Argument94【GTER三月机考群第二次作业Argument Task1】by Lafela

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Argument94 (ArgumentTask1)
The following appeared in a memo from the president of Bower Builders, a company that constructs new homes.
"A nationwide survey reveals that the two most desired home features are a bathroom with a whirlpool tub and a large kitchen. Homes in a nearby development built by our competitor, Domus Construction, have whirlpool tubs and have sold much faster and at significantly higher prices than the average. To increase our sales and profits, we should include whirlpool tubs and larger kitchens as standard features in all our new homes. Since our recent buyers have voiced no complaints about small yards, we can also increase profits by decreasing the size of our yards."

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In this article, the president of Bower Builders made a claim that according to a recent nationwide survey and the achievement of another construction company, selling whirlpool tubs and large kitchens as their new home feature can raise their profits. And since no complaints about the small yards had been heard, the president also planned to decrease size of yards to increase profits. But his claim is not set up on strong evidence and statistics, thus lacks reliability.

The president of Bower Builders wanted to make profit by focusing on whirlpool tubs because its competitor, Domus Construction, sold whirlpool tubs at a faster speed and at significantly higher prices than the average. I may ask in how long period of time DC kept his high speed. Maybe DC has just started to sell whirlpool tubs for a week but who knows the speed will fall in the following weeks? Another explanation to the high trading speed and significantly higher prices is that the brands of whirlpool DC sold are mostly expensive brands that usually had a high original price and DC lowered the original price a little to strengthen its competition and win more customers but still can profit. In this way of promotion, the situation that DC’s speed and prices are higher than the average can be reasonably explained. Even though DC can profit through this way, nobody is sure whether DC can make larger profit that current BB does. So only focusing on the significance of DC and turning to whirlpool tubs as home feature can be quite a risky commercial plan for Bower Builders.

As to the large kitchen plan, the president of BB wanted to make profit through large kitchens. According to the nation wide survey, this proposal seems reasonable. But there are several problems remaining unknown to the presidents. They are the number of subjects, subjects and
real customers and consuming power of the subjects. About the number of subjects, if the number is too small like only 100 persons from the whole nation, it still lacks representativeness and thus can’t show the gross situation of the nation. About the subjects and customers, if the subjects are only young people, they can’t represent the all the customers’ preference. About the consuming power of the subjects, if subjects are only those with high consuming power, they may prefer having whirlpool tubs and large kitchens, but this preference may not suit for people with lower consuming power. In a word, the survey can’t really fit the current market for BB and be useless to the future planning of Bower Builders.

In sum, the president of Bower Builders neglected some important factors that may influence their decision on increasing profit by focusing on whirlpool tubs and large kitchens. So his claim was not evident enough for his company to make the further movement as he had planned to do.