Funeral Dealers: send you to the other side

Absrtact: Xu Yi's original intention is only to do a website, but after the deep discovery must open the entity shop, can really enter this special profession. According to Xu Yi's assumption, the funeral industry's traditional consumption traps will be transparent, break the original gray channels, cut off the health care workers, doctors, ambulance, mortuary and other gray interests of the transport chain, so that the funeral industry's price level to return to the due level.

"The other side" open and transparent prices detonated the entire funeral industry, in addition, Xu Yi also want to add more services to the other side, integration with the death-related industries. "In fact, death is not terrible, a lot of things are part of the cultural heritage, we hope that through personalized service to subvert the social awareness of death and enhance the emotional experience of the family to cook the funeral." ”

At present, the famous angel investor Xiaoping Investment "The other Shore", three stores have been built. So, what is the market outlook of the funeral and burial electricity supplier?

The following are Xu Yi dictation:

It's a coincidence to get into this business.

In the second half of 2012, an old man died in the family, when dealing with things in the home, cheated, saw the funeral industry opaque. Then met the current partner Wang Dan (i Black Horse Note: The original handle network PR director), just one of Wang Dan's relatives seriously critically ill, but also saw several nurses in order to fight for the so-called "Commission", with the Shroud of the shop move hands to fight the scene. On this basis, we have talked about this industry, think there is a lot of digging space, there are many rules can be broken. At the end of 2012, after two months of market research, we resolutely resigned ourselves to do. Before resigning, I was the CEO of Deshendon Online Pharmacy.

To tell the truth, we are all dry it, dry electricity business, the funeral industry completely do not understand, whether it is the grasp of the purchase channel, or the understanding of the market, have to learn from scratch. The first idea is to do only online Web site, provide payment and comment function, so that all funeral supplies can achieve price transparency. But after the actual investigation found no, this industry is too special, must open the entity shop, can really contact customers to understand their needs, master the entire industry's basic data, so as to truly enter the industry.

At present, Beijing resident population is about 17 million, the annual death rate is about 7.4. The whole city 62 three armour hospital, except 12 similar in the oral hospital this does not involve the death case the hospital, we all visited once, the whole Beijing probably 1500 shroud stores walked more than half. Several problems were found during the investigation.

The entire funeral industry is actually divided into three big chunks, the first one being death, whether at home or in hospital. The second one is cremation, funeral and so on, the last piece is a cemetery, is also the most profitable part. In fact, operating a cemetery is to engage in real estate, we certainly can not do, to provide a number of intermediary services. Funeral Parlour is a monopoly of the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the body of anti-corrosion, make-up, cremation by the state control, can not be involved. So what we can do is just the front end of the section, for the deceased and their families to provide some goods and services.

We can't sell products, we must have service.

Now many street-side shroud shops also provide one-stop funeral services, but the other side to do is to do different.

The first is the price, cut off the gray income part.

At present, from the overall price system of funeral supplies, the same commodity funeral parlour prices are the highest, mortuary second, roadside shroud shop is the cheapest. Although the current state of the funeral supplies to implement the guided prices, but also limited to a certain number, such as Babaoshan funeral homes for low-income people to provide 99 yuan biodegradable paper urn, but in fact very few people will use.

At the same time this industry, because of the low quality of employees, as well as the source is not stable, how many customers a day can not be expected, so the formation of a very traditional, very backward business model. The operators of street-side shroud shops are mostly couples or relatives, for those who enter the door, the boss will ask about the price, the customer said 3,000, the boss will recommend a box, customers say 5,000 may still be this, 10,000 may also be, but in fact the cost of this box is very very low. For example, in our shop sold a casket, we sell 5400 yuan, there is a hospital door of the shop, exactly the same thing, we pretend to be customers in the time, the boss teeth Stomp promise 30,000 sell us. This is the way sales and income model, we call "grey income", the gray revenue part of the give up we already have a great advantage.

Next is the pattern, must use the Internet way to do, provides the product + service, and uses the O2O mode.

March 10, 2013, the other side of the first shop opened in Beijing, East Highland, April 10 website online. The first version of the site is very simple, there is the payment function, the customer orders we will go to distribution, but after the delivery we found it wrong. In this industry, we envision the entry point is to be able to provide more services, the individual completion of a product sales is not what we want. If only sell products on the Internet, there is no difference with Taobao shop, also can not provide follow-up services.

Later, when the revision decided to cancel the payment function, guide customers to come to the store to see. Many customers come just to buy a box, but in the end they will use some of our related services. Selling only one box may be one thousand or two thousand dollars, but if the customer comes to the store, the average customer will spend about 8,000 dollars per store.

There is a problem, many people find it strange, in the end, will someone buy the urn on the internet? Indeed, at present, the 60–70% customers in the other side of the shop are from the line of drainage in. And in a lot of Taobao shop you can also see sales, is really true.

