Costco And Other Big Box Retailers Limiting Number Of Some Items Customers Can Purchase
ORANGE (CBSLA) - The bulk item retailer Costco, as well as others, have returned to putting a limit on how many items of some products customers can purchase.
Getting a hold of a large stash of toilet paper or paper towels, for instance, might be more difficult than before.
"I mean, there's nothing I can do, but its, I guess, almost going back to that whole toilet paper thing. Hope we don't go in that direction again," Danny Rujchanarong, a Costco customer, said.
A sign at the Garden Grove Costco over the paper products section said one package of Bounty and Kirkland brand paper towels per shopper. Employees said that certain cleaning products and cases of water were also being limited.
One shopper said had she'd known about the limits, she would've gotten the item because she remembers what it was like at the start of the pandemic.
Another customer, Diane Thuesen, said she thinks limits on the products will help them be more available to a greater number of people.
High demand for some items can be linked to the spread of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19, but there's also issues of delays in the supply chain system.
"They just have not been able to get all that merchandise from the ports," said Raymond Sfeir, a Chapman University Economics Professor. "The lines, they say, here in Port of LA and Long Beach is longer than at any other time."
Outside Costco, Devon and Patty Bench spoke to CBSLA about the backup in the ports.
"If they get it there, they can't transport it. So, that causes a backup all through the system," Devon said.
"Hopefully, we can get people back to work in the ports and in trucking and get the supplies back out to the people," Patty said.
Asked about the situation, Costco said over email that management had no comment on the matter. The company that makes Scott Toilet Paper and Kleenex said its monitoring the situation closely.