The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of movie-rental stores.
"Because of declining profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore's ten movie-rental stores. Raising prices is not a good option, since we are famous for our low prices. Instead, we should reduce our operating hours. Last month our store in downtown Marston reduced its hours by closing at 6:00 p.m. rather than 9:00 p.m. and reduced its overall inventory by no longer stocking any DVD released more than five years ago. Since we have received very few customer complaints about these new policies, we should now adopt them at all other Movies Galore stores as our best strategies for improving profits."
write a response in which you discuss what questions would need to be addressed in order to decide whether implementing the recommendations is likely to have the predicted result and explain how the answers to those questions would help to evaluate the recommendation
Movies Galore aims to increase profits by reducing operating expenses; however, their argument is not presented cogently enough to assume that doing so will lead to the predicted results. There are many factors that need to be accounted for before deciding whether or not the recommendations are likely to cause in an increase in profit. For example, did the changes implemented in the first store actually increase profits significantly? What are the demographics of the people that shop at the downtown store and are they different from other stores? Is the decline in profits due to increased competition? Without the answers to these questions, it cannot be concluded that decreasing operating expenses will lead to increased profits.
The memorandum claims that the downtown store decreased its operating expenses by cutting down the number of movies and reducing store hours. However, we do not know if these changes led to a considerable increase in profits. If these changes only minimally increased profits, it is unlikely that implementing these types of changes in all the stores will have any real impact. Additionally, it may cost more to implement these changes than to add new features to their store to increase revenue. For example, it may prove more effective to offer free weekly screenings to the society, and sell candy and popcorn at these events. This would increase exposure to the stores and, subsequently, increase profits, instead of limiting exposure by closing the store early.
The demographics of each store is also important in determining whether these types of changes will increase profit. If there is a store that is frequented by elderly people, removing all movies older than 5 years may prove to be detrimental to their profit, since older movies target older people. Additionally, if a different store is primarily visited by college students, closing Movies Galore by 6pm would probably lead to fewer customers, since college students are more likely to visit these stores later at night. Thus, demographics should be taken into account when deciding whether a decrease in operating expenses will be helpful or harmful to profits..
Lastly, the owner of the movie stores does not mention any type of competition that may have caused profits to decline. If a new movie store opened that includes free screenings, or an online streaming site became more popular, it is unlikely that implementing these changes will lead to an increase in profit, because people have found other sources to get the same product. Additionally, the owner claims that Movies Galore is famous for their low prices, but there may be a new store that has lower prices. Thus, consumers may have decided to change suppliers, leading to decreased profits.
For these reasons, it is difficult to predict whether making these changes will lead to an increase in profit. Reducing operating expenses may just be a way to keep the stores afloat, instead of producing any real profit. It is necessary to look at each store individually, and in relation to possible competitors, in order to determine whether or not making these operating changes is more useful than creating more activity within the store.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: ??? out of 6
Category: Poor Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 523 350
No. of Characters: 2632 1500
No. of Different Words: 226 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.782 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.033 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.629 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 207 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 154 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 96 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 55 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 22.739 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.831 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.696 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.319 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.504 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.07 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 258, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...eed to be accounted for before deciding whether or not the recommendations are likely to cause...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 1, column 368, Rule ID: DID_PAST[1]
Message: Did you mean 'implement'?
Suggestion: implement
...in profit. For example, did the changes implemented in the first store actually increase pr...
^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 528, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...visit these stores later at night. Thus, demographics should be taken into accoun...
^^
Line 5, column 664, Rule ID: DOUBLE_PUNCTUATION
Message: Two consecutive dots
Suggestion: .
...es will be helpful or harmful to profits.. Lastly, the owner of the movie sto...
^^
Line 5, column 667, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...will be helpful or harmful to profits.. Lastly, the owner of the movie stores do...
^^^^^
Line 9, column 338, Rule ID: WHETHER[7]
Message: Perhaps you can shorten this phrase to just 'whether'. It is correct though if you mean 'regardless of whether'.
Suggestion: whether
...ible competitors, in order to determine whether or not making these operating changes is more ...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, also, but, first, however, if, lastly, look, may, so, thus, for example
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 24.0 19.6327345309 122% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 19.0 12.9520958084 147% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 13.0 13.6137724551 95% => OK
Pronoun: 39.0 28.8173652695 135% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 71.0 55.5748502994 128% => OK
Nominalization: 6.0 16.3942115768 37% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2702.0 2260.96107784 120% => OK
No of words: 523.0 441.139720559 119% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16634799235 5.12650576532 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.78217453174 4.56307096286 105% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.73472163868 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 232.0 204.123752495 114% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.443594646272 0.468620217663 95% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 862.2 705.55239521 122% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 10.0 4.96107784431 202% => Less pronouns wanted as sentence beginning.
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 4.0 1.67365269461 239% => Less conjunction wanted as sentence beginning.
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 46.7033432254 57.8364921388 81% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.47826087 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.7391304348 23.324526521 97% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.52173913043 5.70786347227 62% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 6.0 5.25449101796 114% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 19.0 8.20758483034 231% => Less positive sentences wanted.
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 2.0 4.67664670659 43% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.139133963913 0.218282227539 64% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0525810831634 0.0743258471296 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0482935485595 0.0701772020484 69% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0980592156231 0.128457276422 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0337979305494 0.0628817314937 54% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.3 14.3799401198 99% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 49.15 48.3550499002 102% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.9 12.197005988 98% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.0 12.5979740519 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.29 8.32208582834 100% => OK
difficult_words: 118.0 98.500998004 120% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 11.0 12.3882235529 89% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.