Mobile Truck Businesses

July 2, 2014: Mobile Truck Businesses

When I was growing up in a suburb of New York City, most of the moms didn’t have jobs outside the home. This was the time of Avon ladies and encyclopedia salesmen knocking on doors selling their wares. There was also a knife truck that regularly rolled through my neighborhood, selling new knives and sharpening old ones.

I set out here to write about a recent New York Times article declaring that mobile art galleries are a growing trend in New York and “catching on in Los Angeles; Seattle; Santa Fe; Tampa Bay; Chicago; and even Alberta [Canada].”

But when I went online to try to find the name of the knife company that roamed the streets of Long Island (which I never found) I discovered that knife-sharpening trucks were enjoying a bit of a renaissance.

Food trucks have dominated the mobile business market for the last five years or so, but when you think about it, there’s no end of products (or services) that couldn’t be sold from a truck. Of course you’d need to check local laws, but in some areas I’d imagine mobile hair and nail salons would be a big hit. Could you sell gardening supplies riding through the burbs on summer weekends?

While there are certainly far fewer stay-at-home moms these days, there are far more virtual businesses, so in some larger cities, there are likely enough population at home during the day for you to be successful. In fact maybe those virtual workers would appreciate a mobile office supplies truck. I know I wouldn’t mind if a taco truck came through my neighborhood.

Photo Courtesy: Yarnover Truck