Services on wheels have gone beyond coffee vans and food trucks to fashion, food and even piano lessons. In Australia, demand is growing for businesses that deliver their services straight to the consumers' doors.
Mobile broadband, cloud-based accounting software, location-based apps and a host of other technologies have transformed business, liberating them from the fixed-site workplace that has dominated trade since the Industrial Revolution.
Traditionally, a centrally located, high-visibility, bricks-and-mortar workplace has been a key success factor helping businesses attract customers. But times have changed.
According to recent reports, 88% of Australians own a smartphone, and 24% purchase something via mobile at least once a month. And, with most people relying more and more on the web and social media to make purchase decisions, visibility online has become far more critical than an expensive high-street location. Along with the immediacy consumers now expect, this has prompted many businesses to take their services to the streets.
Fashion and food trucks
One such business is vintage fashion truck, Pink Ginger, the brainchild of Perth entrepreneur and midwife Rebecca Barlow. Inspired by the growth of mobile fashion trucks in the US, she fitted out an old delivery truck with new flooring and clothing racks, and commissioned a local artist to decorate the truck, which she takes to local markets, festivals and pop-ups.
Barlow is buying a motor home so she can tour a range of music festivals from Western Australia all the way to Tasmania, and has added a fundraising range called Deadly Denim supporting Indigenous midwives. She uses mobile EFTPOS for transactions and promotes her business through Facebook and Instagram.
Food also continues to be one of the largest sectors for mobile business, with delivery services such as Menulog, Uber Eats and Deliveroo leading the way in a $600 million per annum market, according to Morgan Stanley.
Service on the road
Food and fashion are not the only sectors enjoying a boost from mobile services; busy households are also increasingly outsourcing household chores. According to a report by the Committee for Economic Australia (CEDA), mobile dog groomers and dog washers and pick-up and delivery laundry, ironing and dry-cleaning services, generated an estimated $325 million in revenue during 2015 alone. And, unsurprisingly, online grocery shopping and delivery isn't slowing either - this sector is currently worth an estimated $3 billion.
Beauticians and hairdressers are jumping on the mobile bandwagon, too, offering everything from haircuts to colour, facials and spray tans. Other services that have brought their workshop to the customer include mobile mechanics, locksmiths, computer technicians and even mobile music schools, such as the Music Bus - a mobile music classroom complete with instruments and teachers.
As reliable mobile broadband and easy-to-use cloud-based business tools make the fixed workplace redundant, we're likely to see more businesses make the move to the road, expanding their customer base - and their horizons.