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What do you do before disaster strikes?
Many netizens may say that they should rush to the supermarket to buy eggs, meat, bread, instant noodles, fruits, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar, etc., I believe this is also the idea of the vast majority of Chinese.
It is not difficult to find that when Chinese encounter a disaster, the first thing that comes to mind is to "hoard food", and nothing else, just ensure that the future time is not hungry.
But Americans are different, and their idea of disaster is very different from ours, even a little incomprehensible - hoarding toilet paper.
Why do Americans have this habit?
Americans snapped up cleaning supplies during the pandemic
If you don't have any idea about Americans rushing to buy toilet paper in a disaster, let's take a look at the state of American supermarkets during the pandemic.
When the epidemic rebounded in 2020, the American people fell into panic, and the first thing they did was to rush to the supermarket, regardless of 3721, and do their best to snap up toilet paper.
Many local media reported that because of the rebound of the epidemic, people hoarded goods again, and cleaning supplies such as toilet paper, disinfectant wipes and other cleaning supplies in large supermarkets such as Wal-Mart and Kroger were snapped up.
On November 17, 2020, cleaning supplies in many Wal-Mart stores were in short supply, and large supermarket chains Kroger and mass supermarkets even began to limit the number of paper towels purchased by each customer because they were out of stock.
The next day, a market research company in the United States released data:
"21% of toilet paper and tissue shelves were out of stock, a record high this month; 16% of cleaning supplies shelves are in constant supply shortage. Before the pandemic, only about 5%-7% of shelves would be out of stock. ”
It turned out that the cause of all this was because of the "stay-at-home order" issued by the governor of California, and most of California imposed a curfew for a month, and California citizens had to rush to buy daily necessities.
It is precisely because of the "toilet paper shortage" that American shopping malls have to limit purchases, merchants have begun to limit the number of cleaning supplies purchased by customers, and the regulations of each supermarket are different:
"Kroger Supermarket stipulates that only two products such as rolls, paper towels, disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizer are allowed to be purchased per person."
"Giant Supermarket (a chain of stores in the northeastern United States) requires that each person buy only one roll of large and four rolls of small toilet paper and paper towels."
At that time, the second time in the United States in 2020 that citizens frantically bought household paper, but fortunately, supermarkets and residents were prepared in advance, and the shortage was not particularly serious.
CNN's doubts
Also during the epidemic, the news of the large-scale rush of paper towels by the American people was overwhelming, CNN (CNN) said:
"Why do people stock up on toilet paper? This is a question that even toilet paper manufacturers cannot answer. ”
Tom Sellars, CEO of Sellars Absorbent Materials, a U.S. company specializing in paper processing, said that this may not be due to increased consumer demand, but this behavior does put a lot of pressure on the supply chain.
How is toilet paper made? First of all, there are generally two kinds of raw materials, one is tree pulp, and the other is recycled pulp, such as discarded copy paper and other materials, which can also be turned into pulp after processing.
The raw tree pulp or pulp is brought to the paper mill, which then processes it into large "mother rolls", which are generally more than 100 inches wide. The processed "large rolls" are sent to the paper processing plant.
"We buy large webs from the factory and then use equipment to cut and package them into specific end products, such as toilet paper or kitchen paper, depending on the quality of the paper."
In the whole papermaking process, packaging and transportation are the last links.
When there is an accident, the public may rush to buy paper in large quantities, the demand increases, and the output must also keep up, which leads to the continuous operation of the machines in the factory 24 hours a day, but the production capacity of paper is fixed, and if the supply speed cannot keep up with the demand, there is nothing that can be done.
In 2020, "toilet paper" frequently made headlines, in fact, not only the United States, since February of that year, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Australia and other countries have begun to "grab toilet paper" trend.
To give a few examples, as soon as a supermarket in California opened, toilet paper was snapped up, a customer came late, toilet paper and other cleaning supplies were gone, unexpectedly, the customer called the police on the spot.
An Australian newspaper specially printed eight more blank pages in order to use as toilet paper for readers, and in the local supermarket, customers fought over a roll of toilet paper, and even alerted the police.
