
He Has 17,700 Bottles of Hand Sanitizer and Nowhere to Sell Them - mcargian
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-amazon-sellers.html
======
merricksb
Earlier discussion:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22574688](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22574688)

------
nate_meurer
The subjects of this story, Matt Colvin and Noah Colvin, spent days driving
from store to store, buying up all of the antiseptic supplies the stores had.
Then they ordered pallets more online wherever they could. Everywhere they
bought, they tried to completely clean out the supplier's stock.

Then of course they started selling their hoard online for multiples of their
purchase price.

I don't say this lightly: Fuck these assholes. If this article is accurate,
then these guys are true pieces of human shit. Amazon and Ebay should be
applauded for shutting them down.

Some rise in prices is natural and expected; the only alternative is enforced
rationing. But what these guys do is different; they're trying to create
privation and desperation in the market so they can profit from it.

It's difficult -- maybe impossible -- to make this activity illegal in a way
that doesn't critically threaten the legitimate free market, and that's an
important aspect of the evil that these people do.

------
salawat
The amount of rationalization on their part makes me want to vomit. That
Dollar General in Kentucky was there and provisioned for the needs of it's
local market.

Them jumping in and clearing things out completely blows the hell out of what
is a carefully optimized logistics network tuned via competition to keep
prices down, and doubling down on resource expenditure to get product from
manufacturer to end user at the cheapest cost possible by inflating the number
of miles it has to physically travel all in the name of maybe being able to
get away with massive price markups.

This behavior is why we can't ever seem to have nice things. Fuck these people
and their reckless chicanery. May their reputations follow them for the
foreseeable future.

~~~
Klinky
If these griefers blew out your "carefully optimized logistics network tuned
via competition to keep prices down", then maybe there's a problem with it,
and its ability to react to crisis or manipulation.

What specific rules of the free market did they break? Are you suggesting we
should have anti-hoarding regulations imposed against the free market to keep
these individuals out of it?

~~~
salawat
I'm saying, when the ship is sinking, it is probably the absolute worst time
to go and try to collect all of the life vests on the ship and preach the
virtues of the Free Market while trying to fleece people right and left out of
whatever you can.

If you happen to be in a fleet of sinking ships, it's an even _worse_ idea to
go to other ships, hoard their life vests, and try to sell them back at a
markup.

The message here should not be difficult to understand. Those that use the
Market to bite the hand that makes the Market possible would be wise to note
what happens to the dog that bites the hand that feeds it.

Hell, maybe you're more of a visual person. Obligatory XKCD.

[https://xkcd.com/1499/](https://xkcd.com/1499/)

If you can't understand these basic, generally universal tenets of human
existence, I really don't know what else to tell you than to tread cautiously,
and don't complain when you end up suffering the consequences for your
actions.

If you still don't get it, then I can only assume Mr. Sinclair's nugget is in
play.

"It is difficult to get a person to understand something when their salary
depends upon them not understanding it."

~~~
Klinky
The questions were rhetorical. There isn't a free market, and yes, markets
should be regulated.

It just seemed odd to laude market competition keeping prices low, while also
complaining of people taking advantage of those prices.

~~~
salawat
They weren't taking advantage of those prices in the sense of getting access
to something needed they couldn't otherwise afford. They were exploiting
arbitrage opportunities to inflate prices in order to decrease overall access
to a universally needed resource.

That represents scarcity inducement via supply chain disruption due to supply
that is generally sufficient for a particular area's needs getting diverted to
parts undisclosed without the tight feedback chain created by integration of
distributor's inventory/purchasing systems. Those are the important signals.
Not some idiot chucking things around Willy nilly through Amazon.

------
bdcravens
> Mr. Colvin does not believe he was price gouging. While he charged $20 on
> Amazon for two bottles of Purell that retail for $1 each, he said people
> forget that his price includes his labor, Amazon’s fees and about $10 in
> shipping. (Alcohol-based sanitizer is pricey to ship because officials
> consider it a hazardous material.)

