Why prices go up during supply shortage

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What i don’t understand that why the price goes up for finished products, it is already made, raw materials used and manufacturing is paid.

If the store already has 10 TVs in the store, why the price go up?

If you have a given amount of packaged bread already in the store why the price goes up?

Edit1: Lightbulb from many: Restock… You need to restock on current price, if you don’t follow the price you gonna lose money

However the “willing to pay” argument is kind of maddening, because with basic necessities like food “willing to pay” is reversed, controlled by seller and transformed to “have to pay and going to do so”

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>However the “willing to pay” argument is kind of maddening, because with basic necessities like food “willing to pay” is reversed, controlled by seller and transformed to “have to pay and going to do so”

True. However, trying to force prices to stay low is not necessarily a good solution either. E.g. if bread is suddenly $10 per loaf, the government could step in and say “no, you must sell it at a maximum price of $5”. But if the baker pays more than $5 in ingredients, you’ll either have to compensate them or they’ll just stop selling bread. So one way or another, you still end up paying a high price for bread. If the government pays, then the cost comes from taxes which are spread over the population (and often higher on people with higher incomes). That’s a legitimate decision, but even then you have to ask yourself: is it more effective to try to keep bread prices low, or more effective to give more money to poor people directly so they can better afford food?

Which brings me to my next point: choice. If bread becomes expensive, people can choose to buy other food instead (even if you gave them more money to buy food). Or if they do buy bread, then they’ll be more careful not to waste it. This naturally drives down the demand for bread to a point that is maybe more sustainable, so that there won’t be full-on shortages. If you artificially keep bread prices low, then this doesn’t happen: people will try to buy as much bread as before, only now they’ll be faced with empty shelves. So in some cases, it’s arguably better to say “look, if you really want bread, this is how much it costs”, and then let people decide for themselves.

Of course, this only works if other foods are still affordable. If supply is low and prices high across the board, then people are forced to buy at high prices and that can lead to real crises where people simply can’t afford essential food purchases any more.

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