This generation of post-90s chooses a cemetery in the live broadcast room

This article starts from the merchants who provide live broadcast grave selection services on the Internet. The author objectively analyzes the process, objects and reasons of live broadcast grave selection. You may want to take a look.

"Brother Ping An" played by Dapeng found a job selling grave plots after being released from prison. He would live broadcast the sale of graves from time to time. The latest movie "Keep You Safe" also revolves around a piece of grave plot he sold.

On TikTok, the film promoter opened an account called "Graveyard Peace Brother", with the following description: "One life, one road, one grave, one entrustment. I will occasionally live broadcast to sell Feng Shui treasure graves. If you have any questions, please find your Peace Brother!"

The "Graveyard Peace Brother" account created by the publicity team of "Keep You Safe"

The characters in the movie are fictional, and Douyin's "Graveyard Peace Brother" does not sell Feng Shui treasures in the live broadcast, but is more of a promotion for the movie. But outside of the movie, there are indeed a number of businesses on the Internet that provide live broadcast grave selection services. Some of them are professional intermediary companies, some are cemetery salesmen, and some are individuals who enter the market by chance.

"If the customer has any needs, we can help contact them and also provide live broadcast for viewing." Lao Li, a salesman at a funeral company, told E-Commerce Online that they have connections with many cemeteries and can basically complete the process of purchasing a cemetery online, but "it is better to check it out offline, after all, it is a major event in life."

Interface News once mentioned in a report that Chinese people spend an average of about 37,375 yuan on funerals, accounting for about 45.4% of the average annual salary, ranking second in the world.

Behind the high cost, the competition in the funeral industry is also quite fierce. Countless funeral practitioners have begun to explore more ways of publicity and marketing. Live broadcasts on funeral official websites, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, WeChat public accounts, mini programs and video accounts can be displayed intuitively and can serve as traffic entrances and efficient monetization channels. However, it is not so easy to change the traditional and ancient funeral industry under the influence of the Internet.

01 Live broadcast of tomb selection, how to choose

Urban cemeteries in China appeared as early as the end of the Qing Dynasty, but it was not until 1985 that they began to be standardized and cemetery sales gradually became part of daily life.

Many official cemetery accounts have appeared on social platforms.

From the 1980s to the present, the people who sell cemeteries have expanded from cemetery staff to funeral service industry personnel, and professional cemetery sales agents have also begun to appear. With the development of the Internet, the traditional offline sales model has gradually shifted to online. Cemetery-related information can be seen on many social platforms and short video platforms, and the promotion carriers of cemeteries are becoming more and more diverse.

"Live broadcast of tomb selection" is a form that has only appeared in recent years. During the epidemic, the traditional offline customer acquisition channels of funeral businesses were limited. Customers with needs could not return to their local areas due to prevention and control policies. Some funeral businesses thought of live broadcasting, which could help customers see the cemetery conditions more intuitively and facilitate transactions.

Those who broadcast live include funeral businesses serving local customers, funeral companies with operations across the country, professional cemetery sales, and some individual intermediaries who have accidentally entered the market.

Since the development during the epidemic, live broadcast of grave selection has gradually developed a relatively complete process. After understanding the situation with funeral businesses engaged in live broadcast of grave selection, "E-commerce Online" summarized the general process: using social platforms and short video platforms as drainage channels to attract users to inquire and enter the private domain, and recommending cemeteries based on the location, price, tomb type and other requirements proposed by customers.

Cemetery sales staff or agents can conduct live viewings. During the live broadcast, they will introduce the overall environment of the cemetery, take customers to see different tomb types and the scenery around the cemetery according to customer needs, and explain the cemetery's services such as tomb sweeping and tombstone painting from time to time. After the customer confirms online, they can watch offline and pay a deposit or full payment to complete the transaction.

Live broadcast of personal intermediaries and professional cemeteries

However, due to the differences in the merchants involved, the live broadcasts are also different. Most individual merchants use mobile phones for live broadcasts, which have poor results and unclear explanations. Professional funeral companies and cemeteries have professional sales, who explain everything from traditional culture to feng shui and then to cemeteries, and the pictures are clearer and more beautiful.

On public platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou, live streaming of grave selection faces considerable controversy. Mr. Li from a funeral company once live streamed a guide to grave selection, but has now stopped. “Some people who watched the live stream said it was unlucky and unlucky, and some even reported the live stream directly.”

