The following appeared in a memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, a chain of video rental stores.
"In order to reverse the recent decline in our profits, we must reduce operating expenses at Movies Galore's ten video 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. Therefore, in order to increase profits without jeopardizing our reputation for offering great movies at low prices, we recommend implementing similar changes in our other nine Movies Galore stores."
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.
The conclusion drawn from change in the store offering and closing time seems to have serious flaws. It is assumed that reduction in operational cost will lead to increase in profits. The Marston store just reduced its operational costs by undertaking the above steps; there is not mention of corresponding increase in profits. Without considering other factors affecting the sales in the store, if stock is reduced and closing time is preponed, there is no surety that Movies Galore will enter into the profitability regime. Rather this could lead to unintended consequences leading to severe losses.
The ten stores of Movies Galore must be located in different neighbourhoods. Each neighbourhood will have different kind of inhabitants. It is not necessary that behaviour of all of them will be similar. Some neighbourhood may have older people with a taste for old classic movies; some neighbourhoods may have a younger crowd with a different taste. Assuming homogeneity will not have the expected result. Even though the operational costs will reduce by removing older movies, some stores may see a massive dip in sales due to a different preference of the people renting from it.
Working class usually are back from their daily work in the evenings. Since majority of the people work, they would have time to go out, shop, eat and rent and watch movies only in the evenings. The evening time after the work ends are the rush hours when there is a spike in sales usually for entertainment businesses. In search of reducing operational costs, closing the stores early at 6 pm when customers are likely to arrive may cause a huge dip in sales.
Generalising the behaviour of people around different stores is not a good idea. If the aim is to increase profits, Movies Galore may adopt different stategies in different neighbourhoods. Differential pricing, where affluent neighbourhoods are charged more compared to the less affluent ones may not affect the regular sales drastically. But there may be a increase in profits.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 2.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 19 15
No. of Words: 334 350
No. of Characters: 1661 1500
No. of Different Words: 174 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.275 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.973 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.825 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 115 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 84 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 55 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 39 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 17.579 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 7.365 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.421 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.304 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.304 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.078 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 1 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 1, column 527, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Rather,
...ll enter into the profitability regime. Rather this could lead to unintended consequen...
^^^^^^
Line 4, column 356, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...lar sales drastically. But there may be a increase in profits.
^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
but, if, may, so, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 16.0 19.6327345309 81% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 16.0 12.9520958084 124% => OK
Conjunction : 5.0 11.1786427146 45% => More conjunction wanted.
Relative clauses : 6.0 13.6137724551 44% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 11.0 28.8173652695 38% => OK
Preposition: 48.0 55.5748502994 86% => OK
Nominalization: 4.0 16.3942115768 24% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1701.0 2260.96107784 75% => OK
No of words: 334.0 441.139720559 76% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.09281437126 5.12650576532 99% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.27500489853 4.56307096286 94% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.8952157732 2.78398813304 104% => OK
Unique words: 178.0 204.123752495 87% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.532934131737 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 537.3 705.55239521 76% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 4.96107784431 60% => OK
Article: 4.0 8.76447105788 46% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 3.0 4.22255489022 71% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 19.0 19.7664670659 96% => OK
Sentence length: 17.0 22.8473053892 74% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 42.9679388302 57.8364921388 74% => OK
Chars per sentence: 89.5263157895 119.503703932 75% => OK
Words per sentence: 17.5789473684 23.324526521 75% => OK
Discourse Markers: 1.31578947368 5.70786347227 23% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 4.0 6.88822355289 58% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 8.0 4.67664670659 171% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.159572021449 0.218282227539 73% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.053066019279 0.0743258471296 71% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0655096219269 0.0701772020484 93% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0978692776961 0.128457276422 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.030328236499 0.0628817314937 48% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 11.3 14.3799401198 79% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 54.22 48.3550499002 112% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.9 12.197005988 81% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.95 12.5979740519 95% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.17 8.32208582834 98% => OK
difficult_words: 78.0 98.500998004 79% => More difficult words wanted.
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 8.8 11.1389221557 79% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 50.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.0 Out of 6
---------------------
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.