collection 2020
Same Pandemic, Different Shortages
What panic buying reveals about national identity
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By Anne Palka and Daria Capatina
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Bare shelves due to panic buying in Oakhill, Virginia during the Covid-19 pandemic; Source: Famartin, Wikimedia Commons
Early morning, just before the stores open. People are queuing in the street in front of one them, trying to keep distance, constantly checking that no one comes close. This is important in times of the coronavirus pandemic, the risk of infection is always there. Still, people came out of their houses and queued in front of the store.
They are there for a certain product. As soon as the doors open, the distance does not seem to be that important anymore. First come, first served. Some are successful, others are not. The latter stand in front of an empty shelf and have to try again tomorrow. Perhaps they'll be lucky then. If not in this store, maybe in another or yet another, to finally get hold of this product.
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What is this product there is such a rush on?
Well, that depends on the country. But similar scenes have been taking place across the globe. Briefly, the principle is: Tell me which country you are from, and I will tell you which product you are probably queuing for.
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In Turkey people are searching for cologne perfume, there is a surge in gun sales in the US and a spike in buying yoga mats in China. On social media, people are making fun of how the hoarded products match the nation’s stereotypes, with some Germans saying they would prefer to live in a society like France that is panic-buying red wine and condoms rather than one that goes crazy for toilet paper. Were you from another country, what would you buy?
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While the German Minister of Food Julia Klöckner gave an update on the supply situation, she said: “Each country has its own culture-specific hoarding characteristics, that’s my impression, so when you compare the countries, different things are kept at home. Uh, psychologically, I’m stumped…”. Julia Klöckner is not a psychologist, but a politician, and there’s more behind the phenomenon than surviving the crisis and having a good time in isolation. So why are people in different countries panic buying different products?
"In Germany we are hoarding toiletpaper and there is hardly any left. In France, on the other hand, condoms and wine are becoming scarce... The french are demonstrating how to celebrate a month of quarantine... lol"
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More than the wish to survive
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To understand the differences between countries, it is useful to first consider the similarities. For years, many Germans have been ashamed to buy toilet paper, some exchanging tips on internet forums: “I always hide the package among other things in the shopping cart”, “When you don’t have a bag, just wrap your coat around it”.
As soon as the coronavirus led to a perceived scarcity of toilet paper, the shame turned into visible pride. “Look, I got hold of a pack of toilet paper!”, Twitter users post photos of their capture. Or, if they were not successful, it is a photo of an empty shelf: “Politicians say there’s enough there. But where? I only have one role left at home! *Sad emoji*”.
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Similar posts expressing pride or disappointment have appeared regarding disinfection and hygiene products, grains, and canned food – but not only in the German-speaking community. These goods are highly requested all over the world. Data collected by the market research company Nielsen show that sales of these products increased heavily in many countries with the occurrence of the pandemic. For example, in France and Italy, during the week before lockdown, soap saw a spike in sales of highly over 100%, rice hit almost the same percentage in Italy and doubled in France, compared to the same period in 2019.
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These products aim at fulfilling the most basic needs, such as the wish to survive by directly tackling the virus with disinfection and the necessity not to starve by having long-lasting food in case the supply chains crash in crisis. But then we see people stocking up on products not vitally important in a serious crisis. The French could survive without drinking red wine or having safe sex; pizza could be taken away from Italian plates and they could still hold up. These products rather aim at satisfying needs on a more advanced level that people consider once their basic needs are fulfilled. It is the level of having an identity, being part of a group and individual self-realization, despite the situation of isolation.
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Consuming national identity
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From here, we can look at the national identity as a factor that drives panic buying behaviour amid the coronavirus outbreak. More generally, national identity is a sense of attachment, affiliation, and bonding with one's country. In a time of crisis, individuals have a heightened sense of national identity, and they, therefore, seek consumable products that align with the identity-characteristics of their country, even if those products do not provide a specific practical benefit.
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As a response to stress and uncertainty, people start panic buying. Around the world, people feel the coronavirus poses a high level of threat to them personally, but even higher to their country, as data from the opinion research company Ipsos shows. For example, Germans and French are three times more likely to feel that the coronavirus is a greater danger for their countries than for themselves, than vice versa.
