▶ Your Answer :
Claiming that opening a cafe would attract more
customers, the directors of Monarch Books concluded here that they must open a cafe
in their store. However, this argument relies on a series of unproven
assumptions, thus is not cogent as it stands.
To begin with, the author claims that opening a cafe
will attract more customers. However, the cause and effect relationship between
the two values is not effectively made in the argument. Rather, as the recommendation
pointed out, since the broad collection in Monarch is one of their competitiveness,
opening up another collection might attract more customers. Without having more
plausible supporting data regarding the causal claim, therefore, opening a cafe
would be a risky decision.
In addition to the lack of analogy between the cafe and
number of customers, the suggestion of discontinuing children’s section is
based on what can amount to scant evidence for the Monarch’s case. The authors
cited the national census, which said there is a decline in the percentage of
population under the age of ten, to prove their assumption about the less needs
for the children section in the future. Nonetheless, even though the survey is
true for nationwide, this might not be the case for the local area of Monarch.
Rather, the young generation might be increasing due to more immigrating populations
in Monarch’s area. Thus, localized and more in-depth surveys or analysis should
be provided to support this decision.
Lastly, even though the competitor, Regal Books, opens
the cafe, this does not necessarily guarantee that Regal’s high profitability.
If the cafe can be only used for people to chat or do their homework instead of
reading and buying books, Regal’s profit may remain stable or less than before.
On the directors’ recommendation note, only the fact that Regal’s new opening
of cafe is discussed, not why and the results in profits were. Thus, the hidden
factors of Regal’s decision should be scrutinized.
One might say that opening a cafe is a hot trend for
bookstores nowadays, which can attract more customers. This may be true in
general, however, since Monarch’s case is involving to remove their one
collection, more detailed information about the cause and the effect concerns
should be made.
In sum, even though having a cafe for book stores might
help them to attract more customers in general, the given argument is not
plausible enough because it relies on what might amount to illogical evidence.
In order to evaluate its claims more appropriately, I would need to know the
following information: what the exact correlation between a book store cafe and
customer number, whether the children population in Monarch’s area is
increasing or decreasing, and why Regal Books opened the cafe and its results
on their profits. |