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rustedprof
- Newbie | Next Rank: 10 Posts
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Could some one please rate my essay and provide feedback on my writings ?
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 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 underlie 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 sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
Answer
Retail industry has consolidated in the recent years in the developed countries and is consolidating in the developing countries. As more organized retail outlets have made life simpler for consumers, there has been increase in amount spent buying items from retail stores. In the context of evolving retail industry, the conflict of opinions proposed on the expenditure on departmental store is highly contentious. For various reasons, I do not agree with author's argument. Though the middle-aged people continue to spend more on departmental stores, young generation can not be ignored.Above argument makes lot of assumptions and does not take consumer behaviour into account.
Firstly, Author makes an assumption that middle-aged people will continue to spend either 39 percent or more of their retail expenditure on deparmental stores in the decades to come. Though, departmental stores are present in the friendly neighbourhood and offer lot of advantages, people might stop even going to departmental stores given the current trend of online retail. What is available in departmental store is available online for even cheaper price. Given the hesitation of middle-aged or older people to commute to buy things from department stores, this category of consumers might end up buying online. This is one of biggest change in consumer behaviour in the recent decades, ecommerce has picked acroos many continents and many studies have continued to show that ecommerce is the future, unless offline retail jumps on to the bandwagon to provide online service as well. For example, Amazon has disurpted the ecommerce market in USA. This ecommerce emergency hurt lot of retailers.Now retailers are trying to regain their customers by entering online channel. One of the best example being Walmart, there have also been instances of departmental stores having online product catalogues.
Secondly, customer loyalty is a new buzz word in the retail industry. Retailers promote this loyalty by honoring the very loyal customers with reward points and gifts to retain customer's trust. In this scenario, if departmental stores were to replace their assorment of goods to cater to only middle-aged people, then retailers might end up losing current younger population,i.e future middle-aged group, to their competitors. As part of customer acquisition strategy competitors of departmental stores might entice new customers with discounts on many goods. Once the customers become loyal to the retailer, retailer would continue to give reward points to retain customers. Interesting example here would be target, target has implemented loyalty program in which target gives personallized discounts to all their customers. This way, target knows customers buying behaviour and target pleases customers by providing appropriate recommendations on the selected goods. This strategy would be a win-win situation for both customers and target. This strategy has also helped target retain large loyal customer base.
Lastly, advanced technology has helped retail industry to implement changes quickly. For instace, changing the assortment of products in the stores based on the shopping behaviors of the customers at any time. Assortment is a collection of products made visible to customers in the retail stores.
There have been instances in which retailers change their assortment at the stores within a day to cater to different timings in a day. So if retailers could predict the shopping timings and behaviours of the middle-aged people and youngsters, retailers would be able to provide the optimized assortment based on the needs of the customers. SO it is recommended the departmental stores start adopting the advanced technologies to sustain the continued growth.
In conclusion, above mentioned points expose the fallacies in assumptions and flaws in reasons of the author's argument.To make the argument more persuasive, author would have to provide substantial evidences to support the assumptions.
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 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 underlie 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 sound, and what, if anything, would help you better evaluate its conclusion.
Answer
Retail industry has consolidated in the recent years in the developed countries and is consolidating in the developing countries. As more organized retail outlets have made life simpler for consumers, there has been increase in amount spent buying items from retail stores. In the context of evolving retail industry, the conflict of opinions proposed on the expenditure on departmental store is highly contentious. For various reasons, I do not agree with author's argument. Though the middle-aged people continue to spend more on departmental stores, young generation can not be ignored.Above argument makes lot of assumptions and does not take consumer behaviour into account.
Firstly, Author makes an assumption that middle-aged people will continue to spend either 39 percent or more of their retail expenditure on deparmental stores in the decades to come. Though, departmental stores are present in the friendly neighbourhood and offer lot of advantages, people might stop even going to departmental stores given the current trend of online retail. What is available in departmental store is available online for even cheaper price. Given the hesitation of middle-aged or older people to commute to buy things from department stores, this category of consumers might end up buying online. This is one of biggest change in consumer behaviour in the recent decades, ecommerce has picked acroos many continents and many studies have continued to show that ecommerce is the future, unless offline retail jumps on to the bandwagon to provide online service as well. For example, Amazon has disurpted the ecommerce market in USA. This ecommerce emergency hurt lot of retailers.Now retailers are trying to regain their customers by entering online channel. One of the best example being Walmart, there have also been instances of departmental stores having online product catalogues.
Secondly, customer loyalty is a new buzz word in the retail industry. Retailers promote this loyalty by honoring the very loyal customers with reward points and gifts to retain customer's trust. In this scenario, if departmental stores were to replace their assorment of goods to cater to only middle-aged people, then retailers might end up losing current younger population,i.e future middle-aged group, to their competitors. As part of customer acquisition strategy competitors of departmental stores might entice new customers with discounts on many goods. Once the customers become loyal to the retailer, retailer would continue to give reward points to retain customers. Interesting example here would be target, target has implemented loyalty program in which target gives personallized discounts to all their customers. This way, target knows customers buying behaviour and target pleases customers by providing appropriate recommendations on the selected goods. This strategy would be a win-win situation for both customers and target. This strategy has also helped target retain large loyal customer base.
Lastly, advanced technology has helped retail industry to implement changes quickly. For instace, changing the assortment of products in the stores based on the shopping behaviors of the customers at any time. Assortment is a collection of products made visible to customers in the retail stores.
There have been instances in which retailers change their assortment at the stores within a day to cater to different timings in a day. So if retailers could predict the shopping timings and behaviours of the middle-aged people and youngsters, retailers would be able to provide the optimized assortment based on the needs of the customers. SO it is recommended the departmental stores start adopting the advanced technologies to sustain the continued growth.
In conclusion, above mentioned points expose the fallacies in assumptions and flaws in reasons of the author's argument.To make the argument more persuasive, author would have to provide substantial evidences to support the assumptions.
