“Since Disc Depot, the music store on the next block, began a new radio advertising campaign last year, its business has grown dramatically, as evidenced by the large increase in foot traffic into the store. While the Disc Depot’s owners have apparently become wealthy enough to retire, profits at Carlo’s Clothing have remained stagnant for the past three years. In order to boost our sales and profits, we should therefore switch from newspaper advertising to frequent radio advertisements like those for Disc Depot.”Essay:The argument claims that in order to boost sales and profits, Carlo's clothing should switch from newspaper advertisements to new radio advertisements. The conclusion of the argument is based on the premise that by following similar strategy, Disc Depot has increased the foot traffic in the store. The conclusion of the argument relies on the assumption for which there is no clear evidence. Hence, the argument is unconvincing and has several flaws.
First, the argument has made a fraudulent assumption that the strategies that work for music stores will also work for Clothing stores. However, it is quite possible that the customer base of Disc Depot is different from that of Carlo's Clothing, and strategies of one type of store are not effective for another type of store. In such an instance, the strategies that have increased Disc Depot's sales might not do that same to Carlo's Clothing's sales.
Second, the argument has assumend that there is a casual relationship between foot traffic of the store and sales. However, these two things are totally different from one another, and increase of one doesn't guarantee the increase of another. It is very likely that after radio advertisements, only the number of people visiting Disc Depot have increase and, sales are still the same. So if similar strategy is used by Carlo's Clothing, then the sales of the store might not increase at all. Hence, in order to properly conclude the argument, more research is required.
Finally, the argument has considered radio advertising campaign as the sole reason behind the increase in foot traffic of Disc Depot. The argument has failed to consider such other reasons as release of new albums or change in the music collection of store. It is quite possible that these other reasons are responsible for increasing in the foot traffic of the store. Moreover, there is a possibility that apart from new radio advertising campaign, Disc Depot had also used other forms of advertisements such as newspaper advertisements, and only these other campaigns have contributed towards the said increase. So more data is required to eliminate the alternate factors.
In conclusion, the argument is flawed for above mentioned reasons and is thus unconvincing. Based on the given premises, it can't be concluded that by switching from newspaper advertisements to radio advertisements, Carlo's Clothing will be able to increase its profits and sales. Without any further knowledge and data, the argument remains unsubstantiated and open for debate.