Mycoffin.com

A COLLEAGUE of mine lost his father the other day, and the family spent close to RM200,000 on the funeral.

A lot of hard working poor folk don’t earn that amount of money in a lifetime. The coffin itself, specially designed and made from imported timber, cost upward of RM10,000. Moved by that, I am now seriously considering setting up a budget coffin business as a community service.

It would not, however, be the run of the mill coffee shop coffin shops that you see along Singapore’s Lavender Street, Ipoh’s Hume Street ‘Koon Choy Kai’, or even any of those casket traders located next to country crematoriums. No, my coffin business will be tailored along current Internet technology and budget business acumen. It is going to usher in a brand new genre of kopitiam kofin-tiam.

To begin with, people will be able to purchase the coffins of their choice online while they are still alive (how many people do you know actually have the thrill of choosing their own coffins?). I have already given my IT students a little design competition to get the most creative website for my kofin-tiam, which I have decided to name Mycoffin.com.

Customers go to the website and, in typical eBay fashion, simply click on the coffins they want, according to the prices they are comfortable with, as well as the coffins that they will feel comfortable with (pun intended).

In line with budget business practices, there will naturally be the annual or biannual promotion periods when the prices of coffins will start at, say, RM9.90. We will be sure to emphasise that during promotion periods, administrative charges will be waived. We will pay double the difference if customers can find a cheaper coffin of the same make from our competitors. Thanks to the police and their Ops Sikap programmes carried out during the festive balik kampung seasons, we already know without needing to do much primary research that there will be at least two if not three times a year when there will be an anticipated 200 deaths on the road within a two-week period.

Our marketing department will therefore come up with suitable offers during such periods, such as ‘buy two get one free’, to be specially addressed to groups of people who cramp seven of themselves inside a Kancil or 13 in an MPV when they travel long distances. As for express buses, our marketing people will set up special booths at express bus terminals during the Ops Sikap periods displaying prominently the words, “Don’t leave home without booking it”.

Now at RM9.90, the coffin will be very basic; perhaps just a rectangular box put together using four pieces of plywood. This range of coffins will be for the very low income folks, see? Coffins made from better quality timber would naturally cost more. Those who prefer a more stylish Dracula-type diamond-shaped coffin would not be disappointed either, as Mycoffin.com will cater to the needs of all people with all sorts of fancies. Also, we will not forget the Size XXL ones for the obese.

For the uninitiated, coffins for cremations are categorically different from those for burials. You certainly do not need imported timber, platinum lining or gold plating for cremation coffins, since you are just going to push them into the furnace to be consumed. Thus, cremation coffins cost considerably less than those for burial.

Not withstanding that, Mycoffin.com will have a number of add-on’s for customers. For starters, one could ask for a little viewing glass window on the top cover of the coffin; just click ‘Viewing Window’ and you have it.  Velvet lining on the inside of the coffin could also be booked online with just another simple click. Favour a little pillow for your head inside your coffin? Just click ‘Pillow’ and a mini pillow will be provided at a very reasonable extra charge. Unlike RM9.90 coffins that do not come with any wood-finishing, another click on the ‘Add-On’ menu will fetch you a coffin with a smart mahogany polish, like the Petrof piano in your hall.

Notice how Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonald’s are so successful with their concept of combo meals? Well, for customers who cannot decide what to have as add-on’s to their basic coffins, we will also offer a variety of combo versions. Thus, Combo A will have a viewing window and pillow, Combo B will have velvet lining and mahogany finish, and Combo C something else, and so on. Catch the drift?

Better yet, for every order of a combo coffin, we will throw in a cash voucher for the next purchase. These days when times are hard, folks usually like to look for value buys. So for a start, a value buy coffin will come with viewing window, pillow, and velvet lining. Fair?

Mycoffin.com is also aware that there may be some traditional Chinese customers who prefer one of those huge nineteenth century teak coffins (the type that you see in Wong Fei Hoong movies). Naturally that won’t be easy, especially when very few coffin makers make them now.  Besides, one of those giants requires at least 10 Godzilla-sized humans to lift. However, business is business and Mycoffin.com will still promise to deliver those platinum-class carriages.

Coffins for different ethnic communities differ from one another in one or more of many ways. Not to worry; in line with the 1Malaysia concept, we will offer a standard variety called 1Coffin. To encourage customers to buy this edition, we are thinking of slashing 30 per cent off every second purchase of 1Coffin.

Some people, especially the very traditional and the elderly, may like their coffins delivered early. Don’t be surprised. Have you not visited a home of an elderly person where there is a coffin conspicuously placed in the sitting room? Perhaps the intended tenant feels comforted by the sight of his future ‘vehicle’ to the netherworld. Well, Mycoffin.com has no problems delivering coffins at such requests; remind me to talk to Pos Laju on a partnership arrangement.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that to prevent credit card fraud, the customer will have to produce the actual card used in the payment of the coffin at the point of delivery. The person named on the credit card does not need to be the person dying, but the actual credit card used for purchase must be presented for verification, otherwise the coffin will not be unloaded from our truck before an alternative cash payment is made. Sorry for being so sticky on this, but we don’t want anyone to purchase a coffin using stolen details from someone else’s card, do we?

When I told some of my colleagues about this whole Mycoffin.com idea, they were suitably impressed. One asked whether I had thought up a tag-line for the business. My answer was yes: ‘Now Everyone Can Die’.