Supply and Demand
Supply and demand is the measure
of the balance between the quantity of goods intended to be produced with the
resulting rate of consumption or vice versa. It tells you how many more monkeys
from the jungle are needed to be caught to quell angry customers who want to
buy them as pets. Supply and Demand are driven by market forces or a group of
people buying or selling a particular good. Supply is created by producers or
sellers while demand is determined by buyers.
Supply and demand refers to people's
intent to produce or buy something not by how many has been sold by suppliers
or bought by the demanders or buyers. If you put it that way, quantity sold
or purchased may not equal supply and demand. For example, you have an electronics
store and a new hot gadget is out in the market. You heard that it's in high
demand right now so you bought as many of that gadget as possible to ride that
fad. After a week of sales your inventory is out and you sold all 500 of that
thing, that is not demand were talking about this is your revenue. The demand
were talking about is say, 50% of the entire population of the United States
(150 million) at the current price of $200. When the price of that gadget dropped
to $180 within a month then the demand might increase to 70% of the entire population
of the United States. Since more people intend to buy that item at its now much
lower price, it doesn't mean that some would actually end up buying it so that
the quantity sold equals the quantity demanded.