My suggestion is that gouging takes advantage of the entire scenario, that it takes advantage of people's fear of not getting it. I like to think existing profit margins should incentivize sellers to have enough. If they can't supply demand at the usual prices, who will fill the gap by gouging? If the battery and milk shelves are empty, they should be getting supply to fill them. If they're able to gouge, they're incentivized to create scarcity. While there can be arguments that other retailers will undercut attempts like that, I don't trust that they will. It doesn't take coordinated price fixing to see the dollars in making people afraid and in the store to buy generators, batteries, and milk. Have a healthy supply of them but only put a few out on display, triple the price, and keep restocking every fifteen minutes and they'd probably make out pretty good regardless of what other stores are doing.