The Logbook: Coronavirus and third-party price changes on Amazon

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread within the United States, consumers have begun panic buying goods. While it is difficult to measure the extent of consumer demand for essentials and sanitary goods, we can look to how third-party sellers are pricing their products in order to glean some indication.

It appears that third-party sellers like Purell began to increase the prices of sanitary goods like hand sanitizers in late February as increased reports of U.S. cases began to pop up. I labeled some major Coronavirus events on the three-month historical chart of a single 8-ounce Purell hand sanitizer product below: