Coronavirus hoarder tries to return $10,000 worth of goods to Adelaide supermarket

An Adelaide shopper has attempted to return thousands of dollars' worth of supplies to a local supermarket after stockpiling them at the start of the coronavirus panic buying outbreak, a retailer says.

Key points:

• Adelaide chain Drakes Supermarkets said the man was part of a team of stockpilers looking to profiteer
• It said he purchased thousands of dollars worth of toilet paper and sanitiser several weeks ago
• He was refused a refund after he failed to sell the bulk of the goods online

But the man, who initially tried and failed to re-sell the goods online, has been refused a refund.

Drakes Supermarkets director John-Paul Drake said the man called the supermarket to try to get a refund on 132 packs of toilet rolls and 150 one-litre bottles of hand sanitiser.

He said the shopper had bought the goods, worth around $10,000, with the help of a "team" of stockpilers when panic buying surged about four weeks ago.

"In that conversation [the shopper said] 'my eBay site has been shut down, so we couldn't profiteer off that'," Mr Drake told ABC Radio Adelaide.

"He had a team of people that were buying products … 20 [people], I was told."

Mr Drake described that kind of stockpiling as "absolutely disgraceful", and said it was the reason that supermarkets had had to "band together" to introduce purchasing limits on products like toilet paper and hand sanitiser during the coronavirus crisis.

"The rest of my team [is] over this sort of behaviour and having to police people taking more than they need — that's a tough thing to deal with," he said.

"I never thought I'd been in a situation that I'm seeing here.

"We're not used to it, no-one is used to it, when people take advantage of the system.

"It's not necessarily being sold here or used here, or hoarded here — it's being marked up [online] for a considerable amount."

Push for fewer toilet rolls per pack

Mr Drake said he had been speaking with toilet paper manufacturers about the potential to make packs containing fewer rolls.

He said one of those suppliers, Sorbent, was beginning to produce eight-packs and four-packs, but others had said making larger packs was the best method during a time of high demand.

"For them to get more toilet rolls into the hands of the consumer, doing the bulk packs is the most efficient run that they can do," he said.

Last month, Australia's competition watchdog flipped a key rule of consumer law in response to the coronavirus pandemic, allowing supermarkets to work together to ensure shoppers can get food at a fair price.

Usually supermarkets and suppliers working together in the market would be dubbed collusion, and would be punishable by huge fines from the competition regulator.

But in a temporary measure, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) allowed supermarkets to coordinate with each other "when working with manufacturers, suppliers, and transport and logistics providers".

The authorisation, which applies to Coles, Woolworths, Aldi and Metcash, which runs IGA supermarkets, did not allow supermarkets to agree on retail prices for products.

The ACCC said the interim ruling was intended to "ensure the supply and the fair and equitable distribution of fresh food, groceries, and other household items to Australian consumers."