With the NFDA convention going on in Chicago I thought that I would give attendees something to talk about while exploring the Expo floor.

It was only a couple of weeks ago that Funeral Director Daily let you know in this article that Great Britain direct cremation provider Pure Cremation was being put on the sale block by its private equity owner Epiris.  We also told you that while we never saw a published sale price it was expected that Epiris paid up to US $400 million for the company about 2 and one-half years ago in 2023.

This article from Britain’s Sky News through Yahoo Finance makes note that private equity company Cinven  “is plotting a takeover of one of Britain’s biggest funeral providers (Pure Cremation) in a deal which could value it at more than £500m (US$ 665 million).”

The article also states that the price could reach up to US$ 931 million.

You can access the website for private equity company Cinven here.

You can access the website of Pure Cremation here.

Related —  It’s been very interesting to watch the growth of Pure Cremation which was founded only 10 years ago in 2015.  Bryan Powell, co-founder of Pure Cremation, was one of Funeral Director Daily’s first European subscribers and we corresponded with many emails about Death Care changes in the US and Great Britain.  In the early days of Funeral Director Daily Bryan was one of my only contacts for news about the business in the United Kingdom.  At one time back in 2021 or 2022 he invited me to London to speak to the European Cremation Operators about the Death Care business in the USA.

There is no doubt that Bryan and his wife Catherine were on the right track about the evolution of funeral customs in the United Kingdom.  There is also no doubt that in only a few short years they “built the brand” for direct cremation in the United Kingdom that has became established and valuable.

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

I learned through an article from Sky News and in this article from KillBait that Epiris, the private equity firm that acquired London area-based Direct Cremation provider Pure Cremation just over two years ago, is beginning a process to sell the company.

Pure Cremation, arguably the most financially successful start-up in Death Care business history started in 2015 by husband/wife founders Bryan and Catherine Powell.  The timing was evidently perfect for the business which serviced the cremations of Death Care clientele who preferred “simple services with no mourners present”.

That type of service, now christened “Direct Cremation” has grown exponentially since that time in Great Britain, somewhat driven by a combination of price, simplicity, and a decline in religious funeral traditions.

The Powells were quick to learn of the value of Preneed and Pre-arrangements for Pure Cremation.  They employed an aggressive marketing campaign for Preneed with an advertising budget stressing the Pure Cremation “No fuss” cremation options.  According to this 2022 article from Sky News, they sold over 65,000 preneed policies in 2021.   In my opinion, greatly increasing the value of the company.

While no purchase price was, to my knowledge, ever reported when private equity company Epiris purchased Pure Cremation in July 2023, Sky News articles estimated that the company was worth “up to US$ 533 million” at the time.

The above linked KillBait article suggests “Although the current owners (Epiris) are targeting a sale worth upwards of £500 million (US$ 667 million), estimates suggest the business could fetch as much as £700 million (US$932 million) based on its profitability.

Here is the July 31, 2023, press release from Epiris announcing that they had purchased Pure Cremation.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  From my point of view “Growth Companies” are companies that increase revenue and value greatly in a short period of time.  They do so, in many cases, because they have invented new “widgets” that consumers prefer over other options.  For instance “Vizio” creates “smart TV’s” that consumers now prefer over old analog television sets.  The rapid growth of Vizio, which is owned by WalMart, certainly would qualify the company, in my book, as a “Growth Company”.

As an aside here. . . .just think of the opportunities for WalMart to build relationships with those free (advertiser supported) content streaming companies such as Tubi, Pluto, and others.  WalMart can probably make agreements to advertise their products on those streaming services in return for the opportunity for those services to be “imbedded” in the Vizio product.  As long as that Vizio smart TV is in the family room WalMart can probably arrange to have low-cost access to advertising and the opportunity to customize (through AI) those ads to the content a viewer watches. No wonder they sell those TVs so inexpensively — they are not only viewing screens but advertising mechanisms set up right in your television-watching room for WalMart.

