Internet, technology bringing change

FUNERAL INDUSTRY

By MARGARET STAFFORD

The Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. --- Caskets for sale on the Internet. Web sites, special software and national directories for funeral homes. Creating on-line obituaries and videos to preserve the memory of the deceased forever.

Those are just a few of the services offered this week at the annual convention of the National Funeral Directors Association, highlighting how the Internet and technology are slowly but surely changing the way the funeral industry operates.

"This is the future," Jack Clarkson, marketing director for Heavenlydoor.com, said Tuesday in the exhibition hall of the convention. The company was started eight months ago in Coral Springs, Fla.

The Web site lists funeral parlors, cemeteries, cremation services, flower shops, monument makers, electronic sympathy cards, online obituaries and virtual visits to gravesites.

Funeral home and cemetery owners can be listed on a national database and create their own Web sites, linking them to potential customers and suppliers across the country.

It is all designed to help customers in a difficult emotional time, while increasing profits for funeral providers, Clarkson said.

"People say the Internet seems like kind of a cold way to plan a funeral," he said. "But we think this takes the cold out and still leaves the personal part in. They can do this at home without a lot of pressure."

Many of the companies also will create special memorials to the deceased. For example, Celebrate A Life.com creates online obituaries, and CD-ROMs that hold pictures, audio, messages and mementos from the deceased.

"We're trying to take the old and marry it with the new," said Robert M. Robinson, executive director for the Hermitage, Pa., company. "We do this for the non-techies. And for families that travel all over the world and aren't near the deceased."

A spokesman for the 14,000-member funeral directors association said e-commerce --- along with stores that sell caskets at wholesale prices and other funeral-related businesses --- still aren't a significant part of the industry.

Of the 1.8 million caskets sold in the United States last year, only 35,000 were sold via the Internet, said spokesman Ronald Troyer, who also is a funeral home manager in St. Paul, Minn. Most people still want personal contact while planning a funeral.

"I like to say it's high-tech, but it's not high-touch," Troyer said. "When they're planning a funeral, people need a connection with other human beings."

"People say the Internet seems like kind of a cold way to plan a funeral."

--- JACK CLARKSON,

marketing director for Heavenlydoor.com

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