New grocery products benefit the manufacturer but not the grocer.
The grocery store will not sell any more detergent overall than it would have without a new brand.

Conclusion: There is little reason for grocers to encourage the introduction of new products.

We need to weaken it. We need to provide a reason why grocers may introduce new products.

A. Often manufacturers introduce a new grocery product in order to take business away from a competitor who already produces a similar product.

Irrelevant why manufacturers introduce new products. Anyway, it helps our case that the grocer will get nothing extra out of it.

B. Some manufacturers prefer to put new grocery products in stores as early as possible, rather than spending time and money on controlled market research.

Irrelevant what manufacturers want.

C. Most grocery stores have such narrow profit margins that they cannot afford to carry marginally successful products.

We don't know how the profit margins are for old and new products.

D. Grocers have the option not to take on products that they do not think will sell well, or that they expect will not increase the grocer's profits.

What we are discussing is whether the grocers have a reason to take on new products, whether they would like to take on new products or not. This just tells us that they can pick their own products as per their choice. What we want to know is whether new products will be their choice.

E. Some manufacturers introduce new types of groceries, such as precooked meals that people can prepare quickly instead of going to a restaurant.

Interesting. Our conclusion depends on the fact that one brand just replaces another brand and hence there is no value add for the grocer. This option tells us that some new products are new type of products (not just new brands). This could increase the overall sales and provide a reason for the grocer to introduce new products.
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New grocery products benefit the manufacturer but not the grocer. If a company introduces a new brand of detergent, it might attract more consumers to its brand. The grocery store, however, will not sell any more detergent overall than it would have without the new brand. Thus there is little reason for grocers to encourage the introduction of new products.

Which of the following, if true, argues against the conclusion above?

Premise: A manufacturer attracts more consumers towards its brand when it launches a new brand of detergent. A grocery store in any case will not sell more detergents either when it has the new detergent available or it has not. So, new grocery product benefits manufacturer than grocer.
Conclusion: Grocers have little reasons to take new products in their stores.

We need to find something that possibly invalidates that grocers apprehensions.

A. Often manufacturers introduce a new grocery product in order to take business away from a competitor who already produces a similar product. - WRONG. A generic true nothing more, the option does nothing to argument.

B. Some manufacturers prefer to put new grocery products in stores as early as possible, rather than spending time and money on controlled market research. - WRONG. It again like A does not relate anything to argument. Irrelevant .

C. Most grocery stores have such narrow profit margins that they cannot afford to carry marginally successful products. - WRONG. Strengthener as it elaborates reasons for grocers' little efforts to introduce new products.

D. Grocers have the option not to take on products that they do not think will sell well, or that they expect will not increase the grocer's profits. - CORRECT. Well this option gives another perspective to the argument that grocers have the power to not take the new products in their stores. Thus, they can keep the products they want to keep their profits maintained. This way grocers keep manufacturers in check at the least.

E. Some manufacturers introduce new types of groceries, such as precooked meals that people can prepare quickly instead of going to a restaurant. - WRONG. 'Some' stands for what is not is not known. Also, whether grocers keep their products in their stores is not known. The option is little ambiguous on that part.

And looks like I made a mistake since E is correct.

If ever I have to opt E as correct answer, I can only see one positive about it is that the new product(precooked meals) introduced may(as per the premise of the passage) attract more consumers to the grocery stores. And new consumers means more sales, probably but another 1 or 2 assumptions(which is wrong to do) have to be made to make E as correct.

Still the line of thought is not clear that how E weakens firmly or at least gives a slightest of reasons to doubt conclusion of the argument.
MentorTutoring
I seek your help..!!
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I think D option is seriously creating doubt against passage agenda.
According to passage the new product maximize manufacturers profit.
But if there is no profit from new product the seller wouldn't have been selling it. Its not compulsory for them to sell new products at any cost.
And D is testifying that.

