argument 115 any comment welcom! thanks in advance.

[ruofan78]

The following appeared in a clothing industry trade journal in the country of Sartoria.

"A popular fashion magazine recently conducted a survey of consumers' opinions about clothing prices, using prepaid mailing envelopes. Eighty-nine percent of the approximately 20,000 respondents reported that they were either "dissatisfied" or "very dissatisfied" with current clothing prices. The large number of responses indicates that the Sartorian clothing industry is at risk. Given the survey results, clothing manufacturers must find a way to reduce prices in order to keep their existing customers and maintain their businesses."

“If any clothing manufacturers want to stay alive, the best way is struggling to reduce prices.” This very likely is the arguer’s proposal. However, only according to an unwarranted survey, the arguer draws a very hasty generalization. clothing manufacturers should consider more about their situation rationally.

First, if the survey is reliable, samples of the survey must be sufficient amount and representative of target group. We are kept from the information about how much the population of Sartoria is. If there are 20,000,000 populations in Sartoria, then 20,000 respondents is not so impressing that reflect consumers’ opinion about the current clothing prices. In addition, what about the respondents? Are they all subscribers from a popular fashion magazine which conducted the survey? If this is the case, we have every reason to doubt these respondents can not be representative of all consumers of Sartoria. Because fashion magazine have limited special consumers especially that young, advanced-guard people.

Second, even if we concede that people of Sartoria are dissatisfied with current clothing prices, this does not naturally mean that the Sartorian clothing industry is at stake. The key problem lies in what is the main market of clothing manufacturers of Sartoria, Is it domestic or overseas? It is highly possible that Sartoria clothing industry is mainly producing for overseas consumers. Domestic market only hold a small proportion. In addition, even if domestic consumers are the most important to clothing manufaturers of Sartoria, the unpopular clothing prices do not must prevent consumers buying since clothing is the basic necessity of life. Further more, if all clothing manufactures come to a common sense that no one would start a price competition. What will the consumers do with that?

Finally, even if the Satorian clothing industry indeed face a tight situation, reducing prices as the only way to stay alive is not warranted. The arguer fails to take into account the factor of quality concerning purchase. Let’s look back to the survey. Why respondents were dissatisfied with current clothing prices? It is likely because clothing prices are indeed higher than the affordability of consumers. In fact, it is more likely because consumers consider the quality of clothing is not worth that price. If it is the case, then clothing manufacturers can not only reduce prices but also improve quality of clothing in order to keep their existing customers and maintain their business.

In conlusion, clothing manufactures can not base on this unconvincing argument to take further action since there are several mentioned fallacies like above.

[SNYP40A1]

1. The primary flaw with the survey discussed above is that the survey was completely optional and therefore may not have obtained a fair sample of the total population of all clothing buyers. In fact, since the survey was optional, it is likely that only those people who were not busy with other things actually responded.
3. The author does not indicate the entire range of possible responses given in the survey. It could be that there were only three poorly-chosen choices: "very dissatisfied", "dissatisfied", and "blithe". In which case it would be reasonable for 98-percent of the responses to be given as described above.
4. When asked about prices, common-sense tells me that most consumers would claim that prices are too high simply because consumers do not want to pay more than necessary.
5. Author needs to provide evidence in regards to how the consumers felt about other options. Perhaps pricing is not the area most in need of improvement. Perhaps other factors such as store layout and store hours are more important and more cost-efficient to improve.
6. Reducing prices may not improve profit. Author needs to provide evidence that a reduction in price will necessarily translate into more sales and hence a higher profit to keep pace with the increased cost of operation.