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 difficulties in obtaining reliable supplies of high quality wool fabric, we discontinued production of our alpaca overcoat. Now that we have a new fabric supplier, we should resume production. This coat should sell very well: since we have not offered an alpaca overcoat for five years and since our major competitor no longer makes an alpaca overcoat, there will be pent-up customer demand. Also, since the price of most types of clothing has increased in each of the past five years, customers should be willing to pay significantly higher prices for alpaca overcoats than they did five years ago, and our company profits will increase."

Write a response in which you discuss what specific evidence is needed to evaluate the argument and explain how the evidence would weaken or strengthen the argument.


A letter was written from a vice president concerning the sale of an alpaca overcoat. After 5 years not having the proper raw material to manufacture the coat, they found a new supplier. The author proposes to resume production of this said coat and says that profits would increase since prices are rising and that Sartorian has not offered the coat for 5 years. Also, the author says that customers will be more willing to pay more for clothing.

Firstly, the author assumes that selling the coat is profitable. It is important to determine what exactly about this coat will make production costs and selling worth it. The author mentions that its competitor and Sartorian has not sold the coat in over five years and thus it will mean a higher consumer base. It is important to determine if there is even a high demand for these coats since the material used to make these coats are high quality and therefore more durable than clothes made from other materials. This means that much of the customer base has already been satisfied and fulfilled with their demand for this coat, and if the remaining consumers do not have their demand fulfilled, it is imprtant to see how big this base is and if the company can profit off of it. Also, it is possible that the competitors have sold more of another coat that sells better than alpacas. This indicates that there is a low demand for alpaca coats. This also explains why the high quality material has not been sold in over 5 years, but evidence is needed to see why a new manufacturer has decided it would be profitable again to use this material. It could be that it is intended for material more profitable than clothing such as sofas. The author’s claim would be weaker since it would not be profitable to make coats with this material.

In addition, the author assumes that when the prices of clothing in general rise, people will be willing to spend more money to buy clothes. The opposite is likely to be true. The basic economic principal of supply and demand state otherwise. Specifically, when the price of one good rises, the demand – number of people willing to buy the good – decreases. There must be some evidence to back up this claim with some exceptions to this general rule. An exception would be food. When the price of grains rise, then people spend more for the same amount of grain they buy. However, since food is a need and clothing made of high quality material is not (maybe even superfluous), there is a substantial amount of evidence to question the feasibility of this plan.

Finally, the author assumes that the company will become more profitable. It is one thing to have a profitable product as the coat itself discussed above, but looking at the bigger picture, specifically the company the author assumes that the implementation process will make more profit in the end. By this I mean that the coats will not replace the shelves and displays of another bestselling or even moderate selling product. If a profitable product is displaced by a less profitable product, then the author will be incorrect in his last sentence in saying that overall company profits will increase if there is not enough evidence comparing the sales of a potentially unprofitable product and a profitable one. Furthermore, it is important to determine if additional employees need to be hired and paid more even if a more profitable product is not displaced. In eithercase, the company may not earn more money in the end.

In conclusion, the author makes a lot of assumptions in his or her reccomendation which requires evidence to back up may statements, even ones which seem unlikely.