First, there is a conflict between funeral services and live streaming. Many Chinese people are superstitious about "death". Funeral services have a serious and heavy tone, while live streaming is more entertaining. The two have a conflicting background. Second, funeral services are more similar to local life services. Most funeral businesses acquire customers through local hospitals, funeral homes, etc. The traffic reached by live streaming may not necessarily be converted into transaction traffic.

Lao Li has also encountered people who were contacted in the live broadcast room, but wanted to add WeChat for private communication, "because they felt that it was not good to discuss these things in the live broadcast room and there was no privacy."

Individual funeral merchants like Dadong can basically only choose one-on-one WeChat video live broadcasts, or add customers to WeChat groups to start a live broadcast. Lao Li has done several live broadcasts of grave selection with the help of the company's equipment. Some companies have more standardized live broadcast grave selection processes: some cemeteries of "the first funeral stock" Fushouyuan launched live broadcast grave selection during the epidemic. Fushouyuan Haigang Cemetery also stated that "shopping guides will also be transformed into Haigang Li Jiaqi, and will wholeheartedly provide you with the best live shopping guide experience."

Users need to make an appointment in advance to watch the live broadcast of tomb selection. They can only enter the live broadcast room to watch the tomb selection live. The number of viewers in each live broadcast room is also limited.

The language used in live broadcasts to select graves is also different from the sales language used in other live broadcasts.

In the movie "Crazy Racing", Xu Zheng played a gold medal cemetery salesman who used the slightly ironic "underground CBD, the back garden of life" to sell the cemetery; in "If You Are the One", the cemetery salesman said "it only costs 30,000 yuan" and after a few years, the price will increase and you will "make ten times the profit" by reselling it.

But in reality, merchants like Dadong and Lao Li tend to introduce cemeteries in a gentle tone. They also need to start with traditional culture and then introduce the cemetery. They rarely use reasons such as "value preservation" to promote transactions. "Many people are more superstitious about this matter. If you urge them, it will have the opposite effect."

02 The silver-haired people and the post-90s generation meet in the live broadcast room

The funeral company where Lao Li works has many cemetery resources in first- and second-tier cities, and its business scope is also wider. In some cities, there are also special service points. Compared with local operations, Lao Li's customer acquisition channels have changed for businesses that acquire customers through traditional channels and are more inclined to local life services.

"70% of my customers came to me online. Some came through the official website, some through the WeChat public account, some through my TikTok and video accounts, and some were introduced by clients."

After helping the customer contact the cemetery of their choice, Lao Li will entrust the cemetery staff or colleagues from the local office to broadcast the grave selection to the customer live.

Many funeral practitioners said that they have "special cars to pick up and drop off" when visiting graves.

Lao Li told E-Commerce Online that most of the people who can be contacted online are one-stop funeral companies and agents like them. There are very few cemeteries that do Internet business themselves. On the one hand, many cemeteries are relatively traditional and do not have Internet technology and experience. On the other hand, cemeteries mainly promote themselves among the local elderly population and have "grave-viewing special cars" for pick-up and drop-off. Cemetery sales will basically establish connections with funeral practitioners like them, so there is no need to do special online business.

Many people think that the customers who choose live broadcast to choose graves are mainly young people, but the vast majority of Lao Li’s customers are actually middle-aged and elderly people aged 40-60. Middle-aged people will choose graves for their parents, while the elderly will choose graves for themselves.

"Some people always think that the elderly don't know how to use the Internet. In fact, many elderly people in first- and second-tier cities are very fashionable and are more open to the issue of 'death'. An aunt from Shanghai I met said she wanted to buy a cemetery with a good view. In addition to those from Shanghai, people from Jiangsu are also considering it. The budget is 200,000 yuan. If there is no suitable one, they are also willing to accept tree burial or sea burial. On the contrary, her children think it is not a good idea to choose a cemetery so early because it is not auspicious."

In Lao Li’s opinion, although the elderly are not very familiar with live streaming, this part of the traffic is the one that can ultimately be monetized.

In addition to the elderly, there are also many young people who want to live broadcast the selection of graves.

Lao Li has met some young customers, some of whom bought for their elders and some wanted to buy for themselves. However, most of those who wanted to buy for themselves were discouraged. "There are also young people in their 20s who come to consult, but many places have requirements for buying cemeteries, such as death certificates, cremation certificates or serious illness certificates, or they must be over 80 years old, otherwise they cannot buy.

You can pay a few hundred yuan or 10% deposit to reserve a cemetery, but some cemeteries are in short supply. Paying a deposit only means you can reserve it for a period of time. If you want to continue to reserve it, you need to pay a sum of money every year. Young people don’t need to prepare so early."

