Movement vs. Shift: Why Everyone Suddenly Wanted AirPods

Where almost everyone gets demand wrong.

4 min readInteractiveQuick check inside

The big idea

A price change moves you along the demand curve. Everything else (trends, income, the price of other goods, population, expectations) shifts the whole curve.

Think about AirPods or Stanley cups. The price didn’t change, but suddenly everyone wanted them at every price. That’s not a movement along the curve. The whole demand curve shifted right.

The usual causes of a shift are tastes and trends (viral products), income (you got a raise), prices of related goods (Uber surges, so Lyft gets more riders), the number of buyers (a growing city) and expectations (people panic-buy before prices rise). Bad reviews, health scares and recalls shift it left.

Here’s the shortcut: if the price of the thing itself changed, it’s a movement. If anything else changed, it’s a shift. Right means more demand at every price, and left means less. Try the events below and watch what happens to price and quantity.

Movement or shift? You decide

Try it
PriceQuantitySupplyDemand
Pick an event above and watch what happens to the price and quantity.

Spot it in the wild

Viral productsTaylor Swift and Michael Jordan can shift demand curves overnight with a single appearance.
Panic buyingPeople who expect higher prices tomorrow buy more today. Demand shifts right before the price even moves.
RecallsA health scare shifts demand left even if the price stays exactly the same.

Quick check

Tap an answer.

A celebrity posts about a water bottle and sales explode at the same price. What happened?

The price didn’t change but people want more at every price. That’s a rightward demand shift caused by tastes and trends.

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