Buying a cremation urn online is increasingly being recognized as a great way to save a lot of money on the overall cost of a memorial service. It is also a great way for family members who live far from each other to collaborate on an urn choice, and, still further, it leads to a surprisingly large selection of cremation urns. So, while it may initially seem strange to even think of buying a cremation urn online, the practice is proving to be very popular amongst those who have lost a loved one and those who are simply looking for a cremation urn that can store their own cremation remains. It is becoming increasingly popular for people to order their own cremation urn and place it on display on a mantle – or some special shelf – in their home well before the time in which it will be needed. Couples, also, have been known in recent years to find much comfort in selecting their own companion cremation urn and, likewise, seeing it adorn their home for many years before one of the two passes on. These purchases are facilitated by many memorial products websites that offer thousands of cremation urns for sale. Perhaps even more surprisingly, many of these websites also offer astoundingly friendly, efficient and even compassionate customer service – along with great consumer advice for those who often have difficulty working with stuff, expensive, and even abusive funeral homes (who also typically offer cremation urns for sale and do their best to discourage their clients from discovering that urns – and even many other funeral-related products such as headstones and caskets – are typically available at much lower cost and wider variety from companies that sell the online.)
In this day in which innovations of the memorial products industry are making headlines in national news outlets across the United States, it is sometimes lost in the telling of the stories that the advent of online shopping has more or less made the many new interesting products possible. It seems doubtful, for example, that the advent of products such as cremation jewelry, keepsake cremation urns, and various types of art that actually incorporate a person’s cremation remains into the handmade piece itself, would have come about without the help of websites that offer cremation urns online. These sites offer families looking to memorialize a loved one in a grand way the opportunity to buy a cremation urn – the staple memorial purchase of families whose loved one has been cremated – at often a fraction of the price of what they, in the years before the explosion of internet retailing, would be asked to pay for a similar urn sold by a funeral home. And that leads to more money being available to fuel the creative economic expansion of the memorial products market. Yes, it is true that families can simply put their savings in their pocket – and many, of course, do – but others find it useful (or perhaps helpful is the better word) while they are shopping for a cremation urn online, to use the money they are saving to buy one of the many complimentary memorial products offered at fair prices by companies that specialize in selling cremation urns online, or to learn more about Direct Cremation: Costs, Process, and More.
Because selling cremation urns online has become such a key component to the memorial products market, we offer the following overview of what is available, why funeral consumers should consider searching online for a cremation urn and how cremation urns can be purchased online.
Why Buy a Cremation Urn Online
Buying a cremation urn online is generally consider a very smart choice by most consumer activist experts who follow the memorial products trade, especially how it relates to funeral homes and the history that trade has of abusive, high pressure sales tactics and monopolistic practices that can sometimes result in artificially inflated prices. Companies that sell cremation urns online are typically seen by these experts as a friend to those who have lost a loved one and, in their state of emotional turmoil and grief, often find themselves thankful for the up-front and transparent pricing information and honest, cordial, and non-pressurized customer service often offered by websites that sell cremation urns online. Simply put, buying a cremation urn online can be a way to save a lot of money.
Whereas funeral homes that offer cremation urns will often show customers their selection of urns without any prices displayed immediately – leaving customers guessing as to the cost – cremation urns sold online almost always list the price very blatantly and immediately next to the picture of the urn. This practice allows for consumers to easily compare prices and helps assure that, by the magic of economic competition, cremation urns sold online are not sold at artificially high prices. Meanwhile, the funeral home industry (while legally required to disclose prices on a general price list) has historically been reluctant to share pricing information with customers who are simply deciding which company to do business with. Their preference tends to be to wait until a customer has made his or her decision to buy a good or service they offer before finally disclosing the price. This decidedly unfriendly practice has led over the years to an anti-competitive spirit in the entire industry and that has led to what economic experts (as well as consumer activists) call artificially inflated prices. When pricing information in an entire industry is not made readily available to customers who wish to select the product that offers the best value, the industry, by the very nature of the laws of economics, is able to command higher prices than they might otherwise. In most cases, the natural forces of economic competition works against this situation, as some company in just about every industry is happy to win new customers by proudly advertising their lower-than-the competition prices. In the funeral home industry, however, companies managed to work together – though not necessarily on purpose – to create an entire industry in which advertising prices was shunned upon, and the companies realized that this environment worked to their economic advantage. Eventually, however, government regulators working on behalf of consumers who were being abused by the anticompetitive practices created laws specific to the funeral home industry that outlawed the practice of being secretive about prices. As a result, funeral homes can no longer legally refuse to answer questions about prices that come from potential customers (or anyone, for that matter), but, unfortunately for the consumer, funeral homes are not legally required to be blatant in their advertising of prices. So long as a funeral home has available for the asking a “general price list” showing all prices for all goods and services they offer, their websites and newspaper ads, and even their slickly produced brochures about their company do not have to mention prices of cremation urns (and other memorial products). Many funeral homes still today follow the letter, but not the spirit, of the law requiring them to be up front about pricing.
