The following appeared in a memo from the new vice president of Sartorian, a company that manufactures men's clothing."Five years ago, at a time when we had difficulties in obtaining reliable supplies of high quality wool fabric, we discontinued productio

The writer of the argument recommends that Sartorian company have to start the production of alpaca overcoat which has been out of production for the last five years. This recommendation cannot be accepted as it is based on a number of premises for the support of which there is not enough evidence.

First of all, the writer contends that alpaca overcoat should sell very well because no company has offered this coat for the last five years. However, there is no evidence to show that there is still demand for this kind overcoat. Maybe the Satorian company’s competitor does not produce this coat anymore because it had not adequate sales in past five years and the company was unable to earn profits from them. Or maybe this kind of overcoat is not fashion anymore; as you know, fashion is by nature ephemeral and it is possible that people now prefer another types of overcoat rather than alpaca one. Without ruling out these possibilities the author cannot justifiably conclude that there is still demand for alpaca overcoat.

Second, the fact that the price of clothing has increased in past five years is no good evidence to conclude that customers are willing to pay more as well. As a matter of fact, the increase in the price of the goods usually has adverse impact on their sales, so maybe consumers tend to buy less clothes than five years ago due to price inflation. Or maybe people are more frugal now and prefer to buy other types of overcoats with less prices from other companies. There is nothing in the passage to indicate that these scenarios are implausible.

Third, Let us suppose that people would buy overcoats at a higher price from company, selling more expensive coats does not necessarily means higher profits and it merely indicate higher revenues. Maybe the costs of coat production has increased considerably within past five years; consequently, although the company will sell coats at higher prices, it is unable to increase profits.

In final analysis, the writer’s recommendation cannot be taken to be correct because, as it was shown in body paragraphs above, it depends on a number of assumptions each of which is questionable. The recommendation can only be accepted if the weaknesses already referred to are all removed.