In: Economics
You are required to pick a consumer product and discuss the
followings:
1. What is the product? [Hint: this can be as broad as you want,
like computers, TVs, cars or as brand specific as possible, such as
Twinkles, iphone. Think about how you will answer the questions
below before you pick your product].
2. What are the substitutes and complements for this product?
3. Is the price elasticity of demand greater or below 1? In other
words, how sensitive are the consumers to this price change in this
product? [Hint: best to be support by news article, news report,
financial report, journal articles. If you do have support, please
add proper citations and bibliography section]
4. Is this product a normal good, inferior good? Why?
5. Describe the market competition for this product (perfect
competition, oligopoly, monopoly, etc) Who are the main
producers?
6. What factors would affect the demand for this product?
7. What factors would affect the supply for this product? What
inputs does it require?
Answer 1) Consider a product such as an android smartphone which has a huge market and is very competitve with many companies selling differenciated products at competitive prices.
2)The substitutes are goods which can be used instead of the given product so, for an android smartphone,it would be the similar android phones from other phone companies such as motorola,samsung and one plus which offer the same functions as samsung offers..
The complements are those products which are consumed directly in relation with the goods such as android phone cases, memory cards, screen protectors and other such goodies which add value to a product.
3) The price elasticity of demand refers to the responsiveness of change in demand due to change in price of a product. In case of an android smartphone product,the price elasticity of demand will be more elastic which means that whenever the price of the product changes,the change in quantity demanded will be quite high.
4) This normal good are those goods whose demand increases when income increases whereas,the inferior goods are those goods whose demand decreases when a person's income increases.In case of an android smartphone,the product will come under normal good as people will buy more of it when their income increases.