The following appeared in a memo from the business manager of a chain of cheese stores located throughout the United States For many years all the stores in our chain have stocked a wide variety of both domestic and imported cheeses Last year however all

The argument is flawed for numerous reasons. Primarily, it states that the domestic cheese is favoured by a small survey of people and not a larger population; rendering its main conclusion, that the stocking of imported cheese must be discontinued, invalid.

Firstly, the argument states that the cheese from Wisconsin are the top selling cheeses from the newest stores. It does not guarantee that the cheese produced from all over the United States would be preferred by people and makes this particular claim for just 5 of them from Wisconsin. Furthermore, the survey taken by the magazine is only particular to its subscribers and may or may not represent the demographic of all the people who buy cheese in the United States.
Secondly, the argument makes an unwarranted assumption that all imported cheeses are alike. There could be a variety of imported cheeses that haven’t been accounted for in the survey. Moreover, the argument doesn’t make the claim that all of the imported cheeses and the domestic cheese that are available across all the stores in the United States are uniform. Had it been specified that the supply of cheeses, both domestic and imported was uniform across all the stores in the nation and people preferred the former over the latter, it would have bolstered the argument.

The argument also leaves many unanswered questions about the costs associated with the cheeses. It hasn’t mentioned the costs and revenue that are associated with the selling of imported and domestic cheeses. It could be the case that the revenue made from imported cheeses due to its high cost could be profitable for the company whereas the domestic cheeses make more revenue due to the quantity sold. This case doesn’t necessitate that the company would turn over a profit if it discontinued selling imported cheese.

Because the argument makes several unwarranted assumption that are moot, it fails to make a convincing case that discontinuing the stocking of imported cheese and increased concentration on domestic cheeses would be profitable to their store.