The UK is even more outrageous, the doll catching machine in the playground, the doll toys in it are directly replaced by toilet paper or other cleaning supplies by the staff.
"Panic buying may be a behavioral response to a "loss of psychological control" of the epidemic or may be related to a lack of clear instructions from the authorities. ”
This is the statement of experts, and the masses buying toilet paper in large quantities is likely to be a herd behavior.
In fact, there is also a "psychology" influence on shopping, people through shopping to achieve a certain emotional state, panic buying just to meet people's three basic psychological needs, one is autonomy, one is relevance, one is ability.
The reason why people in Europe and the United States buy toilet paper
In fact, people in Europe and the United States do need toilet paper more than Chinese.
According to Statista, an American consumes 141 rolls of toilet paper a year, with an average of less than 3 days to use up a roll.
A Chinese consumes only 49 rolls of toilet paper per year, and on average one roll a week, the gap is considerable.
Moreover, people in European and American countries usually have the habit of hoarding toilet paper, but during the epidemic, hoarding is more crazy, and European and American families consume toilet paper a lot, such as going to the toilet and wiping their noses.
Some netizens will ask, we will also use paper when we go to the toilet or wipe our nose, the difference is that European and American families also need to use paper towels after washing their hands, or cleaning, wiping the table, wiping kitchen pots and bowls with paper towels, and even when cleaning the floor,
And Chinese wipe hands generally use towels, wipe tables generally use rags, and clean the floor is generally mop, so in comparison, it is indeed more paper-consuming for European and American families.
The lifestyle of the United States and some other Western countries is also different from Chinese, in fact, China's convenience is still very high, and the distinction between residential areas and commercial areas on our side is not particularly obvious, such as in a community or village, a few steps away can see a supermarket or shop.
Moreover, the things in supermarkets and shops are also very complete, and basic daily necessities can be bought, so everyone basically has no habit of hoarding things, even if they are temporarily needed, they can be bought by walking two steps.
But the United States is different, the residential areas and commercial areas in the United States are more scattered, there is basically no place to shop in residential areas, and it is not so convenient for people to buy things, so many American residents choose to stock up on things.
"In the United States, without a car, it can be said that it is difficult to move an inch." This is a quote from an American car blogger, which also confirms that it is not convenient to do business shopping in the United States.
Some Americans may go to the supermarket only once a week, and this time they may have to buy what they need for the following week, including cleaning supplies like paper towels.
Of course, Americans are crazy to buy toilet paper because of the herd, this psychology is still relatively common, for example, when Japan's nuclear sewage is discharged, there are artificial rumors that salt is a scarce commodity in the future, and it is necessary to step up salt hoarding.
At that time, many people rushed to the supermarket to buy salt, and many people who did not know the truth also began to follow suit to hoard salt, but this matter is very absurd, but this is the herd mentality is making trouble.
People in Europe and the United States are actually the same, people around are hoarding a lot of toilet paper, people who do not know the truth will definitely feel that something big is going to happen next, if they do not follow the trend to buy, the heart may be insecure, in order to eliminate the fear in the heart, everyone will rush up to frantically buy toilet paper, although there are many people in it do not know why to do it.
It is worth mentioning that toilet paper is a relatively cheap commodity, and when people have a premonition of future danger, snapping up toilet paper will make them feel like they have "done something", and this behavior will not cause any financial burden.
"Toilet paper takes up a lot of shelf space, and if it sells out, it won't be filled with other items nearby than small products (such as hand sanitizer), which will attract more attention."
This is the reason given by Russell (an expert from the University of Central Queensland in Australia), because the volume of toilet paper is larger, there is less toilet paper stored on the shelves of European and American supermarkets, toilet paper is taken away, reserved for the position is very large, more conspicuous, if you want to put other goods is not so easy, so it will attract greater attention.
For example, media reports, there may be some media like to attract attention, earn traffic, once the shelf toilet paper is snapped up to release news, which leads to residents may panic, and then rush to buy tissues.
In fact, the nature of snapping up paper towels is similar to the rush to buy food, but people in Europe and the United States have a relatively large demand for toilet paper, coupled with the influence of herd psychology, which eventually caused this strange phenomenon.
Editor: Van You