New research by the University of New South Wales has confirmed what many of us suspected – Australians were the quickest to pull out the credit card and stock up on supplies at the supermarket in the coronavirus pandemic.
UNSW Business School researchers Dr Tim Neal and Professor Mike Keane used Google search data to measure panic buying across 54 countries during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, from January to mid-April 2020.
Using this data, the pair built a ‘panic index’ to show how the spread of the virus and policy announcements by government influenced people’s panic response.
The results reveal Australia was one of the countries worst affected by panic buying, with widespread shortages of essentials such as canned and dry soup, flour, rice, pasta and tinned tomatoes during March.
The researchers put this down to Australians reacting to restrictions in other countries around the world, but Australian National University marketing lecturer Andrew Hughes has told Fairfax he blames FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).
“Once one person misses out on something, the FOMO principle kicks in,” he said. “In this day and age, once people think they are going to miss out on something, it triggers a fear that they’ll miss out on it.”
“It could be an iPhone or it could be toilet paper.”
Dr Neal and Professor Keane now hope the index will help Government and supermarkets better manage panic buying in future crises by coordinating their strategies – like putting the loo paper at the front of the shop to avoid it looking like they may be running out or timing product limits with Government announcements.
Or just increase the production of Sorbent ten-fold.