Back to the article, compare that thought process of a “Growth Company” with funeral home public companies such as Service Corporation International and Carriage Services. . . . who I look at as mature companies whose operations and finances, in my opinion, operate more like utility companies.  That is, they are “Slow-growth”, generally through acquisitions, funded by debt rather than high-growth cash-flow, without the fast-growing “new widget” or idea that could propel them into “Growth companies”.

In my opinion, Pure Cremation is somewhat different and exhibits itself as more of a “Growth Company” that can fetch a higher valuation for its company because of the long-range, hypothetical growth potential based on the “new widget” of Direct Cremation coupled with aggressive Preneed marketing and sales.

Again, in my opinion, there is nothing wrong with “slow, methodical growth” of a business.  However, businesses need to know what they are.  Later in this article is a chart that I made of four public Death Care stocks along with a couple of “new widget” growth companies.  Again, in my opinion, “Growth Companies” have a characteristic of “higher potential gains accompanied by more financial risk” and companies that operate in a field such as traditional Death Care and have “Slow-Growth” characteristics of “slower growth and less financial risk”.

The chart below is representative of that phenomena.  It shows the annual revenue of the companies that comprise the Funeral Director Daily Death Care Index (DCI) and two other “new widget” public growth companies.  It also shows the value of those companies as indicated by Market Capitalization (Defined as the Stock price x Number of Outstanding shares of stock).  (Note:  All values come from Seeking Alpha data as of October 9, 2025.)

Again, at least from my perspective, it is very easy to see that the Death Care companies do not have a high valuation in relation to the revenues that they bring in —  more than likely because of their “slow-growth” perception to investors.  I see that is where Pure Cremation differs from them in that they have the growth expectation of the consumer’s increased use of “Direct Cremation” raising their value.

Market Capitalization of Death Care Companies and “True Growth” Companies

At any rate, it will be interesting to see who might be the purchaser of Pure Cremation.  It very well could be a public company that wants to add a perceived “high growth” company to its portfolio.

Disclosure:  The author of this article for Funeral Director Daily is a shareholder of Service Corporation International, Carriage Services, Security National Financial Corporation, ATS Spacemobile, and Applied Digital Corporation.

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

The question posed in the headline is interesting.  What is happening in Great Britain may be a precursor of what could happen in North America about the billing amount to consumers for the growing trend of Direct Cremations.  A recent 2025 survey of 200 funeral directors and 6,000 adults showed that Direct Cremations without services are now chosen by 15.3% of Brits — up from 12% just last year.  You can read about the survey in this article from Funeral Service Times which may, however, put up pay a wall for you.

The survey also showed, however, that  Great Britain’s independent funeral directors have “reduced the cost” of Direct Cremations 0.6% in the past year with the average price now being US$ 2,524.  The survey and report, conducted by Funeral Solution Expert (FSE) and the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors (SAIF), noted that “. . .Market leader Pure Cremation charges £1,495  (US$ 2,014) for an at-need direct cremation – £378  (US$ 510) less than the independent average, but its prepaid plan has climbed 25% in three years to £1,995 (US$ 2,688), higher than many local (funeral home) equivalents.”

Declan Maguire, immediate past president of SAIF made these comments on the pricing situation, “While on the face of it national operators still appear cheaper, the final cost of a direct cremation with a big brand can work out the same or even more than an independent funeral director. This is because small firms tend not to disaggregate their prices, meaning the advertised cost is exactly what a consumer will pay.”

When you couple that thought with the FSE finding that “most bereaved families prefer their loved one to be cared for within 15 miles of home” you begin to see some of the challenges national online cremation providers face.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  I’ve been in tune with branding and building brands since the 10th grade when a speaker who owned a used car business named “Sun Auto” came to our business class to discuss how he built his business.  I distinctly remember this person telling us when he came to town there were other family-owned automobile businesses and he had to forge a market for his cars.  He successfully did so with billboards with a simple “Sun logo” all over town while the other dealers just used their names such as Smith Autos, Johnson Autos, etc.

That story is one of the reasons that upon becoming the manager of our funeral home I immediately visited with an advertising agency about adopting a logo for our funeral home.  Up until that time all the funeral homes just operated as family names with no other identity.  We continue to use the same logo and marks today with some simple up-to-date changes.  And, I think the identity played a more than casual role in our success.

