Critical Reasoning

A manufacturer of workstations for computer-aided design seeks to increase sales to its most important corporate customers. Its strategy is to publish very low list prices for workstations in order to generate interest among the buyers for those corporations.
Which of the following, if characteristic of the marketplace, would tend to cause the manufacturer's strategy to fail?
A. The proposed list prices would seem low to a typical buyer for the manufacturer's most important corporate customers.
B. The capabilities of workstations suitable for given jobs are not significantly different among various manufacturers.
C. The manufacturer's most important corporate customers employ as buyers persons who are very knowledgeable about prices for workstations for customeraided design.
D. Customers differ significantly in the percentage of resources they can devote to computer workstations.
E. Buyers for corporations that purchase workstations for computer-aided design receive bonuses for negotiating large discounts from the list price.

Please discuss each answer choice. OA to follow after some discussion

Ian Stewart wrote:Normally lower prices would increase sales. If the plan is going to fail to increase sales, which is the point of the plan, there has to be some reason buyers won't buy because of the lower prices. Answer E tells us the reason: buyers get bonuses if they can negotiate discounts. So if the prices are really low to begin with, buyers may not be able to negotiate big discounts, and thus might not get big bonuses. That is likely to lead them to buy other computers.

Great explanation !

I could only arrive at E by this statement - "if characteristic of the marketplace" in the question?

Do you think this can be the reason to arrive at E by POE ?

Thanks,
Ankit

This is hard question. We want experts to discuss more about the process of doing this question. experts, pls, detail the process of doing this question so that we can imitate the doing process and succeed.

anyone can understand why a choice is correct. The problem is how to find the correct choices. This is key to success on CR and is why many persons get many CR questions correct.

Ian Stewart wrote:

ankit0411 wrote:
I could only arrive at E by this statement - "if characteristic of the marketplace" in the question?

Do you think this can be the reason to arrive at E by POE ?

I don't think that phrase alone lets you pick E, if I'm understanding your question correctly; each answer choice could be interpreted as a "characteristic of the marketplace".

What about C ? If the buyers are too knowledgeable don't you think they would go elsewhere, and buy computers that offer a much lower price?

Thanks,
Ankit