First it was caskets. Now, Costco Wholesale Corp. is selling silk urns along with the usual warehouse club assortment of bulk food, office supplies and bargain clothes.
Renaissance Urn Company offers urns in a choice of colors including sage green, maroon or steel blue, available at Costco's Web site. They sell for $64.99, which Renaissance said was a bargain compared with the $250 to $600 that funeral homes charge for traditional urns.
"Today many families are choosing to scatter their loved ones and often they need to travel via airplane to different parts of the country or world to do so," Renaissance Urn said in a statement.
The silk urns meet U.S. transportation security guidelines and allow families to carry loved ones' remains on board, rather than having to check them as baggage.
The urns are basically plastic-lined boxes covered in silk. According to Costco's Web site, "these lightweight fabric urns are ideal for memorial services and scattering."
Costco, the largest U.S. warehouse club operator, made headlines last year when it began selling caskets in a handful of stores in Illinois. Its Web site also lists traditional stone urns for $89.99.
Potential mourners might want to plan ahead, though. Costco's Web site said that standard delivery for the urns was seven to 10 days.
