White Book- Chapters 14-16 Flashcards
If the customer doesn’t understand the product, they will be unable to recognize _____.
Value
The correlation beteen product ignorance and the sale of the least expensive product is probably more pronounced in ____ _____ than in other retail situations.
Funeral Service
- The funeral home- because it does not achieve its objective sale
- The Consumer himself- because he did not understand the comparative value of the merchandise purchased.
- Feel like he paid too much
- Recieve merchandise that fails to meet his expectations.
A Funeral Consumer that “Buys Down” Produces two Unhappy Parties:
The purchasing, pricing, display, and sale of merchandise.
Merchandising
Goods sold by a funeral home in conjunction with the disposition of a dead human body.
Funeral Merchandise
- Caskets and other burial/transfer containers
- Outer burial containers, including vaults and grave liners
- Cremation containers and alternative containers
- Urns, temporary containers, scattering/keepsake urns
- Urn vaults
- Other cremation-oriented products
- Monuments/memorials and other cemetery merchandise
- Burial clothing
- Personalization options
- Register books, memorial folders, flag cases, and other sundries
Funeral Merchandise Includes, but is not limited to:
- Develop target sales objectives that meet the firm’s profit requirements
- Help choose products and suppliers that facilitate the merchandising plan
- Aid in determining product prices that ensure value for the customer and a fair profit for the funeral home
- Enable the firm to present, display, and sell funeral merchandise in the most effective manner possible.
- Incorporate means to evaluate sales data
- Assure efficient and adequate inventory stock
- Effectively merchandise the firm’s service offerings.
A Funeral Home’s Merchandising Program:
To generate enough profit to ensure its existence and ability to continue serving its clientele year after year.
A Primary Rsponsibillity of any Business
Critical to any funeral firm’s achieving its target profit:
The Careful Development of Sales Objectives
- The funeral home must evaluate its market
- The firm must scrutinize its sales history
- The firm must take into account and consider a number of criteria specific to the merchandise it plans to offer.
- The funeral firm must integrate its proposed product line with its existing service offerings- or visa versa.
Developing Sales Objectives
May include a careful examination of the demographics, vital statistics, economic base, and burial habits of the funeral home’s proposed or existing clientele. To a lesser extent, the firm should consider the merchandising tactics of its competitors.
Evaluating Market
- What has sold well
- What didn’t sell well
- What didn’t sell at all
- What has sold too much, etc.
- As a general guideline, when considering sales history, the funeral home should evaluate at least the previous 6 months sales.
- Accuracy will increase proportionately to the size of the sample period, up to a period of 2 years
Scrutinize Sales History
- Product availability
- Price
- Quality
- Eye appeal
- Suppier recommendations
Take into Account and Consider a Number of Criteria Specific to the Merchandise it Plans to Offer:
What items are available that might need the firm’s sales objectives and fit into the existing product offering?
Product Availability
Both the wholesale cost and the retail price must be considered to ensure that the funeral home receives a fair profit and the consumer receives good value.
Price
Items chosen for any product line offering must be of the highest quality possible for their cost/price category.
Quality
Are the aesthetics of this product too grat for its price position? Conversely, is the eye appeal sufficient to justify its price?
Eye Appeal
It stands to reason that if a funeral home is successful in its merchandising plan, its suppliers benefit as well. Manufacturers and suppliers expend considerable resources to help funeral homes develop merchandising plans.
Supplier Recommendations
- Manufacturer that produce and wholesale products to funeral homes
- Wholesalers (middlemen, jobbers) that purchase products from manufacturers and then re-sell them to funeral firms
- Importers that bring a product from overseas production facilities
- Cooperative buying groups, wherein several funeral homes ally themselves in order to take advantage of quantity purchase discounts available from manufacturers, wholesalers, or importers.
Suppliers of Funeral Merchandise Come in a Variety of Forms:
- Can the supplier raliably and consistently provide the product? Future availability?
- Do the supplier’s prices relfect adequate value for the funeral home’s dollar?
- What level of customer service does the supplier provide? Guarantee of quality? Delivery? Traning? Returns?
Evaluating Suppliers
- Credit rating of funeral home or payment history
- Volume if the product purchased
- The firm’s overall relationship with the supplier
Payment Terms Between Suppliers may Depend on:
- C.O.D. (cash on delivery)
- C.B.D. (Cash before delivery)
A funeral Home that is New to the Supplier and Has a History of Bad Credit:
- Cash Discount
- Quantity Discount
- Rebate
- Consignment
Payment Options for a Firm with Established Credit with a Supplier:
A reduction of the price given for the payment of an account within the time limits established by teh sales contract.
Cash Discount
The amount by which the bill or invoice will be reduced when a minimum quantity of merchandise has been ordered.
Quantity Discount
The return of a portion of a payment.
Rebate
To give to an agent to be care for or sold. (Pays only when the merchandise is sold).
Consignment
The firm considers operating costs and profit requirements and then prices merchandise in line with the value it anticipates the consumer will perceive.
Perceived Value
Regardless of a casket’s wholesale cost, the firm will add a zero to that wholesale cost to determine retail price.
Zero Method of Pricing
The difference between merchandise cost and selling price. (does not reflect a measure of true profit).
Markup (Gross Margin, Margin)
The more a customer spends, the more value he should receive.
Value Progression
“You get what you pay for.”
Relative Value
The percentage derived by dividing the wholesale cost of the merchandise by the retail price of the merchandise. Measures the value of each consumer dollar that is spent to purchase a specific product.
Wholesale cost / Retail price= CVI
Consumer Value Index (CVI)
Examines teh relationship between the whoesale cost of the merchandise and the total cost (both service and merchandise) to the consumer.
Wholesale cost / (Total of merchandise + services) =
MVR
Merchandise Value Ratio (MVR)
- Fixed dollar amount method
- Fixed multiple method
- Graduated Recovery method
- Increasing graduated recovery
- Decreasing graduated recovery
- Modified graduated recovery
Pricing Strategies
Examine financial needs (overhead) and profit objectives to determine the amount of profit it wishes to generate on each casket sale; this amount is then added to the wholesale cost of each casket offered by the funeral home.
- People that must buy low-end merchandise are unfairly penalized and receive little value for each dollar spent.
- The final retail price can seem awkward
Fixed Dollar Amount Method
A price determination method whereby the casket cost is multiplied by a constant factor.
- As one moves up the price ladder, there is no improvement in the Consumer Value Index.
- No motivation for the customer to buy a higher end model.
- Prices can be awkward
Fixed Multiple Method (Stright Line, Times Factor)
A pricing method where the markup varies.
Graduated Recovery Method
Entry-level merchandise receives a relatively low markup while higher-end merchandise receives a comparatively higher markup.
- Causes the CVI to decrease with each step upward in the product assortment.
- Customers discouraged from buying higher-end merchandise
- Rewards those who choose to spend the least
- Funeral home receives the least possible dollar-amount of profit.
- Final retail price can be awkward
Increasing Graduated Recovery Method
Applies a markup that is inversely proportional to the wholesale cost of the casket. Upper-range caskets receive markups that are comparatively less than those applied to entry-level caskets.
- Consumers encouraged to buy up
- Purchasers of entry-level merchandise receive comparably little value
Decreasing Graduated Recovery Method (Declining Price Structure)