Media and practitioners said that "cemetery prices change every year"

However, Lao Li believes that if one cannot meet the conditions for the purchase for the time being, one may as well take a look first, "the price of a cemetery changes every year, and the price basically increases every year, so it is better to be prepared so as not to be in a rush later."

Cemetery agent Jianing has only helped clients choose cemeteries live three or four times, but was deeply impressed by a young woman who was diagnosed with cancer while working in Beijing. The woman needed to stay in Beijing for treatment and could not return to her hometown to look for cemeteries, so she asked Jianing to help her choose a cemetery live. After five or six months, the woman said that her treatment results were good and she would not need the cemetery for the time being. Jianing was happy that she did not make a deal: "She is so young, it is a good thing that she does not need it."

03 The funeral industry begins to move towards the Internet

Although live streaming of tomb selection is not very popular in the funeral industry, Lao Li believes that live streaming is likely to be a trend after cemetery sales: "Many things can be sold live, including houses and satellites. Young people are also accustomed to live streaming sales. When these young people have real needs, live streaming of tomb selection will be more accepted."

With the advancement of the Internet, new technologies such as live streaming and VR for grave selection may become an important step in the online marketing of the funeral industry. However, many businesses also told "E-Commerce Online" that the final transaction still needs to return to offline - cemeteries have their own particularities, and it is difficult for the business model to undergo a complete transformation due to the Internet. Live streaming and other forms can only become auxiliary props.

More and more businesses have begun to use the Internet as an aid to help them sell cemeteries.

On the one hand, selling grave plots is the main source of income for the funeral industry. Grave plots are still a "necessity" and many Chinese people still believe in "resting in peace". Live streaming, a more intuitive form of presentation, can indeed improve the efficiency of selling grave plots.

Both Dadong and Lao Li said that among the funeral supplies sold, the commission from cemeteries is indeed relatively high. The cemetery that Dadong has contacted is not high-end, but he basically gets a commission of 2,000 to 3,000 yuan for one order. Lao Li said that high-end cemeteries will give higher commissions to the sales side, and the commissions for different sales channels are also different.

Fu Shou Yuan Financial Report

In the 2022 financial report of Fushouyuan, the "first funeral stock", the revenue from cemetery services reached 1.749 billion yuan, accounting for 80.5% of the total revenue, and the operating profit margin reached 56.4%. Among the cemetery services, the revenue from tomb sales services accounted for 90.8%. Cemetery sales are still the main source of income for cemeteries.

Fushouyuan launched the live broadcast grave selection service as early as February 9, 2020, not long after the outbreak of the epidemic, and has retained this service to this day. Now when you enter the live broadcast grave selection section of Fushouyuan, you can still see many users' messages and ideas about live broadcast grave selection.

On the other hand, the development of the Internet is also actually changing the traditional and ancient funeral industry.

Before 2020, Dadong had basically not thought about using the Internet to reach users. He was still soliciting business in hospitals, funeral homes, squares where the elderly gather, residential areas and other places. But now he sees more opportunities. "I will be able to reach more users online, and I can also take business from surrounding cities within two or three hours' drive."

Lao Li feels this trend more clearly. Among the users he contacts, some in Beijing will take the initiative to inquire about cemeteries in Hebei and Tianjin, and some in Shanghai will take the initiative to inquire about cemeteries in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. "The prices of high-end cemeteries in Beijing and Shanghai are around 150,000 yuan, and some can rise to more than 200,000 yuan. These cities are close and have a better price-performance ratio, so they will also be consulted."

In this case, live broadcast can present the situation of the cemetery intuitively without having to go to the local area to watch one by one, which can better improve efficiency.

The participation of young people born in the 1990s and even 2000s has also brought more new changes to the funeral industry.

VR Tour of Fushouyuan

Even Fu Shou Yuan stated in its financial report that it regards the Internet as an important development direction. It has not only launched live broadcast of tomb selection, but also introduced new forms such as VR cemetery viewing on its official website. Fu Shou Yuan also recruited an e-commerce operations manager on BOSS Direct Recruitment, moved its tomb-sweeping services to JD.com, and successively launched tombstone QR code technology and cloud tomb-sweeping platforms.

Many funeral businesses have also started promoting their businesses on Douyin, Kuaishou and WeChat Video Account to expand their business radius.

Lao Li completed transactions online when the epidemic was more serious, but he would still actively recommend customers who found him online to go offline to have a look. "I will make the best recommendation based on the needs of the customers, but the final decision cannot be made by me. The last major thing in life still needs to be carefully considered."

Author: Wang Zhan

Source: WeChat official account: "E-commerce Online (ID: dianshangmj)"