Wal-Mart Stores is very rarely the first at anything. The chain has made a living by watching what others do and adapting formats, products and services to fit its business. Typically, it does this very well.
The latest case in point is the announcement that the company has gone into the business of selling funeral caskets and urns online. Back in May 2005 when Costco began selling funeral urns (it had already been selling caskets), 69 percent of respondents to a RetailWire poll thought the warehouse club chain was onto something. We agreed and wrote:
We think it was Mark Twain who said, "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
Dying is an expensive proposition. Although it does weird us out some, we have to congratulate Costco for addressing the real need to make burying or cremating a loved one more affordable.
We personally know of at least one woman who donated her body to a medical school, in part because of what it would save her family in funeral home and related expenses.
Coming
back to today and Wal-Mart, The Associated
Press reported that the retailer has
put 15 caskets and dozens of funeral urns on its website. Prices,
as you would expect, are significantly lower than what retailers
would pay at a funeral home. Federal law requires that funeral
homes accept caskets that are ordered and Wal-Mart only accepts
returns on items that are delivered damaged.
Ravi Jariwala, a spokesperson for Wal-Mart Stores, said the company plans to eventually sell more than 200 products made by Star Legacy Funeral Network, including pet urns and memorial jewelry in addition to the items already on walmart.com.
R. Brian Burkhardt, a funeral director who writes a blog as "Your Funeral Guy," told The Associated Press, "You can get a quality casket for $1,000 rather than pay $2,000, $3,000 or $5,000 in a funeral home. That's where it helps the consumer."
Discussion Questions: What will Walmart.com's sale of caskets and urns mean for the funeral home business? Are consumers ready in large numbers to start buying funeral products from retailers?