So IMO is D

Posted from my mobile device

IMO E as it shows an alternate source of income for the grocer.
How?
- People who went to the restaurants to satiate their need for dining/food items will now actually end up spending that money in the grocery store.

I do not like the "some" in E. A, B , C can easily be eliminated.
I agree D does not help with arguing against the conclusion, but neither does E, imo.

Introducing new types of groceries, such as precooked meals that people can prepare quickly definately helps people but may not help grocers... Thus, grocers still can have little reason.
If i see this on the exam, ill end up wasting time and marking D as its wording is closest to the question.

VeritasKarishma GMATNinja can you help?

Conclusion is there is little reason for grocers to encourage the introduction of new products. And question is which weakens this the most
We need to find an answer that gives a reason for grocer to not only add a new product but also give them extra profitability
Now most gave their answer as D
And following is the reason I think E is right answer and not D

1. E doesn't weaken the argument for all products but for some products it does give incentive for grocers to add a new product which will increase their profitability

2. D talks about the power given to the grocer to add or not add the product but doesn't weaken the conclusion

Posted from my mobile device

Hey, let me try to help you with that. As stated, you understand why D is wrong.
For you to understand why E is right, you need to understand what purpose we want our answer choice to serve.

The question says which ans choice would go *against* the conclusion. What is the conclusion? "there is little reason for grocers to encourage the introduction of new products."
how does E help? E gives us a source of NEW revenue for the stated grocers from the introduction of the new products! How? it's very logical.
Assume currently, Mr. X goes to a restaurant to eat cus he doesn't have any other option but to go there if he wants to eat. Now a new brand of pre-cooked meal is introduced, then he will have an ALTERNATE to eating out.
Grocer Y wasn't benefiting from Mr. X going to a restaurant and eating but if Mr. X now starts buying this new pre-cooked meal from grocer Y INSTEAD of going to a restaurant, it will surely help the grocer.

Now even if SOME manufacturers introduce this, its still an objection against the argument that said that "there is little reason for grocers to encourage the introduction of new products."

I hope this helps a little.

Thank you, lnm87, for tagging me. First off, I would like to know the source of the question. The only tag above, CR16818, leads me nowhere. Is it an official question, with a PQID? Bunuel, do you have any insights? Second, I have to say that although the logic behind (D) resonates with me more in a real-world scenario, as products would most certainly encompass new products, and what the grocer anticipates will sell well sounds an awful lot like a financial incentive to me, the GMAT™ is typically narrow-focused when it comes to justifying the correct answer, and (E) does specify new types of groceries, further providing a possible reason for grocers to stock them: a new product such as the one mentioned could draw consumers who enjoy restaurant food into the grocery store to buy the take-home product instead. So in short, I like (D) better, but (E) is a more typical GMAT™-style answer, some notwithstanding.

- Andrew

MentorTutoring This is from the new product, GMAT Official Practice Questions 2. (It's been awesome to be able to take 4 additional "fake" practice tests on there with official questions, selecting the medium and hard difficulty. I posted a statistical analysis of the RC passages here: https://gmatclub.com/forum/gmac-announc ... l#p2525314)

Good analysis above -- I also liked D better on my first attempt, and didn't consider E closely enough.

I've attached the official explanation.

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Hello, GMATCoachBen. Thank you for the kind words about my earlier post. I felt compelled to write because I appreciate the work that you put in on that other thread to provide the community with useful information. Between that effort and your informing everyone about the source of this question, I wanted to express my gratitude personally. Kudos from me.

Keep up the fine work.

- Andrew

Option (E):
The grocer does not benefit from a product that already exists in the market because the demand for an existing product like detergent is constant. Therefore if new innovative product enters the market and it shows how the customers would react to the new product. That would actually be profitable for the grocer. So the grocer's assumption that they have little incentive because they won't profit is wrong. Hence (E) weakens the argument as a whole.