I continue to wait for a true national cremation provider in America.  There are some “wannabees” and some of them are with very big companies who have cremation provider businesses under a separate consumer brand (name).  However, in my thought process, none of these entities have a true national profile.

I recently read the following in a Senior Note Prospectus from Service Corporation International (SCI):  “We are well known for our Dignity Memorial^® brand, North America’s first transcontinental brand of deathcare products and services.”

I don’t agree with that statement because I really don’t see “Dignity Memorial” known as a house-hold brand name.  Maybe I’m wrong but I think that is a stretch.  Quite frankly, I don’t think SCI has put enough of an effort into the branding of their funeral homes with this name as in most cases it is still the “acquired local name” that has pull in the local markets.

And, I think that “acquired local name” pull is one reason that there is no true national brand for funeral homes or direct cremation providers in North America at this time.  I think that same reasoning proves to be a headwind for those that want to establish a national network of cremation centers.

Another headwind to these “wannabee” providers is the vast amount of “flyover” country in America.  While the density-rich urban areas of our country are perfect for the high-volume, low-margin direct cremation operators there is no such opportunity in flyover country where volumes will be low because of the population density issue.  Pure Cremation may be finding that their costs are rising as they move from serving London to serving the all of England.

So, maybe this “cost realization” of serving larger geogrpahic areas to those that want to be identified as a “national brand” will raise the price of online direct cremation operators.  And, if it does, then the ability of local independent operators to compete on price will be coupled with most families desire to be served by a company within 15 miles of home and be a well-needed shot-in-the-arm for local operators . . . .  and another obstacle for their online direct cremation competitors.

Here are some Direct Cremation operators with large (but not as yet national footprint):

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

John Adams, currently a past-President of Great Britain’s National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD), is a change agent in the Death Care space.  His advocacy for an elementary school curriculum that includes a course on “Bereavement” in Great Britain got him time to present the idea in Parliament and impress the members of that institution enough to look into the possiblities.

Adams also produces a periodic podcast titled “Death – A Changing Industry“.  One of the latest episodes featured  Kelly Scott, President of the Australian Funeral Directors Association.  The podcast centered around the power of ritual, connection, and community in and around funerals.

From my point of view, the podcast is a really powerful discussion about why Direct Cremations with No Services (DCNS) can potentially have long-range negative effects on society.

In what many may call a cliche aimed at the success of Great Britain’s Pure Cremation who promote DCNS as the “no fuss alternative to the funeral”, the teaser for the podcast states “Funerals aren’t about fuss – they’re about healing, presence, and human connection.”

You can watch and listen to this episode of “Death – A Changing Industry” via accessing this YouTube connection.

Related Article — Members of Parliament show support for Children’s Bereavement lessons.  BBC News December 3, 2024

Related Article — Bridgnorth funeral director honored by King Charles for services to business.  Shropshire Star November 25, 2022

Funeral Director Daily take:  Funeral Director Daily has readers in all English speaking parts of the world and because of that I watch what is happening in the Death Care space of those areas.  It’s really apparent to me that Death Care practices are somewhat coalescing around certain universal practices in those countries —- and one of those practices is increasingly Direct Cremation with No Services or Ceremony.

It’s also apparent that the Death Care bereavement providers in all of those different locales are concerned that the needs of the survivors are being met by this Death Care option of consumers.

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

Service Corporation International (SCI), the largest funeral home operator in North America, has grown its “Consolidated Funeral Revenue” 20.8% from 2019 (the latest year not affected by the pandemic) through 2024.  Their annual financial report lists this number as $1.92 billion in the year 2019 and $2.32 billion in the most recent year of 2024.

That math would then equate to an annual average rate of revenue growth for those five years of 4.16%.  In my opinion, that’s a pretty good rate for, as stock-picker Peter Lynch would say, a “slow-growth nickel at a time” industry.

