East London’s Aldgate neighborhood, a mix of dull high-rise offices, fried chicken shops, and apartments, isn’t the buzziest part of town. Not until Wednesday afternoon.
On the main street, hundreds of people had gathered in a line outside an unassuming store. Teenagers filmed the crowd on their phones, and office workers in shirts stood watching in the stifling 91 degree heat. People kept arriving at the back, asking the same question, “Is this the line?”
They weren’t waiting for a new restaurant to open or a sold-out show, but to get into a convenience store rumored to be selling one of the city’s hottest commodities: a pair of solar eclipse glasses.
In mere hours at around 7:12 p.m., the best partial eclipse in the UK since 1999 would be visible, with more than 90% of the Sun obscured by the moon. Londoners grumbled it had barely crossed their radars. The glasses were what stood between them watching the eclipse — a welcome distraction from brutal heatwaves and another new Prime Minister — straight on or resorting to seeing its shadow through a colander.
For many of them, it was already too late.
A secondary eclipse glasses market materialized on the sidewalk
At the start of the week, single pairs of eclipse glasses, typically costing a few bucks each, were already unavailable for delivery before the eclipse on Amazon Prime. Opticians, supermarkets, and museums across the city had also sold out.
Alexander Searle, 38, tried several stores on his local high street in Kensington, west London, on Tuesday. “All sold out,” he said. On Wednesday, he heard that a store on Bond Street in the city center still had some glasses in stock. “I was queuing for about 10 to 15 minutes,” Searle said. “It cost £17.97 for three glasses.”
The AM2PM Convenience Store in Aldgate, from where the huge line snaked, went viral in the days preceding the eclipse as one of the last places in London stocking the glasses. By 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the shutters were pulled down. They had sold out.
That left Ali K, the owner of Four Seasons Barbers next door, to break the news to the crowd.
“There are no more glasses!” he shouted down the line. “You’re wasting your time, go and enjoy the sunshine!”
Almost no one moved.
Inside his shop, Ali was interrupted every 20 seconds or so by a head popping around the door, demanding answers about the glasses. He was polite each time, “Sorry, they’re all gone,” he would say with a sad shake of his head.
Ali estimated that thousands of people had lined up around the block since Monday. “We didn’t even know that it was gonna get this crazy. This kind of demand, I’ve never seen ever in my life.”
Back outside, word had spread that the shop had sold out, and a secondary market materialized on the sidewalk. Suddenly, people started holding up pairs of glasses, shouting their prices. One man wanted £100 ($135) for two. People groaned.
Emmanuel, 25, saw the mayhem on TikTok and had rushed down to sell his spare glasses. He had bought five pairs on Amazon on August 6 for $21, and sold two for $54 each. “Capitalism at its finest,” he joked.
In suburban Clapham to the south of the capital, The Windmill pub came up with a peak-London solution to the great eclipse glasses shortage: giving away a free pair with every Hugo Spritz ordered.
The idea, said Lucy Dunnill, the pub’s assistant manager, came simply from “spritz” rhyming with “eclipse.”
“We just ordered some for a bit of fun, really,” she said.
Dunnill said the pub bought a box of about 40 pairs last week before they had any idea they’d become such a hot commodity. “I think a lot of people forgot about ordering the glasses online,” she said. “It’s been crazy. There were queues right around the bend.”
Colander sales are through the roof
For those who can’t get their hands on glasses, there are some makeshift ways to watch the eclipse safely, including using a colander to project its shadow onto a sheet of paper. And this DIY fix seems to have caught on.
Google searches for colanders surged on Wednesday, with interest up 350% over the preceding 24 hours and more than 5,000% compared with the same time the previous week. That interest appeared to translate into sales.
“Colander sales have surged nearly 40% compared to last year, as shoppers prepare for tonight’s eclipse,” a spokesperson for John Lewis, one of the UK’s largest retailers, told Business Insider.
“We’ve still got plenty of stock for anyone wanting to view this solar phenomenon safely, and, unlike eclipse glasses, you can use it to strain your spaghetti for dinner afterwards.”
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