The individual household is one of the most important building blocks and much can be learned from the behaviour of an individual household. However, suppliers are more interested in the market demand for the good and service since the market demand gives them a better idea of the quantities they can expect to sell. The market demand represents the total demand for a good or service during a certain period. In market system, the market demand is one of the fundamental forces that determines the market price of a good or services, and we therefore need to study it in more detail.
To move from individual demand to market demand is quite simple. All that needs to be done is to add the individual demands together.
Assuming that the demand for fried chicken not only consists of the demand by our students, which forms a household because they make joint decisions, but also the Khumalo and Venter families, and that their demand for fried chicken pieces is known, the market demand can be arrived at as demonstrated in the following table:
