to 27

million people, about a third of the population (Thelocalgermany 2020)

3. Customer Impact

The choice of the customer undoubtedly has a large impact on what is sold out or not, but

many different factors can affect their buying habits. The main outcome of the upcoming factors

is panic buying, or buying large quantities due to fear. Fear is a normal reaction when a global

pandemic breaks out, but letting fear drive your purchases is something that can cause more

harm than good typically. The first reason panic buying happens might be from wanting to have

a larger locus of control. If someone wants to take a pandemic seriously, but officials give a

“small” order like washing hands more, someone might think that isn’t an adequate solution. To

fulfill their desire to be prepared, one might hoard supplies instead. Similar to this, superficial

risk is something panic buyers might believe in. This risk is something that isn’t as dangerous as

another risk, but still feels better to mitigate. An example of this would be buying excess toilet
paper, even though Covid-19 isn’t related to using more of it. Someone would feel better

knowing they won a small battle, even if other battles are out of one’s control.

Another factor that increases panic buying is social media. Just like Covid-19 itself,

misinformation spread through the internet like a virus, and infected buyers’ minds with fear

(Depoux , Martin., Karafillakis , Bsd , Wilder-Smith , Larson 2020). If a customer sees online

that supplies are running low near them, they might incorrectly assume that they only have a

small window to act, or face running out. It is important that social media and the internet are

used in productive ways, and to limit the amount of false information that is shared.

A third factor is something anyone can relate to: fear of the unknown. Nobody truly knew

how long or short Covid-19 would last, and it wasn’t a terrible idea to stock up extra on supplies

in case things got much worse overnight. The problem arises when too many people think this

way, and supplies run out.

Analysis

All 3 of these factors played a large role in low stock of these supplies, with some

products being hurt or helped more than others. Toilet paper was the main product largely

limited by manufacturing, with sanitizer also being affected from lack of alcohol. For the

purpose of answering the question “what affected this product the most?” toilet paper would

definitely be manufacturing. The other 2 products are harder to determine. Sanitizer was not

affected as much by the government, besides the hoarding of IPA in Europe. This is due to the

fact that alcohol production was not matching demand, and could be classified in the

manufacturing factor instead. The government affected all of these products with tariffs, but

many exceptions were made, and trade still occurred. The government actually helped in many
countries, like Germany supplying masks or New York making their own state-sponsored

sanitizer. For these reasons, I will say that government interference was not the main reason for

these 2 products being out of stock. Between manufacturing and customer impact, it is hard to

determine what really is to blame for shortages of sanitizer and masks. Masks aren’t

comparatively hard to produce, in fact many similar factories switched to mask production

during the pandemic. The problem with masks mainly lies with customers panic buying, and not

the government or manufacturing. While customers did also panic buy hand sanitizer, the

consumption across the world increased astronomically. This change wasn’t something entirely

at the fault of customers, as it was such a universal demand. I deduct from this, that the main

bottleneck seems to be the manufacturing sanitizer, but the other two factors are very prevalent.

Discussion

Overall, these three products have many differences as to why they were out of stock. To a

customer, they might blame the factories for not stockpiling more. Another might think the

government is withholding information and decides to panic buy. A government might try to

hoard supplies itself in fear of running out. No matter what you attribute to empty shelves, there

is some amount of validity to it. Yet after looking at the evidence, the largest attribution to this

problem would have to be the manufacturing and logistics factor. The global demand for these

three products was something no supplier could prepare for, but ultimately was the worst

bottleneck. Some governments did try to hoard supplies, but overall the role of these bodies was

a positive one, and avoided conflict. The choice of a customer is something that impacts stores

directly, but panic buying wasn’t responsible as much as manufacturing was. Take this

information lightly though, as panic buying is something easily preventable, and can make a

large difference for stores.

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