One of NOW’s senior scientists, Dr. Rick Sharpee, proved to be very valuable because of his past experience with coronavirus. Rick had written his thesis decades earlier at the University of Nebraska as part of his discovery of coronavirus in cattle. He had also published an article in the medical journal Lancet predicting coronaviruses in people. Unfortunately, his predictions proved to be true and Rick shared his extensive knowledge with NOW customers on February 19, 2020. By the end of October, eight million people in the U.S. had the virus and over 200,000 died. Worldwide the numbers were much worse, and still accelerating. Who could have guessed that global commerce, healthcare, daily work, travel and personal habits could change so much, and so soon? Who could have guessed that every customer at the local Walmart would be required to wear a face mask and keep proper six-foot social distancing? Who could have predicted that most office workers would change to work remotely at home or that churches would only offer online services? The effects on national debts are staggering, but the loss of lives is even more irreplaceable. Like many “essential” businesses, NOW struggled mightily to meet the new demand. We asked our employees to work overtime and even had office workers on the line in both production and shipping. We outsourced nearly two billion caps and tabs to approved vendors to help make more needed supplies. We hired as many new workers as possible. We changed our production plans to make long runs of “immune-related” products, but soon found that we had hundreds of products with crazy demand. Customers started making more homemade sanitizers, so our pure almond oil and vegetable glycerin leaped in sales. For whatever reason, our dried milk powder went up about ten times normal amounts. America was on a buying binge of toilet paper, hand sanitizers, hand soap, thermometers, baking goods and home office equipment. Customers also wanted any kind of product that might increase their immune system. It feels bad to celebrate our growing successes while so many people were laid off from work and struggling to make ends meet. But part of our company’s mission is to help people to live healthier lives, and this was a time when our products could really make a difference. Some product demands were incredible. Amazon placed a single order for over 100,000 bottles of N-Acetyl-l-Cysteine tabs and we were not remotely capable of making so much product with so little notice. We didn’t anticipate at all that this particular product would be in such demand. As different supply countries shut down, we found it difficult to source products from India, China and elsewhere for months. Our maple syrup vendor even ran out of supplies and had to scramble. demand basically doubled overnight and stayed that way. Our total For sales and profits, these were the best of times at NOW. For service, supply, stress and fill rate it was a disaster. Our corporate goal is usually to ship 96% of what customers order and most of 2020 ended up closer to only 60%. Even though we managed to manufacture 40% more goods than in 2019, we still could not catch up to the insatiable customer demand. We did make longer-term plans to increase production units, but not in time for the 2020 Covid-19 gold rush. No one knows how long this will last, or what to expect in 2021 and the future. The folks at NOW aim to continue supplying as many health products as possible, and at our usual great values. 132 BEATING THE ODDS
