Anyone loading up on diapers?

[onefootflipper1]

There is soon going to be a massive diaper shortage (unless the tariff's are flip flopped). China makes 29 percent of our diapers. America does not have the capacity to make up for the shortfall.

This means that diapers are first going to vanish from the shelves entirely and then become way more expensive once they do appear.

From everything I have been reading most companies importing complete products from China have been refusing delivery rather than pay an additional 140 percent of the money that they already paid for the products.

So, just wondering if anyone is going to be stocking up in order to sell them later?

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

I'm not in diaperville any longer. Most of the western half of the USA produces diapers so I think we're good.

[powell-collectibles]

I think those are just scare tactic numbers. No way that high of a percentage of our diapers comes from China. That number looked fishy to me, so I did a little bit of searching and packing, and the number is probably closer to 5%. Not nothing, but not a reason to start hoarding diapers in the hopes of making some huge profit.

[simba6]

If there is a shortage, eBay might impose rules about reselling them.

[silverstatetreasureboxes]

@powell-collectibles 

Well put besides if a shortage does occur and resellers stock up to sell at an inflated price it's price gouging and it's not allowed.

[pikabo-icu]

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@silverstatetreasureboxes wrote:

@powell-collectibles 

Well put besides if a shortage does occur and resellers stock up to sell at an inflated price it's price gouging and it's not allowed.

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@silverstatetreasureboxes 

Also and I mean no offense to the OP, it's just my own conscience; I would feel pretty bad about making a big profit or really ANY profit from mom's/dad's needing diapers and formula.

Knowing me I would be selling it at a loss LOL

[onefootflipper1]

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@powell-collectibles wrote:

I think those are just scare tactic numbers. No way that high of a percentage of our diapers comes from China. That number looked fishy to me, so I did a little bit of searching and packing, and the number is probably closer to 5%. Not nothing, but not a reason to start hoarding diapers in the hopes of making some huge profit.

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I didn't come up with that trying to scare anyone, I came up with it on a statistics website trying to research what companies I should be buying stock in right now.  Unfortunately there were no publicly traded companies in the US that just focused on diapers.

[pikabo-icu]

Procter & Gamble and Kimberly Clark are the 2 largest in the US, they have a big portion of the market.

I bet they will happily up their production. 

[onefootflipper1]

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@pikabo-icu wrote:

Procter & Gamble and Kimberly Clark are the 2 largest in the US, they have a big portion of the market.

I bet they will happily up their production. 

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Huggies and Pampers. Oh, I am sure they will, but not all of their production is in the US and it will certainly lag behind the demand.

In any case I don't do retail arbitrage at all, I was more wondering if anyone had planned on doing that.

[reallynicestamps]

And of course there is opportunity in the cloth diaper market.

It's been over 45 years since I cancelled the service that picked up a weeks worth of diapers and replaced them with clean freshly sanitized ones.

[tarotfindsandmore]

Even if the number was accurate, daily essentials will be the first things to either come home or be sourced from a friendlier nation.  What (I believe) we should probably be on the lookout for are the inessentials that we haven't been able to compete with China on ...like the 80% of all toys we've been getting from them.  Those items definitely will go up in price, at least temporarily, while designers scramble to find U.S. or Japanese manufacturers.  Mass produced toys (Mattel and Hasbro) will go up a bit too, but they've already been diversifying over the past several years in anticipation of a situation like this, so that is likely to be a much more short term increase.

[redmodelt]

Until I need to start wearing Depends, no worries! 

[reallynicestamps]

I wonder if there is a difference between my country, Canada, and yours, in where your clothing is made.

When I actually check labels, while there are a lot of Chinese made garments, there are just as many made in Honduras, Bangla Desh, Kenya, VietNam, India, and even here in Canada.

[chapeau-noir]

In a further entanglement, China is now outsourcing to Vietnam because - surprise surprise! It has a cheaper workforce.

Kenya, Uganda, as well as India have been cloth producing powerhouses for millennia - expanding clothing manufacturing would be a natural outgrowth.

But wouldn't it be just funny if we decided not to wear cheap, throw-away garments and started wearing durable, well made stuff again that was made here, paying more for it but having it last longer? Gosh!

[fbusoni]

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@onefootflipper1 wrote:

So, just wondering if anyone is going to be stocking up in order to sell them later?

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LMAO, Americans are irrepressible.  

Profiting off the needs of infants and babies??  

Maybe infant formula will be next.  

What a country.