Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products, is opening its next franchise in the town of Plainsville. The store should prove to be very successful: Nature's Way franchises tend to be most profitable in areas wher

In this text, the author presents a series of arguments about why Nature’s Way, a health food and health-related products is opening its next franchise in Plainsville. While the arguments he presents seem reasonable at first, a further examination of them will present a lack of cogency in his assumptions.

First, the author claims Nature’s Way most profitable stores are in areas where people lead healthy style of life. He assumes that because merchants report an all-time high of sales in running shoes and exercise clothing, the residents in Plainsville are healthy people. This assumption would diminish the argument if it were proved that the sale’s total is not really big or profitable. An all-time sale is no guarantee that the sheer number of sales is considerable. Moreover, the fact that people buy sporting clothes and shoes is not a direct signal that they eat healthy food.

Second, the author presents the case of the health club has more members than ever. Nonetheless, signed members are not necessarily active members, and if the active members are in fact low, it could mean that the people in the club do not follow a healthy life style. Furthermore, one would have to see what type of club it is. Do they join and talk about healthy ways to eat? Do they join and exercise together? Are they in any way health savvy? If the answers to these questions were positive, the author could expect some of these members to be clients, otherwise they could not be taken into consideration.

Also, the author mentions that schoolchildren participate in a fitness-for-life program, which emphasizes the benefits of regular exercise at an early age. Nonetheless, the program could be theory only or even just a few demonstrations with no follow ups of the children progress. This could translate in a low participation from them if they are accustomed to non-healthy style of living.

Finally, in all these cases the author presents, he assumes that because some of the residents of Plainsville are probably exercising, they would inherently be eating right, or if they do, that they would be willing to buy from Nature’s Way instead of their present one.

In conclusion, while these arguments are reasonable at some point, some of the assumptions that the author makes are not entirely substantiated, and if they were proven to be wrong, their impact on the aperture of the new store would be negative.