Amazon out of powdered milk in the US

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22528019

by forkexec • 6 years ago

8 15 6 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I tried buying the last one at a reasonable price and it was gone before I could choose shipping (a transaction isn't finalized until the shipping is chosen). There won't be any more that will ship before 1-2 weeks, depending on the item.

dsr_• 6 years ago

I'm assuming this is a typo for powdered milk, given that cows aren't usually plugged into mains voltage.

forkexec5• 6 years ago

jandrese• 6 years ago

"powered" vs. "powdered"

"Powered milk" sounds like some kind of bodybuilder beverage that contains no actual milk.

_verandaguy• 6 years ago

Hey, that sounds like a YC S20 idea.

strictnein• 6 years ago

Not quite, but close: https://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/business/businessspecial2...

totalZero• 6 years ago

Their Prime Pantry service is grouping shipments together regardless of the guaranteed delivery date, which means that your order arrives on the latest date among the advertised delivery dates for items in your cart.

This is recent behavior and not a function of order preferences. I have placed three orders that were grouped together (send order as one shipment) despite having selected the earlier Prime delivery option. This started on the same day that I received an order that was broken up (ship as available), which is what usually happens with Prime Pantry orders to my address.

In other words, my Prime orders make me think that Amazon is experiencing a massive ordering surge, and is grouping items together in an atypical way because they want to reduce the shipping strain.

tracker1• 6 years ago

Possible... Amazon is probably seeing higher than typical sales of items they probably don't do high volumes of and are trying to manage that logistical issue as best as possible.

People are starting to get just a little nuts on these things... Shouldn't need to stock up months of stuff... a few weeks of food and water with some rice and beans and/or lentils and lard as backup staple items for core items with other canned goods.

I, personally, cannot handle legumes and not really a fan of grains... that said, having enough hand sanitizer for a year is a bit nuts. Having more food than you will cycle through in a regular time-frame will only serve to add undue pressure to short term supplies because of over-stocking up... then the relief may not come, or can kill the other end of the line, or increase tainted supply.

Panic just isn't a good idea.

JoeAltmaier• 6 years ago

It's a tragedy-of-the-commons thing? You don't get any, there won't be any to have in a little while.

forkexec5• 6 years ago

Doubtful because I bought a large monthly Pantry order yesterday that will arrive tomorrow. It may have more to do with the distance of various warehouses stocking certain items. I've ordered before where it splits up the order into different shipments that arrive on different days.

Like I said in the item text, the product category in question is completely sold out (except for questionable, expensive imports) and won't be in-stock for another week or two, which will be firmly inside the pandemic acceleration period. Instead, I went with several cases of UHT milk in 8 oz containers that were good and cheap. Powdered milk has the added costs of desiccation, whereas UHT is more/less fancy pasteurization.

vinni2• 6 years ago

The title in my RSS reader says “powered milk”. I guess the title was fixed later.

jbob2000• 6 years ago

I flagged this because this because the title sounds much scarier than the actual content; "I couldn't buy this thing on amazon"

So...?

forkexec5• 6 years ago

That's your inference. It's a sign of panic buying and the inability of the supply chain to handle it. Regular buyers cannot buy things they normally buy because quantities aren't being limited and more people than usual are rushing around purchasing items they may not need. It shows the fragility of the total retail supply chain ecosystem.

pmoriarty• 6 years ago

This is an item that's usually not much in demand, so while it being sold out may be a canary in the coal mine to indicate that many people are prepping, I wouldn't start to worry about shortages until they start to run out of beans and rice.

Even then, the shortage will likely be short-lived as preppers stock up and stop buying more.

Amazon out of powdered milk in the US

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