New research shows Australian consumers were the world’s biggest panic buyers during COVID-19.
University of NSW academics Mike Keane and Tim Neal used Google search data from 54 countries from January to late April, to pinpoint the scope and intensity of panic buying in response to the coronavirus outbreak.
Their “panic index” showed Australian panic buyers eclipsed the rest of the world.
Panic buying escalated in Australia peaked in the first week of March, but continued throughout the month. Sales of canned and dry soup surged by 180%, purchases of toilet paper doubled and there were shortages of flour, rice and pasta.
“The experience of Australia is notable for the incredible speed and scale with which panic took hold in early March,” the researchers found.
“Unlike in other countries, the escalation in panic does not appear to correspond with any significant increase in domestic COVID-19 cases.”
The peak in Australia also didn’t correspond with any significant announcements about the pandemic.
According to IRI data, liquor panic buying peaked during the week of March 22, 2020 – sparked by on-premise shutdowns and fears off-premise would also close – saw 20-45% unit growth year on year.
While panic buying saw significant growth in all alcohol segments in the off-premise, sales have now returned to pre-COVID norms.
FOMO fuels purchase
The researchers found there were detrimental economic and health effects to panic buying.
“Shortages created by panic buying also force consumers to devote extra time and effort to shopping, diverting time away from welfare-improving activities like work, leisure, and sleep, as well as generating psychological costs by inducing anxiety and stress,” they found.
“Our results show that the announcement of internal movement restrictions generates considerable consumer panic in the short-run, but the effect largely vanishes after a week to 10 days. Consumer panic also responds to announcements of internal movement restrictions in foreign countries, suggesting that consumers take these as a signal of the severity of the pandemic and/or likely future policy in their home country.”
The researchers concluded with these sobering words: “It is particularly important to learn lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic given that future pandemics are essentially inevitable, whether in the near term from a second wave or new strain of COVID-19, or longer term as new virus strains emerge.”
Australian National University marketing lecturer Andrew Hughes told The Sydney Morning Herald it appeared Australian panic buyers had suffered from FOMO, the 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.”
