27 Apr Value versus Price- why are our units priced below some competitors?

I just got back from the ICCFA convention in Vegas last week.  It was a good convention with lots of good questions and great attendees.  You can definitely tell that the economy is strong and cemeteries are running out of cremation inventory placed into service before the Great Recession.

In interesting question came up for the first time ever at a show, and it was asked two times by different customers.  They asked “How come your units are so much less expensive than (another major competitor)?”

If any of you have been following my newsletter rants for the last decade, you know that my driving mission is to provide the best value in the industry.  I define value at that unique spot where quality and cost intersect to provide a top quality product at a fair price.  I have spent countless hours over the last 15 years developing what I strongly feel is the best columbarium in the industry.  Our materials are top notch and sourced from the best places in the world.  We commonly use materials from the US, Japan, Norway, Italy, China and India in our projects.  Our designs are all designed by me to withstand the test and ravages of time- I try and image how our products will look in 300 years when designing.  With this in mind our columbarium are build of all-granite construction with real bronze rosettes (did you know that some of our competitors use zinc rosettes that are plated to look like bronze- how long do you think that will hold up?, but that’s another rant…) and stainless steel hardware.  These are the highest quality materials designed using age old stone assembly techniques that use gravity and the weight of the stone to hold together our units.  I design these to last and will rate our designs as superior to plastic, aluminum or cement board designs any day.

So there you have it- we make a great columbarium.  So why is it price less, and sometimes so much less than the competition?  It’s not quality, as I just explained, we are tops in our industry.  It has to do with our company structure and the way I designed our business.  We designed our company to offer the best value in the industry and to offer this value, we manufacture our products overseas.  But this is overseas in our own captive factory where we have trained our skilled stone masons to be some of the best columbarium stone cutters and assemblers in the world.  This is very similar model to the way Apple or TV companies make a high quality product at a price that is where the market demands.

But here is what I think is the biggest difference- overhead!  We are a family owned business, we own our US warehouse and we strive obsessively to keep business costs low to offer our customers the best value.  Do you know what all those back cover and full page advertisements costs?  A lot, some serious money.  Same for a dedicated sales team or a fancy new factory.  Who pays for all this, you do through higher product prices.  Premier Columbaria saves huge here.

So why would you not buy from Premier Columbaria- we offer industry leading value.  You get a very high quality product for a great price from a company that has been in business a long time that will bend over backwards to support you to make your project a success, now and in the future.  Win-win.

You come to think of it, maybe eight or nine years ago, I got a call from a customer who was genuinely upset with me.  We talked and he wanted to order a unit.  I asked why he was upset and he said that the previous year he had ordered a unit from a competing columbaria company for twice the price of our unit and never went and saw the unit of our’s I referred him to in his area.  He finally was in the area and saw our unit is real life and was now upset that he paid way more for a unit that was not as nice as ours.  He had used price as a proxy for quality.  He was upset with me because I was not more forceful in telling him previously HOW GOOD our unit was.

Call and talk to Doug or myself and see what we can do for you.

All the best,

Robb