The following is a recommendation from the Board of Directors of Monarch Books.

"We recommend that Monarch Books open a café in its store. Monarch, having been in business at the same location for more than twenty years, has a large customer base because it is known for its wide selection of books on all subjects. Clearly, opening the café would attract more customers. Space could be made for the café by discontinuing the children's book section, which will probably become less popular given that the most recent national census indicated a significant decline in the percentage of the population under age ten. Opening a café will allow Monarch to attract more customers and better compete with Regal Books, which recently opened its own café."

Write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be answered in order to decide whether the recommendation is likely to have the predicted result. Be sure to explain how the answers to these questions would help to evaluate the recommendation.

At first glance, the Boards recommendation sounds reasonable and compelling enough to open a cafe to attract more customers. Board bases this recommendation on the premise that opening a cafe proved lucrative to Regal books as they were able to attract more customers after opening the cafe. To make this argument more solid to a reader, author should try to answer few questions before thinking this is only possible solution to increase the customer base. Answers to these logical questions will help also author to take a decision and think if it will bring the desired results.

To begin, author explicitly mentions that Monarch Books was in same location for more than twenty years, and already has a large customer base because they are known for its wide selection of books on all subjects. If the store is in same place for twenty years and is already well known, there is a tad possibility they have already exhausted their customer base, and remaining customers to attract. To confirm this author can take a survey or poll, or number of residents in their city, to get an exact picture on this. If they surveys says that the existing customer base is already the expected number of readers in town, then opening a cafe, however successful its is - it wont bring the desired result of increasing the customer base. On the other hand, if the author finds out that many readers visit some other book cafe, or would like to visit a book store but don't go to any, then author will be right in opening a cafe to increase the customer base.

Furthermore, author tacitly assumes opening a cafe will surely attract more customers. There is no other information provided that why will a reader visit a book store more often just because it opened a cafe in it's store. There can a slight possibility that the book store is in a very crowded area, or people find it very difficult to walk/park there, or locality it is in, is not acceptable to many people. So opening a cafe will not guarantee the desired result. Even if location or area stands to support author's recommendation, there is a chance they lack good customer service or facilities for handicap? Answers to these questions will help author determine the viability of his recommendation.

Passage goes on further that a nation wide census indicated significant decline in the percentage of the population under teen, so discontinuing the children's book section will make space available for a cafe? But author should find an answer to these following questions before assuming that this stands in favor of him? For instance, Does the nation wide census applies to all cities/town? Is the store's teen population declining or increasing? How old is the census? Percentage decrease is exactly what number decrease? Ratios dont say much unlike actual numbers? Is this the first year of teen population decline or is it a trend? If all these answers stand to bolster this argument author has a chance of getting the desired result of increasing the customer base. If no, author can do a more vigorous research before seeing this as the silver lining in it's customer base problem. Author also readily assumes that opening a cafe proved favorable to the Regal books, but fails mentions few detail of how and why did it work for them? Or was there any other reason beside cafe, they helped them increase their customer base. A more thorough study will help make this argument more solid.

To conclude, author should a more vigorous research before going ahead with the idea of opening a cafe to increase a base. Vigorous study can include survey, poll, research on the town's teen population or analysis of Regal bookstores and should also look for more possible solutions if any which could help to increase the customer base.