Coronavirus Update: Shopping Tips To Avoid Chaos During Bay Area Shelter-In-Place
SAN JOSE (KPIX 5) -- As crowds rush to stockpile supplies and groceries, the best way to increase your chances of purchasing items in high demand is to arrive as the stores first open for business, or even earlier. However, some stores are enforcing strict limits on the purchases.
KPIX spent four days browsing stores at all hours of the day, from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m., questioning store managers, clerks and stockhands about the best times to arrive.
The vast majority of stores have teams of employees who work overnight hours restocking shelves, ending their days around 6 a.m. At 24 hour stores, arriving any earlier means navigating a maze of unopened cardboard boxes stacked in the aisles, and interfering with employees.
Some Safeway stores have curtailed 24 hour openings, closing overnight to allow crews to work uninterrupted.
In general, larger chain stores tend to get to daily shipments of toilet paper and paper towels. Grocery stores receive daily shipments of fresh produce, eggs, and dairy overnight.
The CVS on Hillsdale Avenue said hand sanitizer would be kept at the counter and limited to one per customer. Customers were advised to call ahead to see if weekly shipments had arrived.
At the Target on Hillsdale Avenue in West San Jose, one employee said customers who began standing in line by 7 a.m., for the 8 a.m. opening, would "very likely" get toilet paper, paper towels and other high-demand goods.
A sign advised customers would be limited to one item of each type. Employees were on hand to inspect shipping carts and strictly enforce the ration.
Shopper Sabrina O'Donnell said the paper products at Target were gone by 8:20 a.m.
"I went to Target the other morning, and there were at least 50 people in line at 7:45 a.m. And when they opened, they told everybody that you couldn't run to the aisles, and if you did, they wouldn't sell anything to you," said O'Donnell.
The same strategy of arriving early can be applied to most big box stores, including Costco, which also limited purchases. Shopping early also means a quick exit, and less exposure to fellow shoppers.
The Costco on Almaden Expressway in South San Jose shut its doors by 3 p.m. because a logjam of shoppers and gridlocked the aisles, pushing the checkout lines all the way to the rear of the store.
While Whole Foods, Lucky's and Safeway tended to sell out early, smaller neighborhood grocers, such as Zanotto's and Lunardi's, tended to stay stocked until at least mid afternoon or later. However, paper products and disinfectant supplies are still the first to go. Zanotto's has announced only seniors would be allowed into the store from 8-9 a.m., prior to normal business hours.
Professor Andy Tsay, a supply chain expert at Santa Clara University, urged calm.
"We're not even near the doomsday scenario," said Tsay.
Tsay said suppliers can quickly react by increasing production, but periods of sharp rises in demand mean adjusting and managing our expectations.
"You're not going to get the exactly the thing you want, at the time you want, and maybe not exactly at the price you want. But again, there's no indication that we're going to run out of food," said Tsay.
And to the customers hoarding pallets of eggs, bottled water, toilet paper, and bleach?
"Think broadly about the other members of society who might not have the access that you have to a lot of these resources," said Tsay
