Please rate my AWA Essay!
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21 Jul 2018, 12:23
Our total sales have increased this year by 20 percent since we added a pharmacy section to our grocery store. Clearly, the customer's main concern is the convenience afforded by one-stop shopping. The surest way to increase our profits over the next couple of years, therefore, is to add a clothing department along with an automotive supplies and repair shop. We should also plan to continue adding new departments and services, such as a restaurant and a garden shop, in subsequent years. Being the only store in the area that offers such a range of services will give us a competitive advantage over the other local stores.
Discuss how well reasoned you find this argument. In your discussion be sure to analyze the line of reasoning and the use of evidence in the argument. For example, you may need to consider what questionable assumptions underline the thinking and what alternative explanations or counterexamples might weaken the conclusion. You can also discuss what sort of evidence would strengthen or refute the argument, what changes in the argument would make it more logically sounds, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusions.
The argument that adding more departments and services to the grocery store such as clothing, automotive supplies and repair shop, a restaurant and garden shop will cause profits to increase over the years is substantially flawed. The argument fails to provide adequate evidence to support its claim.
First, the passage states that sales have increased by 20% since the grocery store added a pharmacy section, but does not provide specific detail as to why the sales have increased. It relates this increase to convenience, but without providing concrete evidence for the correlation. If truly the sales increase is due to the addition of the pharmacy section, convenience may not be the reason. For example, the grocery store may have contracts in place with local hospital in the area to be the main medication provider. This would weaken the claim that convenience is the sole reason for the sales increase. Another possible reason that would undermine the claim is if the store added a toys department at the same time it added the pharmacy department and that in itself caused the 20% sales increase.
The passage claims that by adding other departments and services such as clothing and a repair shop will also increase sales. This claim is questionable as it compares the performance of one department with a completely unrelated one. Adding a clothing department for example may lead to a negative return on investment if the city already has many clothing stores and the grocery store cannot compete with competitor pricing. Another reason could be that people do not want to buy their clothes from a grocery. Both reasons could cause the additional departments to be an unsound business decision.
Thirdly, the passage states that adding more departments and services will surely increase the grocery store’s profits over the next few years. A serious flaw in this claim is basing current performance with future performance. The economy could face a recession in the next year and that in itself could cause a serious dent to profits. The grocery store’s overall costs could also increase more rapidly than it sales and that would in turn cause a decrease in profits. Another reason that would counter the claim is if over the next two years, five new grocery stores open in the area and the stores could start taking market share away from the grocery store.
All in all, the argument does not provide appropriate evidence for its claim. The overall reasoning behind the argument does not have adequate evidence to support its logic. With a lot of unknown information, one cannot simply be in agreement with the claim that adding more departments and services to the grocery store will increase sales and profits.