Casket Industry facing Chinese Exports

According to a Bloomberg article, Jim Malamas is trying to disrupt the US casket industry with cheaper Chinese exports.

This is great news for two reasons.

First, competition generally raises both the quality of the products and the satisfaction of the customers. More choices and cheaper price are definitely a good news to the customers.

Second, competition is going to lead to the consolidation of the funeral business, which will increase the efficiencies. For instance, Carriage Services (CSV) had a stellar performance by consolidating mom and pops funeral homes. Yet, the largest three funeral homes only own 20% of the market. Hence, there is still much room for growth.

So all is good right? Unfortunately, there is some downside.

My major concern is the lower quality of Chinese products. It is bad to vilify Chinese products but a lot of Chinese products have records of being cheap and dangerous. I really hope that those caskets are environmentally friendly and does not contain anything toxic that will harm the soil.

Well, in the bright side, here are some eco friendly ways to die. Become food for the soil :D

Or if you are more fashionable you can have your casket more fashionably.



*image from Daily Ma