Sales up but overall sales down

[jainpiyushjain]

For each of the past two years, major department stores have reported a nearly 50% increase in their sales of men's clothing manufactured by Zachary, Inc., a result that is all the more surprising because the sales of most other brands of men's clothing have been depressed over the same period. Nevertheless, even Zachary, Inc. does not appear to have emerged unscathed from the overall trend: despite the aforementioned increase, Zachary, Inc. has reported a slight decline in overall sales in each of the past two years.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the surprising result above?

A) The sales of clothing at Zachary, Inc.'s boutique stores, which, unlike department stores, are owned and operated by the company itself, have held steady over the last two years.

B) Two years ago, Zachary, Inc. began an ambitious new advertising campaign; in each of the last two years, the company's advertising department has overspent its planned budget by almost half.

C) Zachary, Inc. is renowned for the quality of its fabrics, and sells large quantities of fabric to other manufacturers of men's clothing.

D) Zachary, Inc. formerly manufactured leather accessories and women's clothing in addition to men's clothing, but, for the past three years, the company has produced only men's clothing.

E) In the last two years, the percentage of Zachary, Inc.'s clothing sold by department stores at discounted prices has been unusually high, a result that analysts have blamed on the sluggish economy.

Hello

According to me, the questions tells us that for each of the past two years; (My thoughts in brackets)
1. 50% increase in sales of men's clothing manufactured by Zachary. (Maybe the sales of this line of product was very negligible before, or the clothes are highly discounted because of various other reasons.)
2. Sales of most other brands of men's clothing have been depressed (Recession or new value added taxes on clothes, which are paid by consumers)
3. Slight decline in overall sales of Zachary (Overall word is crucial and decline in sales in-accordance with point no. 2 )

The way I tackle paradox question is by ensuring that the correct answer choice solve both ends of the discrepancy. Using POE, I was able to boil down to C & E, and ended up guessing C since it factors the OVERALL SALES.

I was not able to understand the reasoning on the Manhattan CAT for choice E and request further clarification on the same.

Thank you

[RonPurewal]

For each of the past two years, major department stores have reported a nearly 50% increase in their sales of men's clothing manufactured by Zachary, Inc., a result that is all the more surprising because the sales of most other brands of men's clothing have been depressed over the same period. Nevertheless, even Zachary, Inc. does not appear to have emerged unscathed from the overall trend: despite the aforementioned increase, Zachary, Inc. has reported a slight decline in overall sales in each of the past two years.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the surprising result above?

A) The sales of clothing at Zachary, Inc.'s boutique stores, which, unlike department stores, are owned and operated by the company itself, have held steady over the last two years.

B) Two years ago, Zachary, Inc. began an ambitious new advertising campaign; in each of the last two years, the company's advertising department has overspent its planned budget by almost half.

C) Zachary, Inc. is renowned for the quality of its fabrics, and sells large quantities of fabric to other manufacturers of men's clothing.

D) Zachary, Inc. formerly manufactured leather accessories and women's clothing in addition to men's clothing, but, for the past three years, the company has produced only men's clothing.

E) In the last two years, the percentage of Zachary, Inc.'s clothing sold by department stores at discounted prices has been unusually high, a result that analysts have blamed on the sluggish economy.

Hello

According to me, the questions tells us that for each of the past two years; (My thoughts in brackets)
1. 50% increase in sales of men's clothing manufactured by Zachary. (Maybe the sales of this line of product was very negligible before, or the clothes are highly discounted because of various other reasons.)
2. Sales of most other brands of men's clothing have been depressed (Recession or new value added taxes on clothes, which are paid by consumers)
3. Slight decline in overall sales of Zachary (Overall word is crucial and decline in sales in-accordance with point no. 2 )

The way I tackle paradox question is by ensuring that the correct answer choice solve both ends of the discrepancy. Using POE, I was able to boil down to C & E, and ended up guessing C since it factors the OVERALL SALES.

I was not able to understand the reasoning on the Manhattan CAT for choice E and request further clarification on the same.

Thank you

choice (e) doesn't affect the argument, because it's already an established fact that the department stores' sales of Zachary clothing items are up.

that choice just tells us that unusually much of that merchandise was sold at discount prices... but, so what?
that doesn't change the fact that the sales of those clothes (= measured in dollars) are still up. therefore, choice (e) does nothing to rectify the seeming discrepancy in the given facts.

[greencheetah]

Zachary, Inc. is renowned for the quality of its fabrics, and sells large quantities of fabric to other manufacturers of men's clothing.

---> Why exactly is this the answer, though? I understand why A B D E are each wrong but I'm confused about why C is the answer.
If Zachary sold its renowned fabric to other men's clothing manufacturers and sales recorded an increase of 50% despite the economic depression, then wouldn't it be true that Zachary's fabric sales to other types of clothing (women, children etc) could have been just as successful?

How do we know that Zachary's fabric has been successful in men's clothing but less successful in its other businesses?

[tim]

To quote the great Sherlock Holmes, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

In this case, you appear to have overlooked the point of the question. The question does not ask which of the answer choices must be true; rather, it invites you to assume the truth of each of the answer choices and determine what the consequences would be. You needn't speculate on what other consequences *could* be true that weren't mentioned in the argument.

[rustom.hakimiyan]

Sorry if this is my second post -- submission seemed glitchy the last time around.

I had a question about A. Doesn't A help explain the discrepancy as well?

