The other day I told you that I had become privy to a report done on the state of the American Casket industry.  We gave out some insights on the industry and both its past decline and its probable future decline in units sold and dollar amounts sold.

One of the things that I found very interesting in the report was that the key driver of casket sales was not those people that “want” to buy caskets, but it was those people “who don’t” prefer cremation services.  Think about that statement — can you think of another product we buy only because it is an “alternative” to something that we don’t want – that is why casket marketing has been so interesting over the years.  Maybe vegetarians buy vegetables because they “don’t want to eat meat” but I’m guessing that most vegetarians just like eating vegetables.

On the other hand, you have a choice between burial and cremation.  If you choose burial, a casket is just something that comes with that choice.  I don’t think that you are “choosing” to buy a casket.  It is an interesting thought — do you suppose anybody every chose to have full service earth burial just so they could buy a casket?  Or is a casket just something that comes with earth burial and is really, incidental to the thought process of having a funeral?

Here’s some other things in the report.

• There are 93 casket manufacturers in the United States

• Of the 93 manufacturers – the Top 3 have 78.6% of the market share.

• The top market share is held by Batesville – 43.6%, Matthews – 31.8%, and Thacker Casket – 3.1%.

• Of caskets manufactured in the United States 60.7% are metal, 24.8% are wood, and 14.5% are other types which include fiberglass and cloth covered as well as children’s sizes.

• There is little competition from China and Wal-Mart has not carved a niche into the retail casket business.

• The emotional resonance surrounding death care products  have left the industry somewhat immune to foreign competition or pricing pressure from the mass merchandisers.

So, there you have some more information on the American casket industry.  I hope that you found it as interesting as I did.

[wpforms id=”436″ title=”true” description=”true”]