Over the last week, we have seen cases of Coronovirus (COVD-19) in the UK, and this has sent what feels like the whole population in to a mass panic.

 

Is your hand sanitiser strong enough?

 5th March 2020 | By Anna Armstrong | Coronovirus

Over the last week, we have seen cases of Coronovirus (COVD-19) in the UK, and this has sent what feels like the whole population in to a mass panic. Here at Astral we have been absolutely inundated with calls and orders for hand sanitisers as the population believes this will help them to not contract the virus

What I want to do in this weeks’ blog is to dial it back a bit, strip it back to the basics and to point out some things that everyone needs to be aware of.

Over the last week, we have seen cases of Coronovirus (COVD-19) in the UK, and this has sent what feels like the whole population in to a mass panic. Here at Astral we have been absolutely inundated with calls and orders for hand sanitisers as the population believes this will help them to not contract the virus.

1. Wash your hands…… yes I’m sorry, I’m very aware that I am continually harping on about this but it has never been more important! Wash them for at least 20 seconds, and wash them after before and after you eat, after you have touched communal surfaces, after shaking hands, before you touch your face……..
2. Get a hand sanitiser….. but it must be the right one! Your hand sanitiser must have an alcohol content of over 60%, and a lot of the ones that are being sold on the high street do not have a high enough alcohol content, so will struggle to kill anything….the hand sanitisers that we sell are over 60% alcohol.
3. Beware of charlatans…. We had a man phone here yesterday, saying he could sell us some Purell Hand Sanitiser, which is interesting as we are a distributor for Purell, so sell it anyway! My colleague thought this was amusing, so decided to play along with this chap, and she asked him what sizes he could provide and what his price point was. He advised that he could sell us some Purell at the rate we are selling it on our website.  My colleague told him that was really interesting and then admitted we are a recognised distributor and told him that we had stock. He then turned the conversation around and wanted to buy it from us! She told him to buy it on our website.  So in essence he was ‘selling’ a product that he didn’t even have – and I wondered when she told me about this how many peoples’ money he had taken on the promise of a later despatch of their goods.  Make sure you are only buying from recognised distributors.
4. COVD-19’s mortality rate is estimated to be 2% (as at the 3rd March) which is much less deadly than a lot of the recent outbreaks including Ebola (50% mortality rate), small pox and SARS and Mumps. The point I’m making here is that COVD-19 is another opportunistic virus and the symptoms in the majority of the population will just be mild cold symptoms – so everyone needs to stop panicking!
5. Price, please make sure that you are paying ONLY market value for your hand sanitiser, on our website we have Purell and So Sanitise and we have not inflated the prices. This is the right thing to do, once this epidemic is over, we will be left with our reputation, a reputation as a helpful, informed, and well stocked supplier who did not extort the situation.  Sadly a great deal of our competitors are not as ethical, which is a shame for the industry as a whole.
6. Having a hand sanitiser will not make you immune to the virus, you must use it.  When you touch communal surfaces, after human contact.... when you can't get to a sink to wash your hands.

We have engaged our supplier base and they are working very hard to supply our demand.  Our Purell hand sanitiser, and So Sanitise Hand Gel products are in very high demand across the world, and only the distributors like ourselves who have a long standing relationship with these manufacturers are actually receiving the product.

Those people who are trying to make a quick profit out of the situation will not receive any product as these manufacturers are not taking on new business as feeding their current customers is the highest priority.

We have orders pending with both of our suppliers, and they have been acknowledged and the stock has been allocated to us. This means the orders we are receiving on our website will be fulfilled, our current stock is being allocated to our customers, and future stock that has been ordered from the supplier is being allocated through our CRM system.

The waiting time for new orders is 4 weeks, however any orders we receive will be fulfilled because of the long-standing relationship and our presence and reputation in this sector.

And please remember if you can’t get any hand sanitiser immediately, just wash your hands more often.

If you’d like further information on anything I’ve spoken about in this blog, please just give us a call on 01835 824 342.

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This blog was written by Anna Armstrong, Director of Sales and Operations at Astral. Please get in touch if there are any particular topics you would like us to talk about on the blog!