Ever Loved’s funeral marketplace undercuts undertakers

This isn’t a sympathy grab, just a present anecdote. My wife died 27 hours ago after a long bout with cancer.

I’m going to pay probably upwards of $15k for her funeral because i didn’t plan ahead and there’s no time after the fact. I’m fortunately in a position to do so and am paying for what i want knowing that I’m being taken advantage of. Lesson learned.

If you are planning to go an alternate route i would strongly advise making complete arrangements while you are healthy. You're going to be dealing with heavily entrenched local practitioners and it could be an uphill battle.

Federal law prohibits funeral homes from not accepting caskets from another supplier, or charging more for services if you bring your own. FTC... The Funeral Rule. There are lots of other restrictions on the industry as well (due to past misdeeds)

https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/com...

My family owned and ran a number of funeral homes for ALMOST 100 years. We sold JUST BEFORE the 100 year mark. We are glad we got out when we did, which was 10 years too late in my opinion.

The bottom dropped out of the industry, people don't want to pay for funerals anymore ( very rationally in my opinion ). My family's funeral home and a few other local funeral homes were fighting for scraps. Just like the local shoe store, the funeral home is going the way of the dinosaur. Things were getting desperate. The industry is stodgy and old. My father didn't get into the business to be a fucking overpriced casket salesman.

This seems like a great idea. Not even the funeral homes like having to gouge on caskets.

It is a weird industry and not one I am going to attempt to defend. I will say that almost every culture has some sort of burial ritual, and having elaborate funerals was a sign of respect and a very old practice.

Wow, I love this. Easily overlooked market that is ripe for disruption.

It's not a word I use lightly in 2020. Everyone wants to disrupt some sector, but rarely realistic today in the mainstream segments. This is one of the more forgotten areas that have high margins and that take advantage of grieving by less scrupulous people.

My family has been through the ringer of upselling during a grieving process. Thankfully lot of the process was planned and paid for before the actual death while it is easier to have ones wits about them. We were largely immune, but they still tried.

It may be morbid, but if you can, plan for your or a loved one's passing in advance. Set it all up and the transition will be incredibly smooth allowing everyone to focus on the grieving instead of whether they should buy the marble or granite headstone.

If any one is interested, we bury our own in my family on our ancestral land. We use a plain wooden casket and dig the grave ourselves. If a backhoe from a friend is available it's a bonus.

I support the right to self bury, as most states have done for centuries.

There's a weird idea that government needs to get involved in this and protect funeral home gouging.

In any case total burial, funeral and wake cost can be around $800, if you want.

Ya emotions take a toll on the wallet at funerals.

Here's a cautionary tale if you're involved in estate planning ...

One relative of mine was not sentimental about death and had decades to plan for a cheap funeral. No visitors were expected aside from the wife and daughter. Cremation was fine with him, if no cheaper option was available. "Scatter the ashes on the lake."

What actually happened?

The widow blew so much on his funeral that she won't even admit the amount (think 5 figures.)

"Well we can afford it."

I learned last week when a family member died how important it is to educate yourself on this subject. It was a relatively sudden death and that family member had only verbally told someone how he wanted to be buried but was somewhat vague about even that. The night he died the undertaker asked us to sign for having him embalmed. The next day, when the subject of having him cremated came up at the funeral home someone asked, “But didn’t we have him embalmed?” Had we chosen cremation we would have wasted nearly $900 in embalming. Even then, I question whether it was a necessary expense given it’s not legally required in this jurisdiction.

Ultimately we went with the more expensive option of casket burial because we truly felt that’s what this family member wanted. But I do find it interesting that the night he died, the undertaker all but forced us to sign for embalming. I wonder how often that one act pushes families towards a more expensive option? In our case, the total cost was $10,000 with one of the cheapest caskets they offered and that doesn’t include plot or grave marker.

"That means Ever Loved’s biggest competitors, beyond the standard just accepting the local mortuary’s prices, are Google and Amazon. Often they surface the same prices as Ever Loved with comparable shipping, though Google could sometimes find a slight discount by buying straight from the manufacturer, while Amazon was missing some top brands. Costco and Walmart sell funeral products too."

There's been a slow wave of real-world "X 2.0" over the last 10-15 years, e.g. top golf as a better driving range. I had the idea of "funeral home 2.0", but immediately dismissed it as half-baked, good only for a joke. I see I was wrong.

This is the most dystopian thing I've read all week.

(YC S19)

The next Casper, etc. DTC FB ads are going to be huge for them.

Is this a tech company? I don’t get it.

Honestly I don't understand this obsession people have with where their corpse goes.

I mean, you're dead. If you're buried, cremated, buried at sea or whatever it certainly doesn't matter to you, faith systems notwithstanding.

Perhaps your family will have some psychological attachment to being able to visit your grave but your body doesn't actually have to be there for any of this.

In some places space isn't an issue but in lots of places it is such that there are long waiting times, it's expensive, you only rent your grave spot or some combination of these.

I mean at some point doesn't the Earth become a giant graveyard, assuming death can outpace subduction.

Here's the areas where I have a real problem with the emotional attachment to your corpse: organ donation. Refusal to allow your dead body to literally save other people's lives is the very height of illogical selfishness.

Some religions even prohibit organ donation (or just make it practically impossible). I hope those who holds that view are consistent enough to refuse organ donations.

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