Neptune Society

However, when you dive a little deeper into the SCI report on “Consolidated Funeral Revenue” you will find a listing for “Non-funeral home” revenue and when the math is done on that line item you will find that it has grown 81% or has an incredible annual growth rate of 16.2% over the past five years.  In 2019 SCI reported $52.2 million of “Non-funeral home” revenue and in 2024 the company reported $94.8 million in that same category.

Here’s how SCI defines “Non-funeral home” revenue in its report, “Non-funeral home revenue represents services sold on a preneed or atneed contract through one of our non-funeral home sales channels (e.g. SCI Direct). . ”

In a 2022 Investor Day presentation, that you can access here,  SCI intimates that this channel includes Neptune Society

A National Cremation Society location

and National Cremation Society operations.  That same presentation mentions that, at that time, they operated 109 locations of this type in 31 states.

Here’s some other information that is pointed out about SCI Direct in that presentation that are features of this segment of SCI which the company says benefits from an “Expanding market”:

• (It is an) Asset Light preneed model serving the direct cremation consumer
• (It is an) Incremental Channel to capture the price sensitive consumer
• (It offers) Simple product offerings and packaged pricing
• (It has) growing volume and average

That same 2022 Investor Day presentation claimed that SCI Direct brought home $37 million in gross profit for the year 2021.  And, if you check the 2021 annual report you will find that the “Non-funeral home” revenue was listed at $74.1 million estimating that the gross profit margin of SCI Direct could be as high as 50%.

That same year, the gross profit percent for the entire Consolidated Funeral Revenue of SCI was listed at 26.7%.

Here is the website for SCI’s National Cremation Service brand

Here is the website for SCI’s Neptune Society brand

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take: I started researching this because last week I took part in a Continuing Education seminar with a few other funeral directors.  A couple mentioned to me that they had seen their Direct Cremation with No Services case volume rise fairly rapidly in the last year or so.

I think that these statistics from SCI bear out that situation is happening.  While revenues for SCI’s funeral service overall increased at an annual rate of 4.16%, revenue for “Non-funeral” channels increased four times that percentage.  I think that is a pretty good indication that the funeral consumer is asking for “less”. . . . . Whatever “less” may be.

I also think that there is a lot to be optimistic about with these numbers.  In extrapolating the “ballpark” figures, SCI “Non-funeral” channels did $74.1 million of business in 2021 out of 109 locations.  That’s an average revenue of $679,816 per location.  And, if it truly had a 50% gross profit margin that would leave each location with about $340,00o to pay the bills.

When I look at those numbers a couple of things come to mind:

1. Margins of that nature can support this business model
2. Location overheads need to be less than historic traditional funeral home structures — both in physical structure and employee work schedule structures to make the expense side of the equation work.
3. Direct cremation is a volume business  —  high volume operations will do very well. . . . Low volume operations will struggle to survive.

I finally surmise that if this is the “Death Care” that the consumer wants, we will see more and more consolidation of the traditional funeral home operations in a necessary move to lower overhead cost per case by increasing case volume per location.

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

In the years that I’ve been publishing Funeral Director Daily I’ve witnessed those in Great Britain become concerned because approximately 20% of the country’s deaths have been memorialized with only a “Direct Cremation”.   Just so we are on the same wave length for purposes of this article’s discussion, here is how one British company defines “Direct Cremation”:

“Also known as a cremation without ceremony or a basic cremation, a direct cremation is a cremation that family and loved ones don’t attend”

That same company says this about the rise of “Direct Cremation” in the United Kingdom. . . .”Cremations are the most common type of funeral in the UK. In 2023, 53% of funerals were traditional cremations. This has dropped, however, from 74% in 2019, while direct cremations have risen from 3% in 2019 to 20% in 2023.”

“Traditional cremations” would have included some type of service and family attendance at a visitation or memorial service in addition to the cremation.

One thing that I’ve learned in my career is that the funeral home business is truly local in nature but consumers eventually follow a national trend in services selected.  If that hypothesis is true, then I think trending statistics indicate that North America’s traditional funeral homes will see a rapid increase in “Direct Cremation with No Service” choices by consumers.

