Nature's Way, a chain of stores selling health food and other health-related products, is opening its next franchise in the town of Plainsville. The store should prove to be very successful: Nature's Way franchises tend to be most profitable in areas wher

The argument states that the to-be introduced chain of stores - Nature's way will guarantee a roaring success in the years to come. The author bases his conclusion on the assumption that, the demand for goods is growing high and he quotes several factors that will lead to the increase in sales of the goods from Nature's way. But his argument is based on a number of stated and unstated assumptions. Unless, these assumptions are backed up with proper evidence and explanation, it is highly unlikely that Nature's way will yield the desired results.

First of all, the author assumes that there are no other potential competitors in the town of Plainsville. If there happens to be leading sellers of health-related producted in Plainsville, then relevant explanation must be given to guarantee how the newly introduce stores will outweigh other competitors and emerge out to be a winner. Moreover, it is assumed that Nature's way will be located in a strategic location in Plainsville. If the stores is located in a place, where population is the least, then the stores will not yield the desired results.

Furthermore, the author avers that the Nature's way franchises are sucessful in areas where citizens lead healthy lives. But, to what extent do the people in Plainsville lead healthy lives? There has to be established evidence in order to compare what actually contributes to 'healthy' life. If the parameters used to conclude a 'healthy life' are different in different places, then the comparison will not hold good.

Additionally, the author assumes a lot when he states that the sale of running shoes and exercise clothing were always high. Firstly, the reliability of the merchants who report increase in sales must be ascertained. Moreover, whether the people who purchase these running shoes actually exercise every day; there may be a reason that these people are buying the exercise clothing to lend it to their neighbours. The period in which the survey was conducted, might be a unique one, in which unreasonable increase in sales was noted. Hence, in order to clear these doubts, the following information has to be furnished to validate the assumption: the year during which the sales was at an all-time high; the nature of people buying running shoes and exercise-clothing and their motive to do so.

The author also posits that the increase in enrollments found in helath club will give way to increase in sales. However, the health club may provide all the necessary supplements to back-up their training program. It is assumed that, people who join the health clubs will be on the lookout for quality health-products. But, this has to be validated with proper information. Weight training and aerobic classes are meant for the persons who are severely afflicted with obesity. They may or may not prefer health-products. There can be a reason that, these people indulge in fasting and prefer no health-supplements. Or there can also arise a case, where the obese people are assigned with food-supplements that are not available in Nature's way. Hence, these assumptions must be backed up with proper explanation. If the Nature's way caters to the needs of health-club members and those in weight-training and aerobic classes, then it will obviously achieve its result. On the other hand, if these things do not turn out to be true, then it will pose a serious challenge to the growth of Nature's way.

Finally, the author assumes that the school children, who are newly being introduced in the fitness-for-life program will go a long way in increasing the sales of Nature's way. This thought is based on the assumption that: the children will be willing to buy the health-products from Nature's way; the products from Nature's way are affordable by the children and, these products are relevant to the program being conducted. Above all, it is unknown, whether all the children will opt to participate in fitness-for-life program. When the program has not been implemented and is not guaranteed to be successful, it is too early to correlate it with the increase in sales of products from Nature's way.

Thus, this argument rests on a number of stated or unstated assumptions like: no other competitors found in Plainsville to compete with Nature's way; correlating franchise's success with the success of Nature's way; sales of running shoes and exercise clothing to continue unabated; correlating enrollment in health clubs, weight training and aerobic classes with increase in sales; the schoolchildren guaranteed to purchase Nature's way's products. Unless these assumptions are backed up with proper explanation, it is not advisable to assume that Nature's way, if introduced in the town of Plainsville, will achieve sureshot success.