A recent study by Dealson on the shopping habits of Ringlandians revea...
A recent study by Dealson on the shopping habits of Ringlandians revealed that word-of-mouth is a key source of awareness for almost 38% of Ringlandian shoppers. The study also revealed that one in every three shoppers in Ringland goes online to the company website before making a purchase. As word-of-mouth recommendations can’t be directly influenced by companies, currently it makes sense for them to focus solely on increasing their online presence in order to create maximum awareness of their products.
Which of the following statements, if true, most seriously weakens the argument?
Argument Analysis
Pre-Thinking
Conclusion Clarification
The conclusion stated in the argument is “currently it makes sense for them (companies) to focus solely on increasing their online presence in order to create maximum awareness of their products.”
Pre-Thinking Approach
Let’s see how we can make the conclusion less believable. To do so, we will look at the logical structure, focusing on linkage 1 and the conclusion. Note that linkage 1 links few facts that the author uses to base his/her recommendation (conclusion) on. Since the recommendation says that companies should ONLY focus on online presence, the way to falsify the conclusion will be to show that companies shouldn't focus only on online presence i.e. they should use other means as well to create maximum awareness.
Linkage#1
Weakener: What if there is some other factor that too can substantially create product awareness? Since the objective is to “create maximum awareness”, leaving out an important means to create awareness would weaken the argument.
- Instance: Banner Advertisements have been found to be a key source of product awareness for around 23% of Ringlandian shoppers.
Weakener 2: What if OS do not create significant product awareness even though 1/3rd Ringlandian shoppers go online before making a purchase? We see that this weakens the argument.
- Instance: Most Ringlandian shoppers who use OS to fetch product information do so only to validate their almost finalized purchasing decision. (product awareness created by some other means, OS used only for validation)
With this understanding lets evaluate the option statements.
Answer Choices
A
Social media consumers are very few in Ringland as the country has had a ban on various networking sites for the past five years.
Incorrect - Irrelevant
The recommendation is based on the fact that 1/3rd of the shoppers in Ringland go online before making a purchase. Therefore, the existing scarcity of social media consumers has no impact on the conclusion.
B
A significant proportion of people went online to gather information about the products after receiving recommendations about those products from friends and family.
Correct
This option tells us that OS do notcreate product awareness for a significant proportion of people who go online before making a purchase. This option matches the 2nd weakener in our pre-thinking analysis.
C
A significant number of people don’t have access to the internet in Ringland.
Incorrect - Irrelevant
Like choice A, this choice too is irrelevant for the same reason.
D
Not all companies need awareness among the kind of shoppers studied; some companies make products that are utilized by other businesses as raw material.
Incorrect - Irrelevant
The recommendation is only for those companies that intend to create product awareness.
E
Several business-solution firms are working on a more efficient way to influence word-of-mouth recommendations.
Incorrect - Irrelevant
This option talks about future options that are not relevant to the current scenario since the conclusion starts with “currently it makes sense for them (companies)”.