Death is basically divided into two cases, the first is long-term patients, such as cancer, two or three months before the hospital will be notified, so that the family will have sufficient time to prepare, including the search price, choose the right urn, shroud. The customers who come over the line basically belong to this category, and people of all ages have it. The second is accidental death, such as a car accident. Similar to this situation, the family can say what preparation is not, the general situation will go to the hospital door of the Shroud shop inquiries, as long as in, basically be slaughtered.

Many of the hospital nurses now collude with the shroud shops at the hospital entrance. When a person dies, the family has two things that are most urgent. The first thing is to wear clothes, the family is not prepared for the hospital attendant will recommend to the hospital door of which shop. The nurse in the shroud of the highest commission can get 50%, 5000 dollars of clothing to buy back, in fact the shopkeeper got 2500, the nurse received 2500.

After buying clothes, the nurse will say the second thing and dress. Wear clothes this matter, may 500, may 800, perhaps 1000, basically the nurse open mouth to want, anyway the family now also has no way, must find someone to wear. And now next to the kind of small shroud shop, will take the so-called filial piety coerce customers. For example, a box 3,000, 5,000, customers will ask too expensive, ask if it can be cheaper, the boss will say filial piety can also discount? Of course not. Have to say, some people in order to promote sales, really is unscrupulous. This is the current situation in this industry.

The other side is absolutely not allowed to say such words to the staff. If the customer thinks the price is high, there are other products with lower prices to choose from. There are some people who do not understand, ask for a discount, we can do is to try to persuade customers, at most 90 percent. Because the other side has been the price of the middle gray part of all erased, and provide free clothing services.

The 3rd difference is to get through the whole industry chain.

Funeral industry is a very broken market, we hope that the chain of the industry to achieve differentiation.

On the other side of the current product, including the Shroud, urn, net wearing clothing, hearse, cremation arrangements, funeral parlours and other contacts. And the traditional one-stop service is different, the other side of the price is open and transparent, such as the cemetery location and other services we do not return to the point, as far as possible to save money to the customers. In addition, we also provide a number of personalized custom services, such as memoirs, Psychological intervention, life diamonds, space funerals, custom personal painting portraits, custom sculpture, and so on.

Can give a few examples to introduce. Memoirs we are working with a memoir maker of a domestic professional to help the deceased and his family complete the writing and publication of their memoirs. Another example of oil painting, some people think that oil painting is far away from us, in fact, to think of the foreign movies we have seen, often see a scene: There is a rotating staircase, the staircase is Henry to 16, are oil painting. Besides the Ashes diamond, we are a Chinese company's North China General agent, by taking hundreds of grams of ashes, imitation of the Earth's high-temperature and high-pressure environment, burned into diamonds.

Another example of psychological intervention, we served a customer, is a junior girl. Last April her father had a traffic accident and died unexpectedly. The young girl in June to the mid-term exam is unable to review. Her parents were online to find a solution, inadvertently found us, asked whether to do psychological counseling. We have a cooperative psychologist, and finally gave the little girl six classes, about one months, the last little girl's exam results ranked third.

Therefore, the funeral industry involved in the services of the imaginary space is very large, but previously all very scattered, the market is particularly broken, no one has these services strung up, really into an industrial chain. In other words, this is the so-called family heritage, is part of the culture.

You don't want to kill anyone, you want to let everyone die.

We went into this circle for about a year, has let everyone hate, the price of the entire industry is very large, but also appeared a lot of shop to copy the other side of the prices, such as with customers said the other side sell how much they sell, but still do not have a price tag, the most said the other side to sell how much they lower. So they are not afraid to compete, and customers from the other side will probably come back, because in addition to the price, they can feel a lot of different things on the other side. If we really lost some customers because of the price, we are not a pity.

The other side of the ultimate customer is "70, 80" crowd, the first is whenever, and then. These people have the habit of consuming on the Internet, can find us through the Internet, and agree with our idea, agree with the high-end and meticulous service provided by the other shore. Another is 70, 80-year-old people, that is, 70, the parents of the crowd.

At present, the funeral industry does not have a well-known chain brand, and I hope that the other side can do the first, and slowly can produce own-brand products. But because of the particularity of the industry, chain will not be everywhere, the Beijing city a total of four funeral parlours, the south is Daxing, the east is a cottage, the north is Changping, the east is Babaoshan, so our intention in the current stage of Beijing will be covered to these five, that is, east and west, the middle of the Jishuitan shop, Five stores can completely cover the basic needs of the people. For the field market, it is likely to involve a wide range of northward, open a place in various places, because the local customs and culture involved must be cautious.

Of course, this is the future, what we have to do now is to put the existing several stores operating well. This industry is in fact a reputation, often have families to say thank us for our services. Therefore, since we have done this line, we want to do some good deeds, the heavens are watching. We just want everyone to die.