XDF蓝本42-3&4 请教

Passage 42

Extensive research has shown that the effects of short-term price promotions on sales are themselves short-term. Companies' hopes that promotions might have a positive aftereffect have not been borne out for reasons that researchers have been able to identify. A price promotion entices only a brand's long-term or "loyal" customers; people seldom buy an unfamiliar brand merely because the price is reduced. They simply avoid paying more than they have to when one of their customary brands in temporarily availble at a reduced price. A price promotion does not increase the number of long-term customers of a brand, as it attracts virtually no new costomers in the first place. Nor do price pomotions have lingering aftereffects for a brand, even negative ones such as damage of customer loyalty, as is often feared.

So why fo companies spend so much on price promotions? Clearly price promotions are generally run at a loss, otherwise there would be more of them. And the bigger the increase in sales at promotion prices, the bigger the loss, While short-term price promotions can have legitimate uses, such as reducing excess inventory, it is the recognizable increase in sales that is their main attraction to management, which is therefore reluctant to abondon this strategy depite its effect on the bottom line.

Q3 The passage suggests that evidence for price promotions " effect on the bottom line" is provided by

      A. the lack of lingering aftereffects from price promotions

      B. the frequency with which price promotions occur

      C. price promotions' inability to attract new customers

      D. price promotions' recognizable effect on sales

      E. the legitimate uses to which management can put price promotions

Q4 It can inferred from the passage that if a company ceased to run short-term price promotions for a particular product, an effect of this change would be to

      A. reduce excess inventory of the product

      B. lose some of the product's long-term customers

      C. reduce the product's overall sales

      D. inhibit growth in the number of the product's customers

      E. threaten the product's profitability

  答案给的B和C. 为什么呢？想不通！请教~~