As anxious U.S. consumers race to buy emergency supplies ahead of an impending COVD-19 outbreak, retailers are selling out of items like hand sanitizers and immune-boosting supplements faster than they can restock. A nationwide shortage of Purell has turned the workaday hand sanitizer into a luxury good, with third-party sellers on Amazon and Ebay marking up its typically humble prices by significant amounts. A recent search yielded a two-pack of the brand's 12-oz (30 millilitres) pump bottles for $99.99.

Some wellness brands are seeing unprecedented year-over-year and week-over-week sales gains. EO Products, a California based company that makes natural hand sanitizers, saw web site sales for its Everyone brand sanitizers increase 1,300 percent in the last week. Demand from retailers has quadrupled since this time last year, said Tom Feegel, president of EO Products.

It is not just hand sanitizers that are experiencing a surge in demand. Spate, a company that analyzes online search data to identify consumer trends, has seen a year-over-year spike in searches for natural immune-boosting supplements. Searches for elderberry are up 52.4 percent, vitamin C is up 25 percent, Echinacea is up 13.1 percent and zinc grew 7.7 percent.

Read full article: coronavirus inspires Doomsday-style wellness shopping