Assumption is that the boutique stores sales are actually large enough to compensate for the units sold by the department stores. That being said, even though the sales at the boutique stores have stayed the same for 3 years, we have no indication of what the sales were 3 years ago, we just know that the sales for the past 2 years have remained constant. The sales for the past two years COULD be higher than the sales from 3 years ago, so it could mean that the higher sales at the boutique stores could compensate the drop in sales at the department stores.

If I look at C, I still have to make assumptions such as, the mfg's that are buying the fabrics are also selling at the department stores, the sales of the fabrics makes up for the loss in clothes sold by ZAC. I feel as though both these statements involve a bunch of assumptions.

Why is C better than A?

[wasim.iit]

For each of the past two years, major department stores have reported a nearly 50% increase in their revenue generated from the sale of men's clothing manufactured by Zachary, Inc., a result that is all the more surprising because the sales of most other brands of men's clothing have been depressed over the same period. Nevertheless, Z.A.C., the parent company of Zachary Inc, does not appear to have emerged unscathed from the overall trend of decreased sales in the industry: Z.A.C. has reported a slight decline in overall sales in each of the past two years.

Which of the following, if true, most helps to explain the surprising result above?

(A) The sales of clothing at Zachary, Inc.'s boutique stores, which, unlike department stores, are owned and operated by the company itself, have held steady over the last two years.
(B) Two years ago, Zachary, Inc. began an ambitious new advertising campaign; in each of the last two years, the company's advertising department has overspent its planned budget by almost half.
(C) Z.A.C. is renowned for the quality of its fabrics, and sells large quantities of fabric to a variety of manufacturers of men's clothing.
(D) Zachary, Inc. formerly manufactured leather accessories and women's clothing in addition to men's clothing, but, for the past three years, the company has produced only men's clothing.
(E) In the last two years, Z.A.C., in addition to maintaining its prior business ventures, expanded into two new markets, neither of which has been particularly profitable thus far.

I don't understand why (B) fails to explain the paradox. Since we are concerned with explaining an increase in revenue/sales (not profits or overspending of planned budget), (B) should be adequate in explaining the increased revenue of Zachary. It explains that by virtue of the advertising campaign ( which caused Zachary to overspend its budget and about which we should not really be concerned since, at best, the campaign involves budget and profits, not sales). The advertising campaign may have caused Zachary to overspend but helps explain improved sales. (B) explains why Zachary stood out (the surprising result) while the others had poor sales and revenues. (B) Also takes in to account the two year time frame unlike some of the other choices. Since we are concerned with sales and revenue, budget would be beside the point.

(C) , on the the other hand, merely explains why Z.A.C had low sales like the rest of the others. We need an explanation for why the sales of Zachary Inc. was outstanding/surprising while the sales of others (including rest of Z.A.C) was just plain low.

[RonPurewal]

the "surprising result" is the weird contrast between zachary's sales and the parent company's sales. that is what you have to explain.

[wasim.iit]

the "surprising result" is the weird contrast between zachary's sales and the parent company's sales. that is what you have to explain.

Yes. But does option (B) not do that? (B), in my opinion, states that Zachary Inc. began an ambitious new advertising campaign. The advertising campaign would account for the increased sales of Zachary Inc. while the Z.A.C (the parent company) blends in with the overall trend of decreased sales.

After all the sales of Zachary Inc. is the outlier here. (C) just states one possible reason why Z.A.C has low sales like that of the others. In fact are we not better off explaining an unusual occurrence?

To put it another way:
Category1: Who had sales (Zachary Inc.)
Category2: Those who had low sales i.e everyone else (Including parent Z.A.C)
We would not want to explain why Z.A.C belongs to category 2. Instead, we explain why Zachary belongs to category 1.
In that case choice (B) ought to do the job.

I'm not clear on this point. Am I missing something here?

[KarishmaD187]

For this question can someone from the team please explain why option E "In the last two years, Z.A.C., in addition to maintaining its prior business ventures, expanded into two new markets, neither of which has been particularly profitable thus far." is incorrect

Thanks for the help

[RonPurewal]

"not particularly profitable" doesn't mean that those ventures lost money—it just means that their profits weren't very big.

(remember, the GMAT never uses misleading language! if these new ventures lost money, then the question would NOT use a phrasing like "not particularly profitable" -- which normal people would use to mean "profitable, but only by a very small amount".)

[elenas903]

the "surprising result" is the weird contrast between zachary's sales and the parent company's sales. that is what you have to explain.

Don't we have to find the contrast between the increase in revenues from the sales of clothes manufactured by Z, the results reported by the major department stores (some distributors of Z clothes but not the Z Inc itself), and overall sales of Z's parent company? We know nothing about the revenues of Z. We know that the revenues that the department stores generated from the sale of these clothes have been up 50% for 2 years.
How can this explanation work? Since the department-store sales of Zachary Inc’s men’s clothing have definitely increased, the only possible explanation for this result would be a decrease in some other aspect of Z.A.C.’s sales.
The premises do not talk about the sales of Z as a part of overall sales of its parent company. I would appreciate the explanation by the instructors.

[Sage Pearce-Higgins]

elenas903 , I agree with your logic. There's no mention of a parent company, and we have to be super-precise about what is creating the surprising result. Your assessment that we're looking for a 'decrease in some other aspect of Z.A.C.’s sales' is spot on. Good work!