Re: Our promotional price reductions on energy drinks have been highly suc
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17 Mar 2020, 05:26
Moni’s essay – Price discounts
The argument claims that the price reductions that the beverage manufacturer offered have been successful and well received. Further, the manufacturer also goes on to say that she will implement such reductions in all the drinks produced by the firm. I find this argument extremely hollow as it is based on weak assumptions, ignores the possibility of selection bias in the survey group and confuses revenue increase with profitability.
First, the argument asserts that the increase in unit sales is a direct result of the promotional price reductions and hence, the firm's price reduction scheme has been successful. This is a very botched argument because it assumes that the increase in unit sales is not the result of any other event such as another set of advertisements, shutting down of a competitor firm, or something as temporary as a sport congregation in the same area as a distribution outlet. There is no evidence of anything else that was put into place by the firm and hence, it is not possible to comment on the success of the scheme, that is if the success of the scheme was defined by the increase in sales and not increase in profit.
Second, the argument confuses increase in revenue with profitability and further goes on to claim that such a step will also work on other drinks produced by the firm. It is possible that the firm is just breaking even or maybe even incurring a loss with the increase in sales (and hence, revenue). However, we have no information about the costs to the company both the production costs and promotional costs and hence the claim of profitability falls flat. It will be helpful if we can get more details about the cost that the company incurred so that we can strengthen the claim 1. about the profitability. Furthermore, even if we assume that the firm has been profitable, there is no guarantee that previous success will result in future success - in this case, we cannot comment on the profitability of other drinks produced by the firm.
1. Drop the article’ ‘the’
Finally, the argument also uses the survey to claim that the consumers are happy. It might be true; however, we do not have any information about 2. the consumer demographics. Moreover, it is possible that not all customers have filled the survey: it might be the case that only the customers who care about the firm or like the energy drink manufactured by the firm care enough to fill out the survey forms. Therefore, with such strong assumptions about the people who filled out the survey, 3. this arguments also fail to hold out.
2. Drop the article’ the’
3. Should be “these arguments also fail “
In conclusion, this argument makes a lot of assumptions and confuses a lot of terms. It does not have enough evidence to hold its ground even against the slightest scrutiny. If there were further evidence about the claims, as mentioned above,4. then the argument can be strengthened.
4. If you use the subjunctive past” were’, then the main clause should use, the modal past ‘would’ but not ‘can’
Review and rating
1.Construction – Ok
2.Length 482 words --- Ok.
3.Flow --- ok.
4. Proofreading – okay; looks like auto –proofed
5.Paragraphing--- ok.
6. Opening---ok but could be better with some relevant exciting questions such as “ is the company run by financial experts?
7. Closing --- ok but could be more striking or creative such as -- the takeaway – The Company executives need to be trained in SWOT analysis. Or they should know the definition of mass psychology, critical volume, break-even, opportunity costs and etc.
Content:
8.Rhetoric: Perhaps you yourself could have given some data, study reports, anecdotes or examples. They are the hallmarks of a strong argument.
9.Grammar --- ok. But look into the use of articles, especially ‘the’
10. Flow --- easy and smooth.
11. Style--- good; can’t see any passive voice unnecessarily.
12. Rating – 5, with one or two good statistics, it could easily go up. But keep an eye on timing.
Good Luck
daagh
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Moni's essay.docx [17.94 KiB] 
