The following is a recommendation from the Board of Directors of Monarch Books.
"We recommend that Monarch Books open a café in its store. Monarch, having been in business at the same location for more than twenty years, has a large customer base because it is known for its wide selection of books on all subjects. Clearly, opening the café would attract more customers. Space could be made for the café by discontinuing the children's book section, which will probably become less popular given that the most recent national census indicated a significant decline in the percentage of the population under age ten. Opening a café will allow Monarch to attract more customers and better compete with Regal Books, which recently opened its own café."
Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.
The recommendation from the Board of Directors of monarch books states that opening a cafe in the store will attract more customers. The reasons presented in the argument are seriously flawed. Several questions need to be answered to further evaluate the argument.
The first question is, how will opening a cafe attract more number of customers? The argument does not provide any concrete evidence to answer this question. The only reason which the author cites is that of regal books which recently opened a cafe in their store. Assuming that it worked positively for regal books store, there is no guarantee that it will produce same results for monarch books. further, attracting more customers to the store does not mean an increase in book sales. People may visit the store just for having a cup of coffee!
The next question, does decline in the percentage of the population under age ten years mean less number of children visiting the store? The author states that the store is known for its wide selection of books on all subjects. children maybe preferring monarch books over any other because of this reason. Hence, discontinuing the children's book section may result in huge losses.
