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.
In the memorandum from the owner of Movies Galore, he stated that there has been a recent decline in video rental profits and that a plausible solution to this problem would be to implement the same solution used in one of his stores in order to increase profits without jeopardizing the reputation of the company. The solution would be to close all video rental stores at 6 pm and to throw away movies that are 5 years old or more. However, before this recommendation can be properly evaluated, three questions must be answered.
First of all, are all the stores located at the same city? In other words, can circumstances from one store be used to make generalizations and predictions about the other stores? For instance, let us assume that the stores are all in the same city but in different locations. If a store is placed in the city center where there is a lot of movement, it is reasonable to assume that this particular rental store will have a greater number of customers throughout the day, thus profits would possibly go up if this rental store stays open for more time. In contrast, the exemplified store mentioned in the memorandum may be one of the stores that is located in a far away district, where costumers don’t attend it so often, justifying the reduction from 9:00 P.M. to 6:00 P.M. Now let us assume a different scenario. All the stores are distributed throughout the state and each one is present in a different city. Smaller cities have less people and thus night life is not so present, therefore stores close at the end of the evening because the majority of people are at their houses by 6:00 PM. However, major cities are more dynamic and stores are often open till 10:00 P.M. which contradicts the suggestion in the memorandum. If either of these scenarios have merit, then conclusion drawn in the original statement is significantly weakened.
Secondly, are costumers drawn only towards new movies instead of the classics? If you remove from store all the movies that are 5 years old or more, you might me throwing away the majority of films in the store. Let us assume that one of the stores is located in a city where the majority of citizens are fifty years old or more and that these people enjoy watching movies from when they were teenagers. This rental store would be losing a great deal of revenue if it were to follow the suggestion of the owner of Movies Galore. There are also people that enjoy watching blockbusters and classics, thus contradicting the reason for removing part of the films in the store.
Last but not least, what is the difference in movie rental price from one rental store to another? One of the things that Movies Galore is proud of is their low cost in movie rental service, but is the price adequate for the current market situation? Maybe the prices of renting a movie at Movies Galore hasn’t caught up to the increase of the mortgage of the building. If mortgage prices go up and the product you’re selling stays the same price, how can you expect to have profit? Reducing open time will most likely not resolve the problem.
In conclusion, the statement, as it stands right now, is considerably flawed do to several unwarranted assumptions. If the author is able to answer these questions and offer more evidence towards his suggestion, then maybe it will be able to fully evaluate the problem and the solution.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 24 15
No. of Words: 603 350
No. of Characters: 2729 1500
No. of Different Words: 254 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.955 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.526 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.504 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 181 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 116 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 49 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 25.125 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 12.025 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.75 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.299 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.504 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.125 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 80, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[2]
Message: The verb 'can' requires the base form of the verb: 'circumstance'
Suggestion: circumstance
...d at the same city? In other words, can circumstances from one store be used to make generali...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Line 3, column 939, Rule ID: FEWER_LESS[2]
Message: Did you mean 'fewer'? The noun people is countable.
Suggestion: fewer
...n a different city. Smaller cities have less people and thus night life is not so pr...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, but, first, however, if, may, second, secondly, so, then, therefore, thus, for instance, in conclusion, in contrast, first of all, in other words
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 36.0 19.6327345309 183% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 13.0 12.9520958084 100% => OK
Conjunction : 17.0 11.1786427146 152% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 38.0 28.8173652695 132% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 79.0 55.5748502994 142% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2813.0 2260.96107784 124% => OK
No of words: 596.0 441.139720559 135% => OK
Chars per words: 4.71979865772 5.12650576532 92% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.94096258147 4.56307096286 108% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60111708668 2.78398813304 93% => OK
Unique words: 263.0 204.123752495 129% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.441275167785 0.468620217663 94% => More unique words wanted or less content wanted.
syllable_count: 898.2 705.55239521 127% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 3.0 8.76447105788 34% => OK
Subordination: 7.0 2.70958083832 258% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 6.0 4.22255489022 142% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 24.0 22.8473053892 105% => OK
Sentence length SD: 63.8819984207 57.8364921388 110% => OK
Chars per sentence: 117.208333333 119.503703932 98% => OK
Words per sentence: 24.8333333333 23.324526521 106% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.29166666667 5.70786347227 110% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 11.0 8.20758483034 134% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 6.88822355289 29% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 11.0 4.67664670659 235% => Less facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.176713017542 0.218282227539 81% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0585282983329 0.0743258471296 79% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0636515809047 0.0701772020484 91% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.111166593427 0.128457276422 87% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0787484065636 0.0628817314937 125% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 13.2 14.3799401198 92% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 55.58 48.3550499002 115% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 11.5 12.197005988 94% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 10.39 12.5979740519 82% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 7.77 8.32208582834 93% => OK
difficult_words: 111.0 98.500998004 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 14.0 12.3882235529 113% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.6 11.1389221557 104% => OK
text_standard: 12.0 11.9071856287 101% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.