MILWAUKEE — The world’s largest retailer wants to keep its customers even after they die. Wal-Mart has started selling caskets on its website at prices that undercut many funeral homes, long the major seller of caskets.
The move follows a similar one by discount rival Costco, which also sells caskets on its site. Wal-Mart quietly put up about 15 caskets and dozens of urns on its website last week.
Prices range from $999 for models such as “Dad Remembered” and “Mom Remembered” steel caskets to the midlevel $1,699 “Executive Privilege.” All are less than $2,000, except for the Sienna Bronze Casket, which sells for $3,199.
Caskets ship within 48 hours. Federal law requires funeral homes to accept third-party caskets.
The caskets come from Star Legacy Funeral Network Inc., a company based in McHenry, Ill., that sells the same caskets for about the same price — some less — on its site, along with many others.
But Pat Lynch, president-elect of the National Funeral Home Directors Association, said Wal-Mart can’t offer one thing funeral directors do have: the ability to comfort someone during a trying time.
“There’s no question in my mind as a funeral director for nearly 40 years that the most critical element is the human contact,” he said. The Associated Press
