Women at work and their tips, challenges, advice, complaints, and experiences

Been to Costco lately to stock up the pantry?  We headed over there last night and weren't really surprised to see signs over the pallets normally chock full of 25 pound bags of rice that explained that due to food shortage, quanities allowed to customers were being limited based on their past history of rice purchases.  Customers were directed to ask a Costco supervisor if they were unsure as to what their allowed quantity might be.

Presumably customers who have a history of purchasing large quantities (restaurant owners, for instance) would still be allowed to purchase more than the average warehouse shopper who heard about the shortage in the news and ran in to buy as much as they could.  (Which brings up the point of Costco and other stores tracking buyers' purchases to that degree - but that's a whole 'nother post, eh?)

So the questions before us are many.  For instance, what should businesses be doing to prepare for possible shortage crises?

Obviously what some stores (or at least the localized management teams of stores in certain areas) here in the U.S. are choosing to do is institute their own rationing program.  One can look at that in one of two ways:

Either you feel it's a good customer service step to try to ration out the sale of what you do have in stock in whatever method you feel is "fair" (again, open to individual interpretation!) in order to try to meet the demands of more shoppers; or you feel it's absolutely unacceptable to not just let "the strong (or wealthy) survive" by selling the stock on a 'first come, first served' basis.  For those in it only for a moment-long profit, obviously the latter is the easiest.  But for those who know that their customer base will remember, at length, how the situation was handled - well, of course they will try the former system. 

Just how long it will work is the next question.  If I, as a family-focused shopper, am competing with the will (and budget) of a restaurant owner, we're dealing with two different levels of need for supplies.  We're also dealing with two very different levels of "I need to feed my family".  The restarateur wants more rice in order to sell it - and to make more profit - to buy more rice and in a less direct way, feed her family.  (Not counting family-owned restaurants, of course, who may well be feeding their families off of the very stock they are also feeding customers.) Who is more likely to cause a fuss, make a scene, demand a higher allowance of rice at Costco or wherever?  In the short term - the big buyer.  In the long term, the little guys.

Who is more likely to make a big run on supplies in a "Chicken Little" mentality?  The little guys.  Millions and millions of them. 

The last question I have for you is: how can each of us be better prepared for times like this?

I'm waiting for your tips.  I'd also like to know, out of idle curiosity, if your local stores are putting up similar signs, or instituting similar limits on purchases of rice - or any other supplies.  Please leave me a comment with a general area (just state, if that's what you're most comfortable with - no need to share your exact location!) and what store(s) you have been in lately that have or have not been taking similar steps.

Other links of interest:

Sam's Club and rice limits 

Wal-Mart and rice stock