Commentary
BEAVER, Pennsylvania—If you were looking to purchase tampons here at the Beaver Super Market along Third Street, the city’s Main Street business district, the manager says there has been a shortage for a while. When he does get them in, they are gone by midday.
He is not alone. A visit to several larger chain grocery and pharmaceutical stores throughout Western Pennsylvania found almost all of them down to just a handful of boxes of tampons. Smaller local grocery stores often had none. It was slim pickings, even for the generic store brands.
Instacart, the grocery delivery service, said in a statement Monday that the rate its personal shoppers were able to find tampons on store shelves to fill orders dropped to 67 percent. As a result, women are stocking up when they can find them. Panic-buying has driven sales up over 29 percent week over week….