Funeral Service Management III

What is merchandising?

purchasing, display, and sales of goods and services

What is the goal of merchandising?

anticipating consumer needs & directing the flow of needs from provider to consumer (for goods and services)

What is the merchandising tradeoff?

between profit and service (equaling relative value)

What is relative value?

quality of anything that renders it desirable or useful (subjective)

How is relative value measured?

through worth, excellence, usefulness, and importance [NOT PRICE]

What leads to perceived value?

education, information, and comfort level

What is merchandising?

the ongoing process of selection, evaluation, and education of merchandise

What is the goal of Funeral directing?

getting the family to see value in the funeral

What are “sound” merchandising program components?

presenting goods and services to the buyer and seller, and producing a profit adequate to maintain and promote

What percent of the funeral bill is merchandise

20-40%

What should the merchandise you offer be based on?

Sales history

What is salses frequency?

The number of times that sales in a given tax bracket occurs over a period of time

What to consider with suppliers?

The quality, are the wholesale prices desirable, reliability, providing good service, merchandising aid,representatives, discounts

What is a cash discount?

reduction of the price given for payment on an account within the time limits established in the contract to sale

What is a quantity discount?

reduction in the amount of a bill when a minimum quantity of merchandise has been ordered

What is a rebate discount?

return of a portion of a payment

What is consignment discount?

FD doesnt pay for displayed merchandise until it is sold

What are the 7 steps for pricing?

total overhead, allocate gross profits, case count, service prices, hypothetical revenue test, create packages, test consumers

What is the Consumer Value Index?

percentage derived by dividing the wholesale amount of the merchandise by retail price [value received per every dollar]

What is gross casket profit? aka?

Margin: retail price - wholesale cost

What is merchandise value ratio?

relationship btwn wholesale cost of merchandise and the total cost of both service and merchandise to the consumer (wholesale divided by total funeral bill)

What is marking up by fixed multiple?

whole sale price * fixed multiple = retail price

What is graduated recovery advantages and siadvantages?

varied mark up; pro is that it makes a lower cost to the mfuneral home; con is that lower cvi on high priced funerals with low end merch, lower profit on lower casket, value is placed on lower end casket

What is the declining price structure?

pricing method where there is an inverse relationship btwn mark up and casket price (improved CVI, but aggressive lower-end mark-up)

What are four basic pricing procedures?

itemization, unit pricing, bi-unit pricing, functional pricing

What is a bi-unit pricing?

shows separately the price of the services and the price of casket

What’s the most common burial container in america?

caskets

What are coffins?

anthropoid in shape (wider at shoulders and thinner at feet)

Who built coffins in early america?

rural areas were made by family members; urban areas were made by professional cabinet makers (stained, polish)

How were coffins in mid 1800’s ?

Eye appeal is most important, no longer exclusively wood, now its clay, cement, stone, rubber, paper mache, and even glass

Who is james gray?

first patented

What brought about caskets?

the industrial revolution, where they could be mass produced

What wre the two most popular casket designs?

Fisk metallic Burial case and Stein Patent Burial Casket

What happened at the end of the 19th century?

cabinet makers transitioned from building coffins and offering

How does the ABFSE define caskets?

ABFSE (a case or receptacle in which human remains are placed for protection, practical utility, and a suitable memory picture

How does the FTC define caskets?

a rigid container designed for the encasement of human remains usually constructed of wood, metal or a like material and is ornamented and lined by fabric

What are the uses of caskets?

protection, practical utility (transport), Final tribute (honoring), memory picture

How are materials chosen?

availabilty and cost of raw material, manufacture cost, strength/durability, protection lvl, and the aesthetic

What are the common casket construction materials?

wood, wood by-products, metal, plastic, fiberglass, polymers

What is a burial casket made of?

any type of material

What is a cremation casket made of?

combustible material, parts and hardware

What is a rental casket made of?

holds a cremation insert

What is a green casket made of?

biodegradable material

What is wood composed of?

thousands of hollow cells fromed by cellulose fibers (more dense fibers harder the wood) that is held by lignin (durability and doesnt dissolve in water)

What is heartwood?

wood found at the center of the tree (darker, more resistant, used for caskets)

What is sapwood?

outer layers next to the bark, lighter in color and are actively growing, leading it to be softer

What is a board foot?

unti of measure used in measuring logs and lumbar equal to the cubic contents of a piece of lumber that is one ft square and one in thick (150-300 bf in a casket)

What is the air dried process?

