If the September decline in global trade is any indication, U.S. companies aren’t expecting many items to fly off the shelves this holiday season. However, it certainly seems that U.S. companies are betting that Swine Flu will turn hand sanitizer into a holiday hit.
On Monday, over lunch, I told apparel industry veterans of a random warning I received about the dangers of ingesting hand sanitizer. One of my lunchmates commented that he expected hand sanitizer to do quite well this year, thanks to the Swine Flu. So, of course, I asked our research team to take a look.
Sure enough, there’s been a massive spike in shipments of hand sanitizer to U.S. companies, suggesting that American companies think they may have a holiday hit on their, um, hands.
Specifically:
- In the third quarter of 2009, there were 128 waterborne “hand sanitizer” shipments to the United States — compared to 56 shipments in the third quarter of 2008.
- When analyzed on a weight basis, there was a threefold increase in the amount of hand sanitizer shipped in the third quarter of 2009 — compared to the third quarter of 2008.
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:42 am
[...] here a number of times — here is some data making the point fairly convincingly. According to Panjiva, hand sanitizer shipments to the U.S. have doubled year-over-year. Too bad Purell is such a teensy [...]
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:01 am
[...] Sign of the times: One product flying off the shelves these days is hand [...]
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:18 am
[...] here a number of times — here is some data making the point fairly convincingly. According to Panjiva, hand sanitizer shipments to the U.S. have doubled year-over-year. Too bad Purell is such a teensy [...]
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:59 pm
[...] the drumbeat of warnings from the Centers for Disease Control gets louder, Americans are squirting hand sanitizer at an astonishing pace. Between July and September, shipments of hand sanitizer rose a remarkable [...]