Please grade and critique my Issue Essay!

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ARGUMENT TASK

The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of movie-rental stores.

"In order to stop the recent decline in our profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore's ten movie-rental stores. Since we are famous for our special bargains, raising our rental prices is not a viable way to improve profits. Last month our store in downtown Marston significantly decreased its operating expenses by closing at 6:00 P.M. rather than 9:00 P.M. and by reducing its stock by eliminating all movies released more than five years ago. By implementing similar changes in our other stores, Movies Galore can increase profits without jeopardizing our reputation for offering great movies at low prices."

Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.

My response

The prompt states the financial predicament of Movies Galore, a video rental store that isn't able to catch up it's profits with respect to it's expenses. Several suggestions are made, but each have their distinct flaws which must be assessed in order to make an informed decision.

Let's start by looking into the changes being considered with respect to the operational expenses. It has been insufficiently concluded that undoing the special bargains is going to lead to a loss of customers since it is the main marketing point of Movies Galore. It isn't clearly established weather the majority of the loyal customers are there for content or for the offers. A simple survey from the all customers, new to decades old fans could give an insight into what brings customers in and could give an insight into whether a slight change in discounts would negatively impact their business since decreasing discounts is a viable option and the simplest to apply to see a drastic change, but to conclude whether it will be positive, a survey into customer expectations would be enlightening.

The decision of the store in downtown being shut early and it having any positive impact has been inconclusive. There is no information on whether this has made any significant changes to the profits and an all round change on other stores without sufficient results would be worrisome. There is a possibility that this would lead to more people coming in early due to the exclusivity factor since now the store is available for fewer hours, but it doesn't guarantee that it'll garner new customers. It could just be that longtime customers might come in earlier and there will be no change or on the other hand it may lead to losing customers for example people coming in late from work may now not be able to come in later like they could before. Keeping track about the customer influx in that particular store would help establish this fact and can help us analyse whether the timings may have a positive, negative or no impact at all.

The additional decision of reducing stock by removing copies of movies that are older than five years could be more debilitating than good. This could definitely reduce expenses but it should be established whether customers come in the store due to it's wide variety of movie genres and whether reducing it could reduce the customer base and discourage people who come in for older movies. If older copies are eliminated from the stock, it could lead to a loss of customers instead, thereby reducing profits and having the opposite impact. More data on movies from which period are mostly sold would help give a better view on this and avoid loss of customers.

A lot of the suggestions in the prompt are applicable and viable but it lacks sufficient information to make a confident decision. A simple survey into the customers preferences would open up a variety of insights and provide the needed results.