Forum Moderators: buckworks
You can even add a coffin to your shopping cart. I called them to tell them how in poor taste this was and the operator, far from being helpful, said that "some people have issues with that, but that they do sell a lot."
I told her that at the very leat they could advertise it on a secondary page, not the home page. I guess, I'm not in the demographics they want to attract or keep as a customer, because it seems to work for, them, although in very poor taste.
Were I surfing to a funeral home service vendor, I wouldn't be offended. It's what I expect from them. It's their livelyhood. Nowadays, they even try to cover up their business by marketing the "psychological counselling they offer and all that crap about a better life. You'll rarely see a coffin. Instead, you'll see a grandmother playing with her grandchildren in a garden. That's how people who make caskets market themselves these days. There must be a reason.
But I and most likely all of bulk wholsesale store's customers have never associated them with funeral services.
As for the phone operator, instead of the fake concern tele-operators usually have, she was rather defensive and proud of the coffin on the front page. Let's just say that I won't renew my "exclusive membership" with this wholesaler and that it will lose my business from now on.
I've never been bothered by images of coffins (empty ones). I think they would make useful decorations in most living rooms. Sort of a reminder that life is short so get up off your butt, stop eating ice cream while sitting in front of the babble box (tv), call a friend, call your family, have someone over for dinner. In my book watching TV is good practice for death, so that's why I'd put my reminder there.
Life's short and tenuous and there's lots of horrible things going on in the world. At a deeper level could the coffin have struck a nerve? (Not really asking for an answer.)
OBTW, that headless guy on your home page - the one holding the pumpkin - the toon, ya know? - speaking of coffins, he needs to find one. He's dead, isn't he? ;-)
A local Costco in Chicago rolled out a trial program of selling coffins in the store. While it looks and sounds odd and many people seemed to be put off - they sold so many that it may become a commodity in their other stores.
I wish somebody had told me before I'd put my drink down on top of the coffin!
Actually, I've heard that people make furniture out of those sorts of things.
OBTW, that headless guy on your home page - the one holding the pumpkin - the toon, ya know? - speaking of coffins, he needs to find one. He's dead, isn't he? ;-)
Well, it's a Jack O Lantern and he's a cartoon, so he never was alive :)
But you never really know. I guess the lesson is to stay close to the phones and listen to your customers.
the point is were you looking to buy? because if not, then they didn't loose a sale anyway.
personally in my experience (being a retailer of 20 years) i find that the people who moan most and call products offensive or in bad taste never were buyers or potential buyers anyway, they just like to complain about something
btw. not suggesting you are like that!
Coffins are not offensive. But one does not expect to see a coffin on the front page of a retailer that sells potato chips, socks and gardening equipment. I don't see what's so odd to understand. Someone didn't think this ploy through - or did, and thought they could get away with it.
My opinion is that it's a cheap and disrespectful ploy. As the phone operator confirmed, and as the news report others have mentioned, the coffins earn the retailer lots of money. So they think they can generate even more income by putting a coffin on their front page.
Funeral service vendors are never that aggressive.
Re: Loss of a customer
With this retailer, you MUST purchase a yearly membership. If you don't, you can't shop there. So the moment I have one of their paid membership card, it doesn't matter that I use it only once per year. I'm a customer. If I take the time to go to a brick and mortar retailer's Web site, you can bet that I'm almost ready to make a purchase. Maybe not virtually, but physically.
And whether one is a customer or not really matters not. Cheap ploys and poor taste annoys anyone who visits a Web site, and tell a lot about a company's philosophy. I certainly don't share this retailer's vision.
Anyway, every week, I shop there, so the point is moot.
Funeral service vendors are never that aggressive
Funeral service vendors are (IMHO) worse than used car salesmen!
A friend was making arrangements for his terminally ill mother. He was in the Funeral Home's office when the call came that she had just passed on. The Home's operator said, "Well, the price just went up."
I know of no other industry in which this would be tolerated.
More power to the Costco's and other outlets that are providing some competition to the mortuaries.
(I just haven't figured out the logistics of storing a coffin until my death, nor predicting what my ultimate size might be. That mid section is showing definite signs of middle age bulge :))
WBF
