National Accounts Manager: Veterinary clinics ‘buying forward’ amid COVID-19 worries

Veterinary Advantage reached out to Scott Johnson, national accounts manager at Clipper Distributing, for his thoughts on how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting distributors, veterinary clinics and Clipper Distributing as an organization. Here are his responses:

Veterinary Advantage: What are you hearing from customers as far as how COVID-19 is affecting their business?

Scott Johnson: Currently business for the month of March is going well. Most do feel, however, that clinics are buying forward to ensure they have plenty of stock of items that are consumed daily. [Personal protective equipment] items and disinfectant wipes and concentrates are in especially high demand. To maintain social distancing, most of distribution is trying to figure out how to service their customers with everyone but their warehouse crews working from home.

Veterinary Advantage: What challenges are you working with them to solve short-term?

Johnson: The current hoarding buying pattern is putting unnecessary stress on the supply chain. This also leads to more panic buying and confusion in the market about products temporarily out of stock and items being on long term backorder. It’s much like what is happening with toilet paper across the country. Allocating the number of items a practice can purchase, based on history, will allow more practices to be served.

Veterinary Advantage: What about your organization? How has your team had to shift gears?

Johnson: With the safety of our employees being a top priority, we have stopped travel through May. Several of our staff are having to work from home for the first time, and quickly developing new ways to stay connected and on task has been a challenge. But it is refreshing to see everyone coming together to creatively solve problems. Overall, we are doing everything we can to facilitate the provisioning of the veterinary products critical to the health and welfare of the animals that we know depend on us.