1-6 months and reduces moisture to 35%

What is the predried process?

28 days further reduces the moisture content to about 20%

What is the kiln dried process?

4-7 days, reduce moisture to 5-6%

What are the advantages of wood?

warm aesthetic, uniqueness, and natural

What are the disadvantage of wood?

costly, can decompose, dont have seeling qualities, inconsistence

What does hardwood come from?

deciduous or “leaf bearing” scientific classification of angiosperms, (broad leafed)

What are some hardwoods?

birch, cherry, mahogany, oak, poplar, walnut, maple

What does softwood come from?

coniferous or “cone-bearing” scientific classification is gymnosperms (needle bearing, easy to work, light in texture)

What are some softwoods?

pine, cedar, spruce, and redwood

What are seelcted hardwood caskets?

made of many different species of wood

What is a laminate?

thin outer covering that is made of a finer quality (multiple materials)

What is veneer?

gluing together a thin layer of wood of superior value or excellent grain to inferior wood

What is plywood?

thin layers of wood glues and pressed together at right angles (a-c grade is finished on one side, c-d is rough on both sidesm

What is pressboard?

wood chipswarp that are glued together with a glue ix and pressed together to form a board; can easily

What is the standard size of wood caskets?

22”wide x 75” long and height of 16” to 22”

What is a ferrous metal?

metals including iron ex. carbon steel and stainless steel

What is a non-ferrous metal?

doesnt contain iron ex. copper, bronze

Why would a magnesium bar be placed in a casket?

to magnetically aid in keeping out rust

How much carbon is in a ferrous metal casket?

1.7%

What are characteristics of ferrous metal?

rusts/oxidizes, malleable/moldable, ductile/specific shape

What does chromium?

allows for color, adds corrosion resistence

What is molybdenum?

alloy agent which strengthens and hardens

What is tungsten?

harding agent

What do carbon steel caskets have?

lead coated with primes and lubricates

What is galvanizing?

coating the surface with zinc (rustless)

How are ferrous metals measured?

“gauge” which is number of sheets to equal one inch (lower gauge, thicker the metal; reverse is true)

What is the 400 series of stainless steel?

martensitic/ magnetic (78% steel, 12% chromium)

What is the 300 series of stainless steels

Austenitic/non-magnetic (74% steel, 18% chromium, 8% nickel)

What does the addition of nickel do?

corrosion resistant, austenitic, and stronger weld

What is stainless steel?

metal alloy of steel, chromium and (sometimes nickle)

What are the properties of copper caskets?

soft metal so easy to shape, doesnt rust but oxidizes and turns blue-green (can be fromed by wrought copper and copper deposit/plating)

What are the properties of a bronze casket?

alloy of copper (90% copper, 10% zinc) non rustin (can be wrought bronze or be casted Heavy shit)

How are non-ferrous metals measured?

ounces per square foot (OPSF - brown a& sharpe unit of measurement). 48oz. is the higher quality while the 32oz. is the lower

What is relative durability?

measured by the casket being placed undergruond and exposed to natural elements and directly in the soil

What considerations are there to determine relative durability?

type of metal, thickness of metal, chemical composition of soil, type of soil, water lvl/drainage, and if there is an exterior protective coating

What is plastic?

synthetic organic compounds that are shaped when hardened

What is fiberglass?

a type of plastic, fine filaments of glass embedded in resins through thermoplastic or chemoplastic

What is thermoplastic?

spraying or molding plastic using heat as a catalyst

What is a chemoplastic?

spraying or moulding of a casket using chemicals as a catalyst

What are polymers?

chemical compound or mixture of compounds formed by polymerization (strong polymer chains)