FuneralHomes.com Gets Some Competition From An Unlikely Source, Walmart.com
2009 October 30
Is there is no product on earth that can’t be sold on the Internet?
If you thought the one product that couldn’t be sold over the Net was caskets, you would be wrong.
Walmart.com, has 14 caskets that can be purchased on its site.
The prices range from $895 for a steel casket to $2,899 for a bronze casket.
The items are sold online only and not in Walmart stores.
Walmart expects the product to be shipped to funeral homes directly and is requiring the buyer to enter the following information for the shipping address at checkout:
- First and last name: name of the deceased
- Company name: name of funeral home or mortuary
- Address: shipping address given to you by the funeral home director
- Phone number: phone number of the mortuary
So what can’t you buy on the Internet?
And for how much longer?
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How exactly is Walmart selling caskets competition to Funeral homes online directory ?
@ D – The reason Walmart selling caskets can be considered serious competition to Funeral Homes is because Funeral Home profitability is largely driven from the mark-up & sale of cremation and funeral-related items such as caskets, flowers, urns, etc (and NOT from the sale of actual funeral ‘services’).
So, not only will Walmart caskets be available at greatly reduced prices versus those available at Funeral Homes; but more importantly it will serve to ‘inform’ people that there ARE alternative places (other than their chosen Funeral Home) to buy cremation & funeral-related items! Double Whammy!
Another import from China or Korea no doubt. We don’t make much anymore here in the USA.
@Steve
I actually think that it will drive more advertisers to funeralhomes.com and not the other way around.
Will the category eventually evolve into
“Could you supersize my order?”
Of course it may force or allow FuneralHomes.com to start selling product directly to customers as well but probably not at Walmart prices
usedcaskets.com is for sale! Yikes
Tim
I think that would violate most state health codes
MM: “Another import from China…”
Finally a product from China unlikely to be the subject of recalls and/or lawsuits over the use of illegal chemicals.
A company called Casket Direct tried this approach some years ago. i remember they had a showroom near me. They seem to have failed but Wall Street liked the company, which cut out the middleman and reduced casket prices by over half.
Check out this hilarious Amazon user review of the 20 Gauge Steel Funeral Casket
http://bit.ly/jV19x
Selling caskets online is not anything new. Costco already is sellign caskets online.
Steve said: “So, not only will Walmart caskets be available at greatly reduced prices versus those available at Funeral Homes; but more importantly it will serve to ‘inform’ people that there ARE alternative places (other than their chosen Funeral Home) to buy cremation & funeral-related items! Double Whammy!”
Speaking of alternative places there is some guy selling caskets at the local swap meet here.
I saw tombstones being sold years ago at a flea market in North Carolina
Talk about planning ahead
Two things. One, they are only selling metal caskets on line. Second, read the small fine print on shipping, it starts at $500.00 and may be as much as $1,000.00 and that only gets it to the funeral homes door. Many funeral homes require that we have to be there when it is delivered and sign for it. Lastly, check with your funeral home. While they are required to accept it and use it, they don’t have to sign for it and many funeral homes discount their itemized service charges if you buy the casket from them. This is legal per a US Federal Court Judges ruling in Mississippi. Lastly, ask your self what you are going to do if the casket arives damage since it takes two days to get to the funeral home. What are you going to do. Hold up the funeral while you wait for a new one? Add the shipping cost, and the loss of discount on service charges and add in the headaches that come with for both you and the funeral home are you really saving and do you really want the headaches that come with being a contractor.
While many of you feel it will drop prices in caskets, which it may do, it does not change the high overhead that a funeral home has and the cost of operations. It means that the overhead gets moved from Merchandise to servcies. This has been going on in Europe for years and has only driven up the botton line price of funeral services. You may be able to buy your casket on line, but you still have to have professional licensed fuenral directors to handle the services and in some states like Pennsylvania that means cremation services also. The public wants to cry out loud when something like Tennessee crematory happens, but then they want to shop alla cart for funerals. Now thing, alla cart at resturants is more $$$$ than buying an entray. Hello, the same is true with funeral servcies. You bring the merchandsie, you will pay higher service fees. Auto repair service charges and cost went up when people started bringing parts to them. Its got to. They have to recover their cost of operation. Current cost of a new funeral home building 2.5 Million dollarls. New Hearse, 120,000.00 Fleet of cars that don’t run on the road everyday but they have to have. Average number of man hours per funeal runs 80 to 12 hours and they do this in 3 to 4 days.
Funerals are one thing where I don’t want to agonize about details and am perfectly OK with just spending the damn money and letting the Funeral director take care of it. During times like those, I have better things to do with my energies than shaving nickles around the edges.
Does the funeral business make a lot of money because of this sentiment? Yes.
Do I care? No.
You won’t see me or mine being buried in Wal Mart caskets any time soon.
That is sad that Wal-Mart is even getting into this market. I know that Costco has a few caskets that they offer online, but i think it just goes too far when wal-mart goes into this business as well. I hate wal-mart and really wish that they would just die, they really are a pain and sure they have good deals, but i try to avoid going there as much as possible.