Saturday, April 17, 2010

Meaning of demand

Meaning of demand
Demand is not something same as desire or need.Demand for a commodity means desire.Willingness and ability to pay.For example,a poor man's desire and willingness to pay for a car is not demand since he does not have ability to pay.Similarly,a person's ability to pay for a is not demand since he does not since willingness and desire to buy a car.Thus,the demand for any commodity is the desire for that commodity baked by willingness and ability to pay only this affects the volume of sales.According to Fredric Benham "The demand for anything at a given price,is the amount of it which will be through per unit of time at that price."
In the words of Pappas and Brigham "The term demand is defined as the number of units of particular goods or service that consumers are willing to purchase during a specific period and under a given set of conditions."
According to Milton H.Spencer "Demand is the quality that will be purchased of particular commodity at various prices,at a given time and price."
Thus,demand is always defined with reference to a particular time and given values of variables on which it depends.Two things should be noted in the definition:
First,demand always means demand per units of time.The time period might be a month year.We must specific the period for which the commodity bring demanded.The statement that demand for ghee in Kathmandu is 1000 kg at rs.50 per kg.has no significance unless we state clearly the period for which this quantity is being demands.
Second,The condition on which the thing is demanded should be specified.The conditions would include the good in question,price and availability of competitive goods,expectations of price changes,income,tastes and performance,advertising expenditures and so on.

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