Some sellers on Amazon are selling boxes of tampons to Australian women at massively inflated prices, as the COVID-19 crippled supply lines leave Supermarket shelves empty.
9News.com.au found one Amazon seller, Bondi Beach Life, selling a box of 18 Tampax tampons for an eye-watering $114, roughly 1800 per cent more than a comparable item at the supermarket.
Any shopper buying the $114 box deal from Bondi Beach Life is being charged $6.38 per tampon, well above the 35 cents per tampon women would usually find on supermarket shelves.
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Elsewhere on the world's biggest online shopping platform, a seller named Ginger Store Au was listing a box of 18 Veeda tampons for $83.70, or $5.23 per tampon.
After 9News.com.au contacted Amazon, those two sellers later appeared to vanish from the platform.
9News.com.au could find no trace of Bondi Beach Life online and was unable to contact them for comment.
Amazon, which has rules about price gouging and unfair deals, does not comment on actions taken against specific sellers, but the online behemoth's terms and conditions allow it to remove offers and suspend or even terminate sellers who repeatedly breach its pricing rules.
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Another dizzying tampon deal spotted by 9News.com.au saw one merchant trying to sell six boxes of 50-pack Tampax tampons for $322, triple the usual price at more than $1 per tampon.
An Amazon spokesperson told 9News.com.au the company actively monitors its website and removes offers that violate its policies.
"Sellers are responsible for setting their own product prices in our store and we have policies to help ensure sellers are pricing their products competitively and fairly," the spokesperson said.
What other items have you seen that appear to be marking up prices? Email [email protected]
Australia's major supermarket chains have been all hit with product shortages, including essential items like tampons, as truck drivers and workers at a distribution and store level have been forced into quarantine.
With the Omicron peak still weeks away from potentially peaking, the supermarket shortages are being felt across the country, apart from Western Australia.
Product limits have been imposed at some stores, in response to shelves stripped of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and of course toilet paper.
Supermarket bosses expect the supply line crunch to last throughout January, as more and more Australians fall sick with coronavirus.
Consumer watchdog, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, is investigating claims of price gouging for rapid antigen tests.
Anecdotal evidence suggested some stores and petrol stations were charging prices for the kits almost five times higher than normal.
Users on social media also posted images of retailers splitting up boxes and selling individual RATs, despite the packaging stating that act was against the conditions it was sold to the retailer.
New South Wales and Victoria today reported almost 75,000 new cases together, with 21 deaths in each state.
It was NSW's most deadly day of the pandemic.
