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Prompt: The following appeared in the opinion column of a financial magazine.
“On average, middle-aged consumers devote 39 percent of their retail expenditure to department store products and services, while for younger consumers the average
is only 25 percent. Since the number of middle-aged people will increase dramatically within the next decade, department stores can expect retail sales to increase
significantly during that period. Furthermore, to take advantage of the trend, these stores should begin to replace some of those products intended to attract the
younger consumer with products intended to attract the middle-aged consumer.”
Discuss how well reasoned... etc.

AWA:
The author of the opinion concludes that the departmental stores can expect retail sales to increase significantly during the next decade. The author cites that on an average the middle aged consumers spend around 39% of their retail expenditure to departmental store products and services in comparison to only 25% being spend by the younger ones. The author further recommends that in order to take an advantage of the expected trends the departmental stores should replace some of the products
intended to attract young ones with products intended to attract the middle aged consumer. Stated in this way the argument fails to consider several key factors.The conclusion of the argument relies on several assumptions for which no evidence has been provided. Accordingly, the authors argument is unconvincing for several reasons.

First, the author assumes that the trend in the expenditure pattern exhibited presently will continue in the future as well. To illustrate it may be the case that the present younger generation might have a different spending pattern when they transition into the middle aged consumers. Such spending pattern is based on various factors including the upbringing and exposure to various forms of media such as advertising and marketing. In order to strengthen the argument needs to delve deeper into the possibility that what factors could cause the spending pattern to remain same during the next decade between two different groups.

Second, the author fails to consider that most of the middle-aged consumers usually have a family with one or more children. So, even though the spending by these people is higher the average spend per individual (adult and children) might be lower than that by the younger once. For instance consider a family with two children wherein both the parents spend 39% of their retail spending towards department store products and services. The average spending per individual will be around 20% which is lower than that of the younger ones. Accordingly, the argument should pay attention to the spending towards department store products and services on a per person basis rather than average spending alone.

Finally, the author suggests that in order to take advantage of the expected trend , the stores should replace some of the products intended to attract the younger consumer with products intended to attract the middle aged consumer. Here, again the author presumes that a product intended to attract younger consumer will not be able to attract the middle-aged consumers or
not be brought by the middle aged consumers either for themselves or for their kids and relatives.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed for the above mentioned reasons. It could be considerably strengthened if the author would have considered various factors and their impact on keeping the spending pattern same for the younger ones, depicted the spending in terms of per person, and answered other questions pertinent to the argument. In order to assess the merits of certain decision, it is imperative to have full knowledge of all contributing factors.
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- The essay is around 496 words.

Early help is solicited since my GMAT is scheduled in 2 days.