TYLER, Texas — Consumers can expect to pay for more brands such as Huggies, Kleenex, Scott, Kotex, Cottonelle, Poise, Depend, Pull-Ups, just to name a few starting in the month of June.
The Kimberly-Clark company made the announcement back in March.
Shoppers over the course of the year has seen an increase in many different products amid the pandemic.
"This is due mostly in part to the COVID pandemic," Kerri Camp, PhD, UT Tyler associate professor of marketing, said. "We saw that many plants had shut down production, so this caused a disruption in the supply chain."
Dr. Camp says increased consumer spending is also a result of the price increases.
"We also found that with the increased disposable income that consumers had due to the stipends, and due to the increased unemployment benefits, consumers have a higher purchasing power," Dr. Camp said.
The price increase will have a huge impact on consumers and those in underserved communities.
"Those are all very essential items," Lexi Trimble, development director at St. Paul's Children Services, said.
St. Paul's offers a wide variety of services including medical, dental, vision as well as a food pantry.
"At St. Paul's a majority of the clients that we serve in our food pantry are lower income families that do have infants that are needing diapers," she said. "And we always get requests for items like that. And you know, it is all based off donations when it comes to especially diapers, toilet paper," she said.
Dr. Camp says you can expect your wallet to take a hit for the foreseeable future.
"This is not going to be a short term solution," she said. "This is going to be something that we're going to see for many months or possibly years to come."
