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Costco customers stocking up on bottled water, other items, due to coronavirus

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March 6, 2020

Anyone who has visited Costco Wholesale this week has noticed certain items, such as bottled water and sanitizers, are hard to find, as many shoppers are stocking up on these items on account of the coronavirus.

During yesterday’s earnings call for the period ending Feb. 16, Richard Galanti, the company's executive vice president and chief financial officer, acknowledged many people are purchasing water and shelf stable food, according to a transcript of the earnings call.

Galanti concurred with one analyst who said Costco has limited some high volume items and is pretty low in stocks on some items this month. "Are some of them putting it in their basements for another day, some of it related to the fact that people aren't eating out as much?" Galanti said. "I think it's a combination of those factors."

"We had a huge pickup in traffic, which continued over the weekend and increased, and increased the first few days of this even further in the first few days of this month, this week," he said. "At Costco and other places, you really can't go in and generally find sanitizing items and what have you. And while we're getting shipments daily somewhere in the U.S., whatever limited amounts we get or allocated is gone pretty quickly."

Over the next few weeks or several weeks, he said he expects that situation will abate, but it depends what else happens with the virus.

When asked about the coronavirus' impact on the supply chain, Galanti said there has been an impact.

"It's now starting to get a little bit further than normal back to normal on regular stuff," he said. "On some of the virus-related items that people are buying like water and sanitizing items and paper towels and things like that, that's going to take a little bit while longer ... You've got suppliers that are literally working around the clock to produce and to ship. But again, people are coming in and buying stuff, if you will, for their basement."