The coronavirus is exploiting an underlying human condition of fear, and this fear is accompanied by preparations for an uncertain future. The question is: What do consumers feel they need during times of radical uncertainty? They have a longing for normality and identity.
“I would expect to see consumers turning, en masse, to products that enable them to feel more connected to, bonded with their country”, confirms Aimee Huff, Assistant Professor specialized in Consumer Culture Theory at Oregon State University, talking about the current case that is yet to be researched on more extensively.
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French essentials
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”But sir, you didn't understand anything about the lockdown. You live on another planet!”, says the policeman.
March 30th, France. A man from Ganges makes his second drive to the neighbouring town since the start of the lockdown, to buy bread for the whole week. Having filled out the mandatory form he is perfectly at ease. On the way back home, the gendarmerie stops him at a crossroads and fines him 135 euros for buying “only” bread, in this case, five baguettes. Later on, he takes to the internet to voice his complaints about the incident.
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Key-word: baguette. When you have a distinct word for the pointy end of the bread loaf that you chew off right after you leave the bakery, it is not “only” bread. A simple bread does not get 9 out of 10 French supporting its candidacy for UNESCO-listed treasures. Bakeries are, amid the French lockdown, among the few essential-service deemed “indispensable for the continuity of the life of the nation”. People come to buy 50 baguettes at a time, says the staff from the Federation of Bakeries.
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“For French people, not finding baguettes... it's the apocalypse”, says Mathilde Oliver, 23, laughing. She lives in the city of Caluire-et-Cuire and was faced with completely empty shelves. The situation scares her. “For two weeks it was difficult to find any type of bread, not talking about baguettes. The shelves were deserted but I could see shopping carts with 10 or 20 baguettes inside. The worst is that I ran out of flour. I wanted to make my own bread, but there was no more flour. So I was stuck!”
The scale of panic buying flour goes way beyond her city, however. Market research company Nielsen reports that in anticipation of the lockdown, sales of flour in France have rose by more than 200%.
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In French consumers’ quarantine baskets, there is another emblematic product: cheese. A 2019 survey shows that 9 out of 10 French consider cheese a symbol of their gastronomy and serve it to foreign friends at a typical dinner. Ties between cheese and the zealous determination to hold onto a product associated with purely French traditions were found in a study where more than half of the people agreed that without cheese, France would just be another country. Before the lockdown, dairy products in France recorded a monthly over 20% jump in sales since the last week of February. Statista shows that French people eat 27kg of cheese per year on average, for a variety of reasons, from night cravings to celebrating big events. But why wouldn’t the French just break their routine while hunkering down?
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Into play comes nostalgia, the sense of longing for the past, or a preference for products that are associated with the past. For example, a 2019 survey shows that half of the French miss their cheese when they are abroad. This pictures the magnitude to which French are attached to this product and the level to which their consumption is an extension of their national identity when this product is either absent or scarce. Longing for comfort and familiarity when abroad has similarities with the nostalgia the French feel in these times of uncertainty, especially while seeing their fellow countrymen hoarding baguettes and cheese. They are stocking up on products associated with their normal consumption behaviour to experience familiarity and a strong sense of identity belonging.
“If our consumption is an extension of our self, and we hope to experience comfort and belonging, then we should expect more shopping that is focused around tradition, or nostalgia”, emphasises Jorge Barraza, Professor of consumer psychology at the University of Southern California specialised in understanding and predicting consumer behaviour.
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Now if you feel like something was missing from the typical French “to panic buy list”, there is truth in wine! A day before the lockdown began, the French rushed to stock up on alcohol and continued especially on wine during the first 2 weeks of the lockdown. Wine purchases in drive-in services raised by over 150%, informs Nielsen. For French people, the wine transcended the role of food and is a cultural touchstone. A 2019 survey of the French Institute of Public Opinion shows that 9 out of 10 people have a special relationship with wine that cannot be found in other countries.
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Unleashing the inner pizza chef at home
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Besides the French, wine is also a fundamental part of Italian national identity. Results from a 2019 survey show that when choosing wine, Italians emphasize its autochthonous character and especially the production area. In nearly 70% of the cases, Italians consume wine at home. Consequently, it is not surprising that they bought 30% more wine than usual in March, according to Nielsen data. This means Italians are not going to run dry during the lockdown.
