The following appeared in the opinion column of a financial magazine. “On average, middle-aged consumers devote 39 percent of their retail expenditure to department store products and services, while for younger consumers the average is only 25 percent.

The argument claims that middle-aged consumers spend 39% of their retail expenditure to purchase department store products and avail services of department store. On the other hand, the author states that younger consumers spend only 25% of their retail expenditure to purchase department store products and avail department services. The author further explains that in next decade the number of middle-aged persons will increase and hence they expect increase in sales during next decade. He also suggests that the stores should replace some of its product to attract middle-aged persons in place of items of young aged customers. The author manipulates the facts and conveys a distorted view of the situation. Hence, the argument is completely flawed and unconvincing.

Firstly, the author shows the concern only about the people of middle age and does not show any response for the younger consumers. The author states that the middle-aged people spend 39% of their expenditure in purchasing products and availing services of departmental stores, which is greater than the percentage of the younger consumers who spend 25% of their retail expense. And as a result the author expects increase in sales of the middle-aged consumers as there will would be increase in middle-aged people during the next year. It is natural that as middle-aged people increase, there will also be an increase in the number of younger people. The author doesn’t shows any interest in younger consumers only because they spend less when compared to elder people. It might be possible that in the departmental store there are no good quality products for younger people and hence the percentage is low. Another thing which might be possible is that the owner of the department store might not be serving his younger consumers well, and as a result the younger people spend low. If the author had showed any interest in younger people too, then its the sales of younger consumers would also have been more.

Secondly, as the author thinks that the middle –aged consumers spends more than the younger people, he suggests that the stores should replace the products of the younger people with the products used by the people of middle-age. It is not sure that replacing the products will be helpful in increase of sales because of many reasons. For instance, after replacing the younger consumer’s products, naturally the sales of younger consumer’s products will decrease and on the other hand it is not possible that the replaced products will attract the middle-aged consumers. Hence the outcome would be decrease in sales of both types of goods.

In conclusion, the argument is flawed due to the above-mentioned reasons and is therefore weak and unconvincing. It should could be considerably strengthened if the author had shown concern for both age groups of consumers rather than focusing on one kind. The author fails to mention several key factors on the basis of which it could be evaluated that the authors point is correct, and unfortunately this has not happened. Hence this argument remains unsubstantiated and open to debate.