Matt Colvin and his brother Noah had hoped to resell hygiene products through Amazon (Picture: New York Times)

Two would-be business mavericks’ plan to profit from the coronavirus outbreak is in tatters following a crackdown on the hand sanitiser trade in America.

Noah Colvin, from Tennessee, spent three days driving around the state and neighbouring areas buying up hygiene products when he heard about the first coronavirus death in the US.

His brother Matt, an Amazon merchant, stayed home preparing online listings – 300 of which sold immediately for between $8 and $70 a pop, he told the New York Times on Saturday.

The pair amassed some 17,700 bottles of hand sanitiser and thousands of packs of antibacterial wipes, mostly from ‘little hole-in-the-wall dollar stores in the backwoods’, Matt added.




The next day, Amazon removed thousands of listings for hand sanitiser, wipes and face masks. It has suspended hundreds of sellers for price gouging and threatened others with suspension.

Sites like Amazon and eBay have led to a boom of independent sellers snatching up discounted or hard-to-find items in stores to post online and sell around the world (Picture: New York Times)

The brothers, who live in Hixson, Tennessee, spent days buying all the stock they could find (Picture: New York Times)

Soon after, eBay banned all sales of hand sanitiser, disinfecting wipes and healthcare masks on its US platform and announced it would remove any listings mentioning Covid-19 or the coronavirus except for books.

The brothers decided to donate all their product on Sunday after receiving a flurry of hate mail and death threats.

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The Tennessee attorney general’s office had reportedly just started investigating Matt for price gouging.

He expressed remorse in a second interview with the newspaper on Sunday, insisting he had ‘no idea that these stores wouldn’t be able to get replenished.’

‘It was never my intention to keep necessary medical supplies out of the hands of people who needed them,’ he said through tears.

‘That’s not who I am as a person. And all I’ve been told for the last 48 hours is how much of that person I am.’

Walmart and other companies with online commerce platforms have followed suit in trying to stop sellers from making excessive profits.

Facebook’s US marketplace was still awash with hand sanitiser listings as of Sunday.

Amazon and eBay have refrained from banning hand sanitiser listings in the UK, although both appear to be making more efforts to combat aggressive profiteering by sellers after prices were seen to multiply several times over in the early days of the outbreak.

US regulators and online platforms have cracked down on informal sales of hygiene products (Picture: NurPhoto)

Amazon was plagued by price gouging in the early days of the outbreak but seemed to have got on top of it

Britain’s competition watchdog has warned retailers against unfair play as panic-buying continues to starve supermarket shelves of hygiene product stocks.

The Competition and Markets Authority said on March 5: ‘We urge retailers to behave responsibly throughout the coronavirus outbreak and not to make misleading claims or charge vastly inflated prices.’

An eBay spokesman said: ‘eBay complies with official regulation within all markets in which it operates.

‘Due to regulatory restrictions introduced in the US, eBay took the decision to temporarily ban the listing on the US website of certain items including masks (including N95/N100 and surgical masks) hand sanitizer / gel and disinfecting wipes; regardless of price point.



’eBay is closely monitoring the situation in the UK and will take appropriate steps as needed.’

Amazon has been asked for comment.

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