argument7 write by sunshine

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7The 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."


In this argument, the arguer suggests that it will attract more customers and better compete with Regal Books for Monarch Books to open a café in its store. To support the argument, the arguer assumed that Monarch has a long history and attract a large amount of customers. At first glance, the argument seems to be quite sound. However, I’m afraid his argument can hardly bear further consideration since there are several flaws in it.

To begin with, the arguer provide a recent national census which indicated a significant decline in the population under age ten to demonstrate that the children’s book will become less popular. Nevertheless, there is no evidence that the situation of children in the local place is the same as that of national. Perhaps, the population in the local is increasing gradually. In that case, there may be more customers on children’s book area. Besides, even though the result of national’s census can represent the real situation of the local, these children who are under age ten are not the only customers of children’s book. What’s more, these are no evidence to demonstrate that they play a main role on buying children’s book. Generally speaking, there are much more people who would also like to buy children’s book, such as pregnant woman, kindergarener, even those who are older than ten-age children.

Even though the children’s book will be unpopular, it is not wisdom to stop the children’s book section for make a place to construct a café. For one thing, maybe it is not necessary to make such a big place for a café. Sometimes, people who like to drink coffee would used to drink outside instead of sitting down to have a drink. In that case, it is really a waste of money to build such a café. For another thing, if there is no children’s book in Monarch Books, the bookstore may no longer be the wide selection of books on all subjects which is one major reason to attract so many customers. In contrast, the bookstore may loss a lot of customers. Besides, there are some alternative measures which will be more sensible to open a café, such as make a small place to open a café without discontinuing any kind of book section.


Last but not the least, it is unfair to assert that Monarch Books will attract more customers and be more popular than Regal Books if it opened a café as Regal Books did. That is because the arguer give no reason to explain why the population of Regal Books’ customer increased after it opened its own café. Maybe the main reason for Regal Books to attract so many people is another measure, such as discount activity, latest books, which is taken with opening the café at the same time. If so, Monarch Books can not have a significant change on its sale. By the way, even though it is the coffee that increased the customers’ population, Monarch Books can not make sure that it can compete with Regal Books which open a café before it. Firstly, Monarch Books can not guarantee that its coffee is tasty than Regal Books’. Also, most people like the first one better. In that case, Regal Books will have more advantages than Monarch.

In sum, it’s unwise to make rash decision on building a cafe by replace the place of children’s books section in Monarch Books only taking the seemingly advantages into account. More detailed survey of the population of children’s customers and other important aspects should be taken.