Dot-com funeral? Not for two Indiana businesses.

• Position: Opener

Who says dot-com is dead? In the death-care business, it's alive and well.

Aurora Casket Co., based in the Ohio River community after which it is named, is a big believer in doing business on the Web. It may be an old-line business--founded in 1890, family-owned ever since--but it's on the cutting edge when it comes to e-commerce, according to Chris Barrott, executive vice president of operations.

"More than 30 percent of our sales to funeral homes are online," he says. In fact, the company made the Interactive Week (now eWeek) Interactive 500 ranking of the top e-businesses. "We have continued to grow our business and have leveraged the Internet as a key tool in helping us achieve this growth for our customers' businesses as well as our own."

But Aurora does more online than sell caskets. It also operates funeralplan.com, a consumer information and education site that attracts several million hits a year. It's full of information about planning funerals, along with links to family-owned funeral homes that carry Aurora caskets. It even has an "Ask the Experts" area. "We have a panel of about 15 experts in different areas--funeral directors, grief counselors, hospice information, pre-need insurance," Barrott says.

Presenting death-care information online needs to be done with tact and sensitivity, he acknowledges. But he says there's a great need for information, and the Internet is the perfect delivery vehicle. "You've got a family that needs information, needs it quickly and efficiently, and they probably know very little going in."

It's not...