Surge In Sales Transactions Of Masks And Hand Sanitizers On The Online Shop Page

Hand sanitizer illustration (pixabay)

JAKARTA - The number of cases of coronavirus or COVID-19 has reached 119,044 worldwide. The impact of this outbreak has encouraged people to flock to buy masks, hand sanitizers to wet wipes to prevent transmission of the corona virus.

Stores and pharmacies were also overwhelmed by the purchase of masks and hand sanitizers in large quantities. The e-commerce page also shows a spike in transactions which causes the price of these goods to increase.

Quoting a report from the price comparison site Telunjuk.com, the price of hand sanitizer has increased many times the normal price. A number of well-known brands of hand sanitizers also soared on several e-commerce platforms, such as Shoppe, Bukalapak and Tokopedia around 81.12 percent.

Graph of health product demand transactions in e-commerce (doc. Telunjuk.com)

The sample data was taken from 26 February to 4 March 2020. The highest sales figure occurred on 2 March 2020 with a total value of IDR 159,560,430 from 1,613 transactions.

The average product purchased is in the form of hand sanitizer measuring 50 to 500 ml, with a price range of Rp. 25 thousand to Rp. 155 thousand per bottle. Seeing the spike in transactions, there are not a few naughty sellers who even set prices unnaturally.

The high demand for these products has made Tokopedia provide a special page so that users can buy and find health goods more easily. Not to forget, Tokopedia provides cashback promos for every product purchase through its platform.

Tokopedia screenshot.

A number of precautionary measures were also taken by e-commerce platforms such as Amazon and eBay. The two companies have implemented a ban on not selling health products with frills that can prevent or cure the corona virus.

Amazon will even explicitly remove any advertisements that are sold by its users if it is known to charge unreasonable prices, for health products such as masks, hand sanitizers and medicines. While eBay has reportedly deleted 20,000 listings of items verified as selling coronavirus-related items.