PrepTest 119, Section 2, Question 13
Companies wishing to boost sales of merchandise should(41 more words not shown)
Which one of the following(7 more words not shown)
- ACompanies are increasingly(7 more words not shown)
- BCoupons and direct-mail(17 more words not shown)
- CIn-store displays are(19 more words not shown)
- DIn-store displays that(18 more words not shown)
- EMany of today's(11 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
Catching my attention doesn't necessarily get my money. The recommendation sounds plausible. A display of shirts might make me notice one I want, just as seeing gum or chocolate near a checkout can prompt an unplanned purchase. I can imagine the strategy working. But the study needs to support that connection, not merely make it easy to imagine.
What the study actually tells us is where shoppers decide. They pay little attention to direct mail, have less time to clip coupons, and make two-thirds of their buying decisions at the store. That doesn't establish what persuades them there. They might decide for reasons that have nothing to do with a display. A display could even annoy someone without making a purchase more likely.
What we’re looking for
The argument needs the link from displays to buying. For this necessary-assumption question, I'd want the author to assume that attention-catching displays can push those on-the-spot decisions toward purchasing the company's merchandise. Knowing where a decision happens isn't enough to recommend a particular way of influencing it.
Working the answers
- A
A recommendation about what companies should do doesn't require them already to be doing it increasingly. The strategy could be effective and badly underused. A describes an existing trend that the argument needn't assume.
- B
Perhaps coupons and direct mail used to work better. Or perhaps they were never very effective. The recommendation concerns what would boost sales now, so it doesn't depend on that history. Current limits of these methods don't establish, or require, a particular account of their past success.
- C
The displays needn't work better on immediate decisions than on every other kind of decision. A display could encourage someone to buy now and also plant an idea that leads to a purchase later. Even if those later effects were stronger, displays could still increase on-the-spot purchases and help boost sales. This comparison isn't required.
- DCorrect
The displays that catch attention increase the chance of an on-the-spot purchase. That connects the study's finding about where customers decide with the recommendation to use displays.
Without that connection, why would making more displays help? Customers could notice them and still be no more likely to buy. The author relies on the displays doing something useful to those in-store decisions, not merely being present where the decisions happen.
- E
The recommendation doesn't depend on many shoppers being too busy to notice displays carefully. That could be a problem for the strategy rather than a reason it should work. We need a useful effect from the attention the displays do attract, not an assumption about shoppers who ignore them.
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