“No industry is immune and no occupation is safe. All of us need to begin to think in terms of our own inner strengths, our resilience and resourcefulness, our capacity to adapt and to rely upon ourselves and our families”
- Steven Pressfield, American Author b. 1943
When many funeral home owners feel that “the bloom is off the rose” in funeral service, one needs to look at an associated industry: flower shops.
In 1929, Christine Medicus opened a flower shop in Catonsville, MD, when her husband Howard lost his job as an electrician. The shop became Hilton Florists and was being operated by grandson Tom Medicus, until this past February 20th. Internet sales, general drop in walk in traffic, the upkeep of an old building, flower costs and general business expenses have made it unprofitable.
Tom’s daughter Krysten lamented to the Baltimore Sun, “It’s sad, it has been in my family forever. It is such a big part of our family and Catonsville.”
Most funeral directors can understand the sentiment.
Where people buy flowers has changed. Supermarkets have floral departments and lower prices due to large size and shared expenses. Wal-Mart, a floral retailer and casket retailer changes the buying habits of the public. We are saddened to see small businesses fail, but where do we buy our Valentine’s Day roses?
Our woes are their woes. Casketed funerals decades ago meant many flowers. Many funeral homes had flower cars, elaborate open Cadillac vehicles to transport the many baskets and sprays. Simpler services and “in lieu of flowers” became our loss and their loss.
The internet has forever transformed the retail marketplace for most businesses. The buying public will purchase almost anything from the comfort of their homes. Florists come in the way of the 1-800 flowers (transitioned cleverly from phone to computer without a name change) to FTD, Teleflora to Proflowers. Most online florists realize they need a local florist that will fill and deliver their orders. The local flower shops lose the walk in trade and become agents for the internet providers. They pay a fee and follow a suggested retail price that provides them a relatively meager profit (much less than the lost walk-ins would provide). They get orders but eventually realize you can’t make a brick and mortar budget on the profit margin provided. Proflowers sells, and ships unassembled floral arrangements directly to the purchaser. It cannot help but to take the joy out of a special day when you have to open a carton and snip, arrange, water and feed your cut flower display. Some may correlate this to the lowest cost final care provider where you must do your own obituary, get your own certified copies of death, obtain a VA marker and burial flag yourself.
Funeral homes have found that more and more people select them on the internet. Not just to see an obituary, but out of town relatives, suddenly called to arrange a service or cremation, turn to online sites to tell them who to call. Those who need to compete in the cremation market often list with internet listings such as cremation.com, have recently required a cremation price list be displayed. Now the online shopper goes by price on screen, rather than you being able to tell your story yourself one to one with the prospective customer. The funeral home may have the greenest lawn and the matching fleet but will that matter in the future to a son thousands of miles away shopping for price online? Many of us have experienced some online casket sale losses but many more are experiencing urns and cremation jewelry going to internet providers. The family will quickly learn the experience of transferring cremains into an urn or into a small pendant at their kitchen table.
When a death occurs out of town, most funeral directors went to their trade directories, which are now online, requiring an ad presence there. As funeral homes are changing, being bought, sold or closed, many turn to the shipping services. Funeral homes agents for these services find it hard to operate within their price requirements, forcing shipping services to turn to lower cost embalming services with low overheads, eliminating the brick and mortar funeral home.
Flower growers in the United States have also suffered in the past decades. In 1980 there were 200 carnation growers in California, and now there are none. Countries like Columbia can grow and ship flowers for less than the cost of production domestically.
How many casket manufacturing plants have been relocated to Mexico, China and other countries?
The banking and loan scandals helped sink many flower shops with “easy money” credit. More than a few funeral homes suffered the same malady.
The florists hold on to some good news. Now that supermarkets are the main supplier of flowers, the increased costs are now hitting them. As more and more commerce flows overseas the focus falls on them to improve working conditions and living standards. The pressure is on globally to improve the environment, adding to their cost of production. The cost of freight and shipping grows and the realization by unions and associations that we must be competitive give hope to domestic production of flowers and funeral supplies.
Will we ever lose all the flower shops? It’s very doubtful as few brides want their wedding flowers from Safeway or Krogers. Who will deliver funeral flowers to the funeral homes and the cemeteries?
The floral industry and the funeral industry are rapidly responding to the revision in the public’s tastes. Physicist Stephen Hawking, a man who certainly knows how to reconcile to the inevitable stated “Intelligence is the ability to change.” The survivors will be those who can.
“Not just in commerce but in the world of ideas too our age is putting on a veritable clearance sale. Everything can be had so dirt cheap that one begins to wonder whether in the end anyone will want to make a bid.”
-Soren Kierkegaard, Danish Philosopher 1813-1855