Quote:
Shereen cosmetics sometimes discount the price of its premium eye shadows to retailers for a promotion period when the product is advertised to consumers.
Such promotions often result in a dramatic increase in amount of premium eye shadows sold by the manufacturers to retailers. Nevertheless, the manufacturers could often make more profit by not holding the promotions.
Which of the following, if true, most strongly supports the claim above about the manufacturers' profit?
A. The amount of discount generally offered by manufacturers to retailers is carefully calculated to represent the minimum needed to draw consumers' attention to the eye shadows.
B. For many consumer products the period of advertising discounted prices to consumers is about a week, not sufficiently long for consumers to become used to the sale price.
C. For cosmetics that are not newly introduced, the purpose of such promotions is to keep the products in the minds of consumers and to attract consumers who are currently using competing products.
D. During such a promotion retailers tend to accumulate in their warehouses inventory bought at discount; they then sell much of it later at their regular price.
E. If a manufacturer fails to offer such promotions but its competitor offers them, that competitor will tend to attract consumers away from the manufacturer's
ARGUMENT
[con] manufacturer would increase profit if it didn't hold the promotion;
[prem] manufacturer discounts a product to retailers during a period when the product is being advertised, which results in a dramatic sales increase;
[asum] assumes that without discounting product during such period, profits would increase; why? maybe the demand for the products are such that retailers would keep buying at regular price, and advertising is enough to draw more consumers, instead of price discounting.
STRENGTHEN
A. if the product is discounted at the min attractive price, this doesn't mean that retailers pass along these prices;
B. doesn't strengthen the argument;
C. "new products" out of scope;
E. this weakens;
Answer (D): if the products sold at discount are not made available during the promo period, and then are sold at regular prices, then the promotions are often useless; thus not spending on ads/discount products would increase profits.