And, fortunately for families that have lost a loved one, companies that sell cremation urns online are typically of the opposite breed. In their practice, price is usually the main selling point of an urn. They realize that – especially in this day in which many consumers have access to photo-recognition software — it is possible for families to easily compare the prices of several different websites that offer the same or similar cremation urns. So, their very livelihood depends upon their being able to offer constantly competitive prices. And that is the way things should be in a free economy. Therefore buying a cremation online is, for many people, a very patriotic thing to do.
Types of Urns Available Online
Customers who have never thought about buying a cremation urn online are typically very surprised when they begin their question. Literally thousands of cremation urns are available on just about every site that offers them for sale. And the variety of materials, styles, colors, and designs is astounding – sometimes to the point of being overwhelming at first glance for some families.
Wood urns depicting nature scenes are available online as well as ceramic urns that adhere to the classic vase-like look that many people have traditionally come to associate with cremation urns. Traditional metal urns are also very popular – and often the least expensive, sometimes available for even less than $100. And, of course there is an amazing variety of specialty urns available to suit just about anyone’s interests or personality. Urns shaped as small motorcycle gasoline tanks, for example, are increasingly popular among biking enthusiasts, many of whom have been known to find an urn that matches the design of their favorite motorcycle and proudly display it, decades before passing on, in their garage where they can be found tinkering with their machine just about any evening. Truly the sky is the limit when it comes to finding online the perfect cremation urn to memorialize a loved one.
Who Can Sell Cremation Urns Online
It may be surprising for customers to realize that no special license is required to sell and ship, or even manufacture, cremation urns. While there are some laws that govern the use of cremation urns after they have been filled with cremation remains (but even those laws are not as strict or as thorough as some might assume), empty urns are as unregulated as a product sold in the United States can be. In many cases, in fact, companies that sell cremation urns online may not even be required to pay state sales tax – so long as their sales are exclusively to people outside their state.
Yes, the fact is, anyone can sell cremation urns online. Funeral homes who find themselves in a frustrating competition with companies the sell urns online have occasionally made it clear that they would like to change that state of their industry, however. Lobbyists working on behalf of the industry have been known to occasionally push lawmakers to adopt laws that require cremation urns to be sold only by licensed funeral directors, and in various regions, such proposals can have more political popularity than others.
But, in general, consumers recognize that having the cremation urn market free for anyone to enter is a boon to competition and therefore price. This is not lost on legislators as well, who must usually explain their votes and other actions to their constituents at election time. So, for the most part, those who enjoy the benefits of being able to buy cremation urns online from just about anyone who cares to make them available can expect that this scenario will be a fact of life for many years to come in the future.
How to Buy Online
Buying online is about as easy as can be for just about anyone who has access to a computer and internet. (And many cremation urn buyers have been known to even use public computers available at their local library or at businesses that offer public internet access for free or, perhaps, a small charge.) A quick search engine search for “memorials” or “memorial products” or even just “cremation urns” will yield a great number of websites that have plenty of offer. From there, customers can find the urn that perfectly suits their needs and simply follow the instructions online to order.
One important note: customers would do well to check with their better business bureau or, at the very least, other friends who have bought cremation urns online, before giving their credit card information to a company that sells cremation urns online. The very fact that cremation urns can be sold by just about anyone means that many companies that are less than honest may be operating online. These days with various shopping security programs that many companies subscribe too for the peace of mind of their customers, knowing just who the bad guys are is easier than it once was. But care should be taken nevertheless. If a company is reluctant to talk about, or even publicize, its record with the Better Business Bureau, for example, a family will likely be best suiting in simply moving on to another website that sells cremation urns. There are plenty of reputable ones ready to serve their needs in a friendly, compassionate and efficient way.