Chris

To be fair a supermarket is never a good place to be at teatime on a Friday, with people popping in to get some bits for the weekend on their way home from work. I’d always avoid it. And sharing anecdotes like this isn’t helpful - once some people are perceived to be panic buying, in a sense it then becomes rational for other people to do it before the shelves empty.

It always comes down to confidence. It was the same with Northern Rock. A bank, or a supermarket, never has everything all its customers might demand on the premises at the time, whether it’s money or toilet rolls. Confidence that they will have enough of what people actually need, when they actually need it, is what keeps such operations afloat.

Once a lot of people start acting other than according to usual patterns of consumer activity, then the vaults run out of cash, or the shelves run out of chicken soup, or whatever, and then news of that spreads and you have a full blown panic on your hands.