This price will make you sick.
A Garment District hardware store is selling 1200 ml bottles of Purell for $79.
The same bottle retailed for as little as $5.49 before the coronavirus scare.
“That’s what we pay for them,” an employee at Scheman & Grant Hardware at Eighth Avenue and 38th Street claimed to a Post reporter, as the store readied to close for the night.
“Everyone who comes in the store,” buys them, he said while sitting on a stool and guarding the store’s dwindling hand sanitizer stash.
“We sold about fifty of those today.”
But Ace Hardware, to which the store is affiliated, was offering 1200 ml bottles of Purell for only $9.99 online — though it was out of stock Friday night.
Before selling out Friday, the store also had 2-liter bottles of Purell on sale for an even more astounding $109.
That’s five times what Amazon was offering them for online, before they too sold out.
The price sounds like gouging, Mayor de Blasio told The Post when asked about the store’s sky-high Purell Friday night.
“I’d like my Department of Consumer Affairs to pay them a visit immediately,” he said.
A manager at the Ace Hardware-affiliated store declined to comment to The Post. Ace did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The coronavirus scare has created a high demand for masks and cleaning products — especially hand sanitizer.
And with many many stores and online retailers running out, desperate buyers were willing to pay sky-high prices for anything that was left.
Sam’s Club had been offering 2-liter Purells for $20.87, but was out of stock Friday night.
eBay has meanwhile taken the high road, banning the sale of masks and hand sanitizer entirely in response to price gouging.
The online retailer told sellers on Thursday that it is rejecting listings for hospital-grade masks, hand sanitizer and disinfecting wipes, the LA Times reported Friday.
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