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 inbusiness at the same location for more than twenty years, has a large customerbase because it

Although the recommendation from the Board of Directors for Monarch Books to open a cafe in its store seems to be appealing, there are several questions to be answered in order to decide whether the cafe will benefit the bookstore or not. The recommendation claimed opening a cafe in Monarch Books will attract more customers and be better able to compete against Regal Books which also has a cafe. The Board of Directors wants to get rid of the children's books section of the store in order to build the cafe.There seems to be faults in the Board's argument,questions and findings would have to be answered in order to the approve the construction of the cafe.

First, the board said the popularity of the Children's Books section will decrease due to the population decline of the age group under 10. This assumption is at fault because the decline in population of the age group under 10 does not mean the popularity of children's books will decline in the future. A national census is for every ten years. This means the last 10 years showed a significant, the census does not have any predictions for the future population of the next ten year. The next ten years might have a increase in children's population. Closing the children's section might be detrimental to the the store's customer base and Monarch books will lose a significant amount of income.

Second,, the board claimed that opening a cafe will attract new customers. But who would these new customers be? A cafe will surely attract people who wants to purchase food and drinks, but would the customers be interested in also purchasing books at the bookstore? The customers will be interested in going in the bookstore but they might only come out with a latte in hand. The Board wants to see a increase in customers buying books because the money from books is what keeps the doors open. Opening a cafe will only interest people in the cafe and not the books. The board will have to examine who these new customers will be and what they will purchase.

Third, the board claimed MOnarch will be able to compete with Regal Books who recently open a cafe in their bookstore. Wouldn't Monarch lose their uniqueness of the wide selection of books they have. Cancelling the children's section will furthermore decrease MOnarch's uniqueness. The customers of Monarch likes MOnarch because of their selections of books, not their food and drinks. Competing with Regals books might make them lose customers instead of gaining.

The cafe will surely bring in more interest for the bookstore but the store has to be able to see where the gains and loss will come from.