If it's FBA, he only has to pay to ship the items in bulk to Amazon. If it's
FBM, Amazon actually gives you a shipping credit (though when I was doing it
years ago, it often wouldn't cover the full cost to ship it).

~~~
techslave
_retail_ for $1. retail _includes_ all the costs he’s citing. it’s price
gouging plain and simple.

------
45ure
_Mr. Colvin does not believe he was price gouging. While he charged $20 on
Amazon for two bottles of Purell that retail for $1 each, he said people
forget that his price includes his labor, Amazon’s fees and about $10 in
shipping. (Alcohol-based sanitizer is pricey to ship because officials
consider it a hazardous material._

This is bollocks. Anybody wrongly offended, should try to figure out which one
is wrong, the word or the concept of feeding on misery. This person is price
gouging.

------
csnover
The link on the submission is broken. The correct link is
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-
pu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-
amazon-sellers.html)

------
profquail
Slightly offtopic, but should you need sanitizer and your local stores are out
of stock — perhaps due to people like the subjects of this article — you can
make your own based on this guide from the WHO:
[https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf](https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf)

------
Mountain_Skies
My local grocery store was out of hand sanitizer mid week. When I went this
morning there were two shopping carts full of it by the front door, being sold
at the regular price. Didn't look like anyone was buying any. The store likely
was out mid week because of people like Mr. Colvin. They thought they could
corner the market and know nothing about the ability of the US logistics
system to resupply in face of a small increase in demand likely caused by
speculators rather than a huge spike in demand.

------
1024core
To those who can't find the article for whatever reason:

[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/he-has-17700-bottles-of-
ha...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/he-has-17700-bottles-of-hand-
sanitizer-and-nowhere-to-sell-them/ar-BB11blvS)

[https://www.seattletimes.com/business/he-
has-17700-bottles-o...](https://www.seattletimes.com/business/he-
has-17700-bottles-of-hand-sanitizer-and-nowhere-to-sell-them/)

[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tennessee-man-sitting-
on-a...](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/tennessee-man-sitting-on-
almost-18000-bottles-of-hand-sanitizer-says-hes-doing-a-public-
service-2020-03-14)

[https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/03/the-hand-
sanitizer-...](https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/03/the-hand-sanitizer-
you-cant-find-is-in-this-putzs-garage)

[https://newschannel9.com/news/local/report-two-
chattanooga-b...](https://newschannel9.com/news/local/report-two-chattanooga-
brothers-stockpile-thousands-of-bottles-of-hand-sanitizer)

------
bdcravens
> I’m not looking to be in a situation where I make the front page of the news
> for being that guy who hoarded 20,000 bottles of sanitizer that I’m selling
> for 20 times what they cost me.

Meaning he just hoped no one would notice.

------
jblarneyforward
Correct link (not sure what’s wrong with the current one):
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-
pu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-
amazon-sellers.html)

------
casefields
Mirror: [http://archive.md/Mc6PL](http://archive.md/Mc6PL)

~~~
lgats
Offline

CloudFlare Host Error 1001: DNS resolution error

~~~
gruez
Are you using cloudflare dns? Not being able to access that site with
cloudflare dns is a known issue.

------
lgats
Article seems to be removed.

Nothing at Google Cache or Archive.org

~~~
enjoyyourlife
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-
pu...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/14/technology/coronavirus-purell-wipes-
amazon-sellers.html)

[https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/he-has-17700-bottles-of-
ha...](https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/he-has-17700-bottles-of-hand-
sanitizer-and-nowhere-to-sell-them/ar-BB11blvS)

------
forkexec
This guy needs a visit from the IRS and his inventory seized.

~~~
gruez
>This guy needs a visit from the IRS

Why do you immediately jump to the assumption that he's going to engage in tax
fraud? Or are you wishing for extrajudicial punishment when someone does a
"bad" thing that's not illegal?