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But are we really talking about Italy without bringing in pizza, another emblematic product of Italian national identity? The culinary symbol of Italy, namely Neapolitan pizza, has become a UNESCO world heritage site. The magazine Il Giornale informs that for more than half of Italians, pizza is the favourite dish for lunch. And according to the latest sales numbers, during the lockdown, people across Italy are unleashing their inner pizzaiolo, their inner pizza chef. In the first week of the lockdown, Italians stockpiled frozen pizzas, producing an increase of over 50% in sales, then they started hoarding a growing quantity of flour week by week, causing a triple turnover compared to 2019 at the end of March, according to Nielsen. There is also a continuous increase in the sales of tomato sauce, yeast, and mozzarella. Every fourth Italian gets emotional satisfaction from eating pizza and gives in to the temptation to eat pizza whenever desired, writes Il Giornale.
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“Fulfilling the need for psychological comfort through nostalgic purchases may also explain why traditional products like frozen pepperoni pizza are selling out, while newer versions of these products like vegan quinoa and cauliflower crust frozen pizza are not selling well”, says Aimee Huff.
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What we see in Italy and France is that the current consumption addresses identity needs. Jorge Barraza speaks about four existential fears: isolation, loss of control, loss of identity, and death. To one extent or another, the pandemic is activating all at the same time. In fact, the researcher reinforces that when people are reminded of their mortality, they are likely to cling to enduring elements of their identity, which include ingroup elements like nationality and culture. These elements provide an enduring sense of self, along with comfort and stability.
"Fulfilling the need for psychological comfort through nostalgic purchases may also explain why traditional products like frozen pepperoni pizza are selling out"
- Aimee Huff, researcher
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The sheep and the shops
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Hand in hand with the identity issue, another theory from psychology comes into play. When some people start to buy bigger amounts, humans behave like sheep – psychologists call it herd behaviour.
When one sheep moves, the others follow, step by step. The fear of missing out drives more and more people to fill up their shopping carts. They say to themselves: When I see the product next time, I better buy one, or two or three, maybe I'll need it someday. Herd behaviour reinforces movements, no matter if on green fields or outside the wild.
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In Los Angeles, there is a long queue in front of a gun store, encircling the white building with maroon letters on it saying “We buy guns”. A video shows more than 30 people in a line, someone came with a foldable chair. Panic-buying is driven by scarcity, perceived or real. One example of this includes the purchase of firearms in the US. The people queuing want to get hold of a gun, before shops possibly close or others get ahead of them.
“We need to distinguish between supply- and demand-side scarcity”, confirms psychologist Jorge Barranza. “Supply-side scarcity is the belief, real or imagined, that there will be less supply of the good due to production. Scarcity can also come from demand, which is seeing or believing that many people are taking more of this product thus driving scarcity.”
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Guns are products associated with American national identity. Every seventh American could never imagine not owning a gun and sees it as a personal sense of freedom, shows a 2017 Pew Research Center survey. Freedom is by far America’s most important political value, ranked just behind world peace and familial security, revealed social psychologist Milton Rokeach in his research in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Likewise, guns, identity, and nationhood are seen as related, found Mugambi Jouet in a 2019 study.
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During the coronavirus outbreak, in March, the highest number on record in more than 20 years of firearm background checks was conducted through the FBI’s system. It is an 80% increase compared to the same month in 2019. Overall Americans bought about 2 million more guns than in February, causing the sales to more than triple in Michigan, which has become a hot spot for virus cases.
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From the national identity perspective on panic-buying products, it is also interesting to look at Russians rushing to purchase, among others, cartridges – considering that in Russia, handguns and assault rifles are strictly banned for the broader public. As the Russian Public Opinion Fund informs, every eighth Russian agrees with this prohibition. Amid the coronavirus outbreak, Russians have purchased 130% more bullets and 30% more baseball bats from March 9 to March 22 than they did in the previous two weeks, as the Russian Fiscal Data Operator shows.
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Russians tend to view their nation as always under attack from outsiders based on the nation's history, says Kendall Bridget in an analysis for BBC. At the same time, the Russian President is not missing any opportunity to emphasize that Russia is leading the world in terms of its weaponry. In this context, we see every ninth Russian being proud of the country’s history and equally of its strong army, as reported by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center. Meanwhile, there is a growing interest in shooting sport, and the collecting of weapons and everything related to them.
