Walmart, CVS and Walgreens have announced limits on the purchases of at-home Covid-19 testing kits due to surging demand across the US spurred by the holiday season and the spread of the Omicron variant.
Walmart said on Tuesday it was experiencing “extremely high demand” for at-home testing kits and, although it had “strong inventory levels nationally in store”, online inventory levels were “more limited”.
Accordingly, a purchase limit of eight testing kits per online order will take effect, the world’s largest retailer said in an emailed statement to the Financial Times. Individual stores would be able to “set their own limits based on local inventory”.
CVS is imposing a similar cap, with both in-store and online customers limited to six test kits per purchase. Due to a recent surge in demand and in order to retain community-based access to testing kits in its physical stores, “there may be temporary out-of-stocks for these products” on its web site, the pharmacy chain said in an emailed statement to the FT.
Rival Walgreens is imposing a four-item limit on purchases of at-home testing kits at the pharmacy chain’s physical and online stores.
Demand for the rapid testing kits surged after Thanksgiving and has continued into this week, prompting the introduction of a cap “in an effort to help improve inventory while we continue to work diligently with our supplier partners to best meet customer demands,” Walgreens spokesperson Emily Hartwig-Mekstan told CNBC on Tuesday.
