Toilet paper was so in demand at the beginning of the pandemic, that the CEO of Walmart went on the Today Show to urge people to stop buying the product.
Overall, sales of toilet paper surged to over $11 billion in 2020, up over two billion dollars from a typical year.
But what rises, eventually falls. The Wall Street Journal reports that the toilet paper industry is currently experiencing a rough patch. Sales are down 4% in 2021 and are on pace to miss projections.
Hoarding has been a main culprit. Many Americans still haven’t flushed through the reserve they built in the early days of lockdown.
The Wall Street Journal highlights one piece of anecdotal evidence:
“You never knew when you weren’t going to be able to get it, so every time we went out we got some,” said Marjorie Greenberg, 62 years old, of New Rochelle, N.Y. “They just kept amassing.”
Ms. Greenberg still has 54 rolls, stored in various places throughout her home: in a guest room, the back of a linen closet, the laundry room in the basement. “I’m not planning on buying for a while,” she said.
Meanwhile, toilet paper is getting more expensive. The maker of the Scott brand, multinational Kimberly-Clark, recently announced that they’re going to jack up prices by “the mid-to-high single digits,” because of the rising cost of raw materials. Ultimately, retailers will decide if that’s passed along to consumers.
Last month, Bloomberg reported that the there was a wood pulp shortage related to the blockage in the Suez Canal. Wood pulp is used in toilet paper.