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All you need is love
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Another example: Did you try to buy condoms in a German supermarket or drugstore recently? It is likely that you were more successful than would have been in a French store.
“I witnessed a very embarrassing conversation between a customer and a saleswoman at the supermarket”, tells Veronica Coragau, 22, from Les Rousses. “The lady was looking for condoms and could not find them. An argument broke out when the saleswoman told the customer that they were out of stock and the customer called her with ugly words.”
Coragau was shocked by this behaviour, “the total lack of respect”, she says. And this in the country with the city of love, Paris, as its capital. The country where every fourth French is unable to choose between eating or having sex, as a 2020 study of the French Institute of Public Opinion shows.
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There are further examples showing the connection between national identity and the buying behaviour in the coronavirus crisis. While France considers bakeries as indispensable for the life of the nation, pubs and shops selling alcohol were added to the list of essential business in the UK, and gun stores in US states. But the phenomenon is not just about baguette, wine, cheese, weapons, and condoms. Following the same logic, the identity-related buying behaviour is seen with buckwheat in Russia, garlic in Moldova, citrus fruits in Bulgaria, and video games in Japan.
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Toilet paper is not identity-building
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And what do you buy as a person living in Germany? Germans mainly go crazy for toilet paper. Going crazy means that there are cases that even led to physical injury. In Bremen, a woman and her companion did not accept that they were only allowed to take one package and started to cry, push employees and give them several blows with the fist. In Frankfurt, a woman did not want to wait outside the store as she was afraid she couldn’t get toilet paper and hit an employee in the face. And in Mannheim, an insulting and rioting customer was injured in a dispute over toilet paper so that he had to go to the hospital.
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But toilet paper is a product also highly demanded in other countries, in Germany, it seems, panic bought products are not as closely tied to national identity. This is shown by a survey conducted at the University of Cologne: Professor André Marchand says that Germans are buying functional, not fun products. According to data of the Federal Statistical Office, beer sales even decreased by up to nine percent after the start of the coronavirus pandemic in comparison to the average of the six months before, and this despite Germany being a beer nation. In discussions about German culture, beer is mentioned over and over, after all, it is the country of the purity law and has a fairly high per capita consumption.
The argument that Germany is also a nation of rationality does not hold up when taking a look at the irrational panic buying of toilet paper and other products, while politicians and sales representatives say that there are not and will not be problems with supply.
This shows that the issue cannot be seen as a black-and-white picture. It is more like fifty shades of grey. Not just French people were buying more condoms than usual, there was also an increase in Germany. In the US and the UK, there was also an increase in alcohol sales. People are spending more time at home, eating at home more, and thus need more of the products they usually buy, and Italians have a higher pizza consumption than people in most countries anyway.
André Marchand says, including the functional products: “There may be slight cultural differences, but in the end, these are less than one would expect from the currently accepted theses.” But excluding the functional products, and despite all these grey shades, the specific focus on certain panic-bought products in different countries is striking and surprising enough to be picked up by journalistic articles and social media discussions. It will take a while until there is academic research about the current phenomenon and more specifically, a scientific explanation as to why Germans do not seem to go for products that are as nationally identifying as people in other countries.
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More than just products in shopping carts
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On the street, just before the stores open. People are queuing in front of one of them. They all came for a certain product. What is this product there is such a rush on? Well, that depends on the country. People are panic buying different products, despite countries going through the same pandemic. The products match associations with different national identities. This phenomenon is not about stereotyping or stigmatising, and about more than just products in shopping carts. It is about how people deal with the crisis. The products are different, the reason for buying is the same: gaining a feeling of identity and belonging in an uncertain time, getting well through the isolation brought by the coronavirus crisis, and maintaining some normality.
About the Authors
Anne Palka,
Germany
Anne comes from Germany. She studied Journalism in Dortmund, was trainee at a newspaper in Kassel, and did several internships. Currently, she studies Journalism, Media and Globalisation in Aarhus and Swansea, and works as a research assistant at the Institute of Journalism in Dortmund.
Daria Capatina, Moldova
Before joining the Mudus cohort, Daria hosted the daily informative morning program of the Moldavian national youth-oriented radio station. At the same time, she investigated for the local media and transnational media projects on phenomena such as domestic violence and trafficking in the breakaway state of Transnistria.
