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 difficulty obtaining reliable supplies of high-quality wool fabric, we discontinued production of

The argument that Sartorian’s alpaca overcoats will be more profitable than ever before is not entirely logically convincing, since it ignores certain crucial assumptions.

First, the argument assumes that the outcry from the customers represents the demand from most people. It is a sampling assumption, because the outcry from the customers does not necessary mean other people are willing to buy the overcoats. Also, the customers that wanted to buy the overcoats before might not still want the overcoats. The argument never addresses the actual number of customer that is willing to consume the overcoats if Sartorian starts producing the overcoats again. Thus, the argument should use many people are still eager to get the overcoats when Sartorian resumes the overcoat production.

Secondly, the argument assumes the Sartorian’s alpaca overcoats are the only option for the customers. The argument states that the Sartorian’s alpaca overcoats have a better quality than other brands, so the consumers have to buy overcoats from Sartorian. Yet, the argument omits the fact that there are other clothing choices, such as jackets, and the customers can buy other kinds of clothing when Sartorian stop selling overcoats. The argument should include the demand of overcoat will not be affected by other clothing.

Furthermore, the argument assumes the overcoat production will be more profitable than before because of a huge demand at a higher selling price. That implies the demand of the overcoat does not depend on the price, which is not a valid assumption. Some customers might purchase overcoat from competitor at a lower cost and the demand of the Sartorian’s alpaca overcoats will decrease. Therefore, it is required to check if the need of Sartorian’s alpaca overcoats will be influenced significantly by price.

Ultimately, there are three inappropriate assumptions in the passage that makes the overall argument very weak. They are assuming the demand of the customers represents the majority people, the overcoat is the only option in clothing, and the demand of overcoat is independent of price.