Local Man Is Stuck With 17,700 Bottles Of Hand Sanitizer After Amazon & eBay Cracked Down On Coronavirus Price Gouging
This is one of those stories that you double-check to make sure you aren't being got by The Onion. Am I surprised there is somebody like this out in the wild? Yes and no. I'm not surprised there are resellers trying to profit off of the Coronavirus. I am surprised that this man let the New York Times do a story on him.
Matt and Noah Colvin's gameplan: clear out all of Chattanooga, Tennessee of their Hand Sanitizer at Dollar Tree, Walmart, Staples, and Home Depot. They then took a 1300 mile road trip across Tennessee and Kentucky with a U-Haul truck and filled it up with thousands of bottles of hand sanitizer and antibacterial wipes, mostly from "little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods."
The brothers proceeded to post them on Amazon and sell 300 bottles from $8 to $700!!!!!! Before they knew it Amazon and eBay took all of their listings down. The free market died that day, sir.
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“It’s been a huge amount of whiplash,” he said. “From being in a situation where what I’ve got coming and going could potentially put my family in a really good place financially to ‘What the heck am I going to do with all of this?’”
Mr. Colvin does not believe he was price gouging. While he charged $20 on Amazon for two bottles of Purell that retail for $1 each, he said people forget that his price includes his labor, Amazon’s fees and about $10 in shipping. (Alcohol-based sanitizer is pricey to ship because officials consider it a hazardous material.)
Kind of love how delusional this guy is?
Current price-gouging laws “are not built for today’s day and age,” Mr. Colvin said. “They’re built for Billy Bob’s gas station doubling the amount he charges for gas during a hurricane.”
He added, “Just because it cost me $2 in the store doesn’t mean it’s not going to cost me $16 to get it to your door.”
The real victim of the Coronavirus epidemic: Mr. Colvin.
He thought about it more. “I honestly feel like it’s a public service,” he added. “I’m being paid for my public service.”
Bahahahaha! He thought he was a hero! Absolutely unbelievable. I love this guy. Is what he did a little bit fucked up? Yeah, for sure, but the entire pharmaceutical industry has been doing this forever. This is just a guy who wants to make some money so he can go watch Tennessee play on Rocky Top.
He was just trying to be like Gary Vee. Going from garage sale to garage sale ripping off old ladies as a millionaire and then bragging about an 8% gain on YouTube. Gary Vee is called a business genius but Mr. Colvin? He's being called a villain!
As for his stockpile, Mr. Colvin said he would now probably try to sell it locally. “If I can make a slight profit, that’s fine,” he said. “But I’m not looking to be in a situation where I make the front page of the news for being that guy who hoarded 20,000 bottles of sanitizer that I’m selling for 20 times what they cost me.”
>Says he doesn't want to be on front page of the news for being that guy who hoarded 20k bottles of hand sanitizer.
>Lets New York Times interview him about being the guy who hoarded 20k bottle of hand sanitizer.
Delusion at it's finest.