▶ Your Answer :
In this article, the author assumes that as demands of children’s books are likely to decline Monarch Books should replace its children’s books section with a café to reap benefits as well as circumvent to compete with Book and Bean. However, it might seem convincing at a glance, the unsubstantiated assumptions leads me to questions the validity of the argument.
To begin with, the author explicitly states that sales of children’s books are likely to decline given recent national census data showing a substantial decrease in the percentage of the population under age ten. However, Children whose age is under ten are not only consumers who buy children’s books, but people whose age is more than ten would buy the books, depending on their purpose. Even though the decline in the percentage of the population under age ten might influence its sales of children’s books, the total population of children under age ten might be so negligible in Collegeville that the influence of decline would be frivolous.
Another assumption the author makes is that Monarch Books can reap benefits and circumvent to complete with Books and Bean by replacing its children’s books section with a café. However, it is possible that Monarch Books can yield more benefits in other ways such as giving discount coupons or endowing prizes to customers randomly rather than replacing with the café. In all likelihood, establishing a café would be so exorbitant that it might actually yield disadvantage unlike what they expect.
Lastly, the author overlooks that replacing with the café would make the competition between Monarch Books and Books and Bean more aggregated. Given the characteristic of Books and Bean, which is combination of a book store and a coffee shop, without a unique and unusual idea and high quality, a café would not stance a chance.
In Summary, the author’s claim is unconvincing on many grounds. To bolster the argument, the author needs to provide all the evidence mentioned above.
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