I’ve been in the business for over 40 years now and as I witnessed Great Britain’s Direct Cremation percentage incease every year up to, and probably over, 20% by 2025 I thought that was a rapid growth.  However, there is some data that might lead one to believe that the North American “Direct Cremation” rates may be twice that percentage number.

I recently received the 2025 Performance Tracker X Trends and Insights Report published by Johnson Consulting Group (JCG) and powered by J3 Tech Solutions.  It is data driven by 135,100 total funeral home contracts in 2024 that represent 113,921 sales and survey data records. . . . .That’s 3.7% of the estimated 3.046 million deaths in America for 2024 and may be the most comprehensive data available except for Service Corporation International’s (SCI) closely held internal data on the 355,000 or so services that they provide annually (about 12% of US deaths).

SCI does make public the percentage of what they call their Comparable Cremation Rate which is defined by them as “the total cremation rate including all sales channels” (of their business).  I take that to say that “all sales channels” not only includes their traditional funeral homes but their cremation operations such as Neptune Society as well.  Their 2024 annual report lists that number as 64.4%. . .meaning that 64 out of every 100 dispositions they performed were cremations.

Others also provide cremation rates to the public.  For instance JCG’s At-Need cremations came in at 58% of deaths and the Cremation Association of North America’s (CANA) 2023 cremation rate was at 60.6%.

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

When you couple those numbers with information and data from the JCG Trends and Insight Report one can hypothesize the “Direct Cremation” percentage of dispositions in North America — at least with the data they have provided.  The JCG Trends and Insights Report has data on “case mix” of cremation dispositions.

That “case mix” section of that report indicates that 69.7% of all cremations in 2024 were “Direct Cremations”, 11.3% were Traditional (casketed) cremations, and 19.0% were cremations with memorial services.  The report also has a “case mix” for burial dispositions that falls this way. . . 81.4% of burials were “traditional burials”, 13.6% of burials were Graveside Service only burials, and 5.0% were “Immediate burials” — meaning no services at all.

While these are the “case mix” numbers from the JCG Trends and Insights Report, they may or may not be the close to the exact numbers of the “case mix” for North America.  It could be argued that Johnson Consulting’s reporting clients are “more or less” direct cremation oriented than others.  But using a statistical sample that is 3.7% of all deaths and includes 41 states in the data, I’m presuming that the statistical sample input data for my calculations is at least “in the ballpark”.  Using 3.7% of the death data is much more representative than any presidential poll — and those polls can be pretty accurate.

From those available numbers, we will use CANA’s percentage rate of 60.6% and the “case mix” numbers on over 113,000 sales records from the Trends and Insights Report, one can get a rough idea of the “case mix” of all dispositions in North America.  Using the numbers from both CANA and the Trends Report here’s how the “ballpark” math on those disposition choices works out for every 100 deaths :

• 42.5%  —  Direct Cremation

• 31.7%  —  Traditional Burial

• 11.6%  —  Cremation with Memorial

•   6.9%  —  Traditional Cremation

•   5.3%  —  Graveside Burial Services

•   1.3%  —  Immediate Burial – No Services

Note:  *Not exactly 100% because of rounding

So, when I see those “Disposition/Memorialization” method choice numbers I am somewhat shocked that the “Direct Cremation with no services” in North America has moved to a choice of 42.5% of consumers.  Fifty years ago that choice of consumers was about 90% Traditional Burial.  There is no doubt that there has been “Change”.

And I’m guessing that change will continue.  There will be other choices that, while minimal today, will grow in practice.  They include natural organic reduction and alkaline hydrolysis.

Change always happens. . . .it brings both risk and opportunity —  There is no doubt that these numbers show change is happening.  It leads me to another portion of the JCG Trends and Insights Report that I found very interesting.  That being the data on “How or why a particular provider was chosen”.

It is interesting to note that of those that selected the “Traditional Burial” option, 29.8% of them had used the chosen funeral home previously.  For those that selected the “Direct Cremation” option, only 19.0% of them had used the chosen funeral home previously.

