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New York Grocery Stores Experience A Surge In Customers During Covid-19

Millennials or shoppers between 24 and 39 have spent an average of $195 per trip and baby boomers have spent an average of $151 during the current pandemic. Photo by Martijn Baudoin on Unsplash.

By Kayla Hill, Howard University News Service 

New York, N.Y. —The covid-19 pandemic has revealed how essential grocery stores have become. When lockdown and quarantine orders, many scurried to their local grocery stores to stock up on their household essential goods. According to CBS News, a survey from LendingTree has found that in America, millennials or shoppers between 24 and 39 have spent an average of $195 per trip and baby boomers have spent an average of $151 during the current pandemic. While people with children spent an average of $190, people without have spent an average of $181.

“Shoppers mostly want toilet paper, paper towels, Lysol spray, wipes, any cleaning products,” said Latoya Davis, a supervisor at BJs Wholesale Club in Brooklyn, New York.

Cleaning supplies, water, and other essential goods have been in high demand during the pandemic. Demand for these products has left stores with empty shelves and lack of supply.

“We usually run out of the cleaning products, toilet paper, and paper towels,” Davis said.

Working to adjust during this pandemic, stores have begun enforcing special social distancing rules to stop the spread of Coronavirus, which means limiting the amount of people allowed in the store at a time.

“BJs came up with a planogram that shows shoppers and employees a safe way to enter the store and also put distances between shoppers and employees,” Davis said.

The store has placed a priority on allowing seniors and disabled members to enter the store first. Utilizing place holders on the floor, the wholesale club enforces least 6 feet between shoppers waiting to enter the store and to purchase their groceries.

Precious Way, another supervisor at BJs Wholesale Club, specified that the club no longer allows the members to line up at each register in the store. They have enforced there only be two lines at each end of the store allowing only one customer at a register at a time.

According to Way, BJs experienced a significant increase in customers the first few weeks of learning about covid-19, but now have a steady flow with mornings being their busiest time.

“They’ve always provided gloves, but they just recently started providing masks. It does make me feel more comfortable coming to work,” Way indicated.

Striving to keep their employees safe, management at BJs Wholesale Club has also provided their workers with PPE including gloves, masks, and hand sanitizer.