Argument 224 by archaeology

archaeologyUID: 2598252

TOPIC: ARGUMENT224 - The following appeared in a corporate planning memo at ABC Cereal Company, the makers of Better Bran cereal.

"Sales of Better Bran have declined in recent years, for reasons that management has now identified. First, Better Bran is a cereal with high sugar content, and recent research studies have found that most consumers say they are concerned about the amount of sugar added to their breakfast cereal. Second, the price of Better Bran has increased by 5 percent in each of the last three years. Therefore, to increase our company's profits we need to reduce the amount of sugar in Better Bran and lower Better Bran's price."
WORDS: 386          TIME: 00:30:00          DATE: 2009/7/13 20:52:34

In this argument, the author asserts that the declining sales of Better Bran is caused by its high sugar content and incresing price. Yet, the evidences he lists are weak to support this assertion.

Primarily, the author fails to prove that the high sugar content is charge for the decreasing sales of Better Bran Cereal. In this argument, the author just says that most consumers are concerned about sugar amount of their breakfast cereal, and no futher information tells us that Better Bran Cereal belongs to breakfast food.Perhaps Better Bran Cereal is a kind of food which is exclusively eaten by people at supper. Even if it is not true, that most consumers concern the sugar content doesn't mean that they won't eat food containing much sugar. For example, years ago, when I was trying to loss  weight, I concerned the calories of each food I eat.But I could control myself from eating hamburgers from KFC in the case that I know they posses high calories, because I loved to eat them very much.

Meanwhile, the increaing price may not lead to the decreasing sales of Better Bran Cereal. The author don't compare the prices of most goods in the market. Perhaps with the economic development, most goods have high prices than before, and people can accept the increasing price of Better Bran Cereal, because it is a normal economic phenomenon. So, without comparing with the price of other goods especially the ones of the same pattern goods, we couldn't conclude that the increasing price results in declining sales.

In addition, that reducing the sugar content and lowering the price of Better Bran may not ensure that the profits increase in the future. As mentioned above, these two reasons may not cause the declining sales, there are many other factors could contribute to this outcome. For instance, perhaps some of the former consumers don't like the taste of Better Bran Cereal any more, or perhaps more competitors enter into the cereal market, some consumers turn to eat other brands of cereal. We should find what really cause the poor sales, then take corresponding measures.

In sum, the author couldn't make us agree with his conclusion based on what he said in the argument. If he want to fortify his assertion, he should provide more cogent evidences.

archaeologyUID: 2598252

666的修改铺关了，555，还想占座来请他改这篇来着