A. Often manufacturers introduce a new grocery product in order to take business away from a competitor who already produces a similar product. - does not weaken the conclusion.

B. Some manufacturers prefer to put new grocery products in stores as early as possible, rather than spending time and money on controlled market research. - irrelevant to the conclusion.

C. Most grocery stores have such narrow profit margins that they cannot afford to carry marginally successful products. - does not provide us with a reason why grocers should consider introducing new products.

D. Grocers have the option not to take on products that they do not think will sell well, or that they expect will not increase the grocer's profits. - this explains why a grocer may avoid certain products; (D) does not help us explain why grocers should consider introducing new products.

E. Some manufacturers introduce new types of groceries, such as precooked meals that people can prepare quickly instead of going to a restaurant. - such new products are bound to attract a large flow of customers to the grocery stores, thereby enhancing the grocer's chances of selling more products and as a result earning greater revenue. (E) gives us a reason why grocers should introduce new products. Therefore, (E) is the right answer choice.

Conclusion: Introduction of new grocery item ----> does not help Grocer.
Pre Think : 1) There must be inflow of more customers due to introduction of new Grocery Item. (or)
2) The Grocer benefits through increased profit compared to selling other similar item.

Option D: Grocers have the option not to take on products that they do not think will sell well, or that they expect will not increase the grocer's profits.


E. Some manufacturers introduce new types of groceries, such as precooked meals that people can prepare quickly instead of going to a restaurant.

Quote:

This option weakens as new customers are created who will add profits to manufacturer as well as Grocer.

Those who have marked D as answer choice have got the conclusion wrong. The right conclusion is very first sentence of the stimulus. It is about manufacturer. Answer choice E fills the gap between premise and conclusion.
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This one is tough, I interpreted answer choice A) as If grocers do not introduce the new product they might end up losing sales (given that the new product from the manufacture aims to take sales from a competitor- current one), so there is actually a reason to introduce new products for grocers.

A. Often manufacturers introduce a new grocery product in order to take business away from a competitor who already produces a similar product.

On the other side E), remarks that there are some "new" types of groceries but nothing is said about that usually those products are "popular" among customers.

E. Some manufacturers introduce new types of groceries, such as precooked meals that people can prepare quickly instead of going to a restaurant.

Any thoughts on this one?

GMATNinja
GMATCoachBen
MartyTargetTestPrep
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In this question, we're trying to find the answer choice that argues against the conclusion that:

"there is little reason for grocers to encourage the introduction of new products."

The argument given for this conclusion is:

1) New grocery products benefit the manufacturer because it might attract more customers to its brand at the expense of their competitors
2) The grocer does not benefit from the introduction of these products
3) This is because the grocer's customers are simply switching from one brand to another and they will not be buying any more of that product type

Let's take a look at (A) and (E) to see how they might argue against this conclusion.

(A) tells us:

The competitor here is not another grocer -- we're told the competitor "already produces a similar product", so the competitor is another manufacturer.

When (A) is read like this, it does not argue against the conclusion above. (A) is more of a rephrasing of the second sentence of the passage telling us that a company might attract more consumers to its brand if it releases a new brand of detergent.

Since the grocer will not benefit from their customers switching from one brand to another, (A) does not give the grocer a reason to encourage the introduction of new products.

There isn't anything in (A) that argues against the conclusion -- (A) is not the answer to this question.

(E) says:

You're right that there's nothing said about these products being popular with customers. However, we're told these new types of groceries mean people can prepare meals quickly "instead of going to a restaurant". The implication here is that people will be attracted to the grocery, rather than going to a restaurant, for this product. (Mmm... restaurants. )

If this were the case, the grocer would attract customers that would normally shop elsewhere. This means the grocer would increase their overall sales by stocking this new product. This gives the grocer a reason to encourage the introduction of this new product, arguing against the conclusion.

This is why (E) is the answer to this question.

I hope that helps!
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