I also help with buying PPE currently and it's not 5x markup by the seller only. Everything got more expensive. Input material, machines, shipping. This results in the final price being 5x (or more). It's not the greed of one sales person (mostly).
Most factories I work with are NOT looking to take advantage of the situation. It actually hurts them because they can't accept new orders when they don't know the future cost of raw material next week.
Most factories I work with are NOT looking to take advantage of the situation. It actually hurts them because they can't accept new orders when they don't know the future cost of raw material next week.