In addition to that, of those that chose the “Traditional Burial” option, 0.9% chose the funeral home because of its website, 0.9% chose the funeral home because of online ratings, and 2.3% chose the funeral home because of price.

In contrast to that, of those that chose the “Direct Cremation” option, 3.9% chose the funeral home because of its website, 3.5% chose the funeral home because of online ratings, and 8.8% chose the funeral home because of price.

Those numbers tell me that the consumers for these differing Death Care services are different consumers.  My first thought on the subject is that “Traditional Burial” consumers are satisfied customers willing to go the same route for the next death.  And, that the “Direct Cremation” consumers are customers who are “searching” for the proper fit for their needs, including almost 10% of them who are looking at price.

It leads me to believe that those traditional funeral facilities that are content with serving the previously served are at risk of losing case numbers if they are not willing to change a portion of their marketing to reach out to the consumers “searching” for that proper fit for their changing needs.

And to those start up firms who may specialize in “Direct Cremation” with no services, it appears that you can benefit by reaching out to this new consumer who is changing the landscape of Death Care.

In any case. . . .I see change happening — and happening faster than I realized.

For your own free copy of the Johnson Consulting Group Trends and Insight Report click here.

Related Article — “Why are direct cremations so popular?”  Golden Charter Funeral Plans  (2024 article) Great Britain

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

There has probably not been a Death Care company that had as rapid an accension as British direct cremation provider Pure Cremation.  Founded in 2015 as a direct cremation company by the husband and wife team of Bryan and Catherine Powell history shows that the company conducted about 1,000 cremations in 2017 and about 2,000 cremations in 2018.

It was at that point in 2018 that they received a US $10 million investment by private equity firm Puma Investments.  At that time, according to this article from Funeral Director Daily, Puma Investment Director Elliot Kaye made these comments:

“. . (the) firm is putting money behind what he hopes is a winning combination of an experienced management team with a very disruptive business model within a very established market.”

 

While the cost of Pure Cremation’s services to a family start at about US $1600, Mr. Kaye believes that cost is not the driving factor of the company’s rapid growth.  “The country is getting less religious and also less traditional across the board”, he said.

It turns out that Mr. Kyle and his team at Puma Investments read the market correct.  This 2022 article from Sky News of Great Britain points out that the Powells were interested in exiting from their ownership in Pure Cremation and the figure put out there for the acquisition of their company was north of $US 500 million.

By that time Pure Cremation was not only a direct cremation provider but a major source of preneed funding as well.  The article states “The Powells’ new holding company, Cognicent, has established itself as a significant disruptor in the UK’s late-life planning sector, recently becoming the UK’s largest seller of funeral plans.”

While we don’t know, from the article, how many cremations Pure Cremation conducted in 2021, the article states that the preneed arm, Cognicent, “sold over 65,000 preneed policies garnering more than US$ 65 million in revenue” that year.

And in 2023, as you can read in this article, the Epiris Fund agreed to acquire Pure Cremation.

I have been very fortunate in that, almost from the beginning of Funeral Director Daily, Pure Cremation’s Bryan Powell has been a subscriber and would contact me from time to time via e-mail.  We became friendly enough colleagues that if I needed information on the Death Care profession in Great Britain I would contact Bryan and he even invited me to speak to European cremation operators at a convention in London back in about 2021 or 2022.

He’s told me no secrets about Pure Cremation’s operations and success, but I’ve got my own reasons why they became so successful.  Here they are — in my order of importance.

1. Creating the “No fuss” funeral brand through innovative mass media marketing.

2. Building future services through massive Preneed marketing

3. Building potential customer trust by knowing the value of “Star Ratings” with customer service.  They continuously note their ratings of 4.9-5.0 in their media placements.  It is my opinion that “Star Ratings”, which give some indication of experiential satisfaction, are very important to the next generation of consumers.

4. Incredible customer service that creates those star ratings in the first place.  They will pick up the deceased anywhere in Great Britain at no extra cost, they hand deliver the cremated remains to your door, and they provide the services that were promised with no additional costs.

5. Knowing and understanding the “changing consumer” of Death Care.

6. Price

According to a recent article that I read Pure Cremation’s direct cremation price as of today is about US$ 1,772.  This recent article from the Doncaster (Great Britain) Free Press makes note of a start-up in Doncaster that is going to challenge Pure Cremation by coming out with direct cremation pricing of about US$ 1,292 — about US$ 500 less than Pure Cremation.

It will be interesting to see if this company, in light of the fact that my opinion of low price is not necessarily why people choose Pure Cremation, takes away Pure Cremation market share to any great extent.  And, even if they do, with that less expensive price, will they have a margin to operate with?

Related Article — “My mum’s dying wish saved us US $ 4,500 on her funeral — and it was still magical”.  In reference to a Pure Cremation service.  The Daily Record (Great Britain)

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“A servant’s attitude guided by Christ leads to a significant life”

About a month ago I read this article from Yahoo Finance titled, “Retail employees are working fewer hours.  Here’s why that is a risk to the economy”.  While the article was good and informative in its own right a portion near the end caught my eye and I related it to Death Care. . .and especially online Direct Cremations.

Here’s the quote that interested me, “While increased job cuts and elevated levels of executive turnover within the retail industry won’t likely spur cuts across the economy or an economic downturn, it does highlight a noteworthy trend. Unprecedented disruption driven by e-commerce and technology is widening the gap between winners and losers, a challenge playing out far beyond the retail sector.”  (Bold empahsis added by Funeral Director Daily)

My belief is that “if” unprecedented disruption by e-commerce is happening, then it is happening in “Death Care” right now and we just don’t realize it yet.  My guess is that if it is happening in Death Care with consumer choice, then the most likely place that it is happening is in online cremation services.

There’s plenty of players in that game. . .some have been there for some time, but does anybody have it right yet?  And, there is a lot at stake, because if you believe that the future of human disposition will be cremation by a wide-margin over earth burial, the company that becomes the national household name for cremation disposition will gain the market share and become the dominant national brand.

There is a process moving the Death Care consumer to comfortability with online cremation.  That process moves something like this:

1. Getting comfortable with cremation over earth burial
2. Getting comfortable making major purchases online . . .that includes pre-payment for future services
3. Being comfortable with making Death Care disposition a transaction rather than an experience and/or Getting comfortable with planning Death Care memorial/celebration experiential events without the use of a funeral director

In my book, once a consumer gets through that checklist, I believe that online cremation purchases will move quickly to the forefront for many Death Care consumers.

However, an expert in the online world has told me that one of the hold-ups at this time is the reluctance of the consumer/purchaser to follow through with an “online” pre-payment of up to $3,000 or more for pre-arrangements.  And, even at the lowest costs, that’s about the minimum for a husband/wife package.  It somewhat proves to me that there still needs to be a little “prodding” by sales staffs to put pre-arrangements on the book.

Although upstart Direct Cremation provider Pure Cremation was able to figure it out in Great Britain as, according to this article, the company was able to sell 65,000 preneed policies in one year (2022). . . .albeit at only about $US 1,000 per policy.

In my opinion, here are some of the companies that are vying to be this “disruptive” force in North America.  (You can click on their name to go to their website.)

Related — Former SkipTheDishes CEO, Kevin Edwards, joins Eirene as new Chief Operating Officer

Tom Anderson
Funeral Director Daily

Funeral Director Daily take:  It is my opinion that America is now a “cremation country” and we will stay that way for the foreseeable future.  Yes, Natural Organic Reduction, Green Burials, and Alkaline Hydrolysis will join earth burial and be chosen for disposition more often than today, but we will remain a cremation nation.

And, I believe that we will also move to a less traditional mode of memorial services and/or celebrations.  Because of that consumers will more and more, over time, get comfortable with online arrangements.  That’s why there is so much at stake for these companies working to get to a critical mass for their services.

The other thought I have about this topic is that I believe the cremation provider that can get the Preneed side of the equation down right so that the consumer has confidence in putting money away ahead of time, will be the cremation provider that moves forward fastest.

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