By Stan Spector
 
Mass-produced services are only economical at a fixed location where installed equipment can be used to save time in performing the service.  The other end of the spectrum is a mobile business that travels to the location where the customer wants it to be performed.
 
Simple services like automotive repairs are almost always done at a garage or repair center since some of the services require lifts and special equipment.  But providing some of the basic car repair services can be done with equipment in your truck, and this service can be performed at a health club or a large company’s parking lot while your customers are exercising, working, or at their home.  Most customers will only hire this type of service if the price is about the same as what they would have to pay at a fixed location, or slightly more.  It is easy to meet this condition with certain services since your business will have no rent or utilities to pay.  The market for this service may not be huge but it may be large enough to support a senior business.
 
Computer services become difficult for the customer at a fixed location and certain system problems must be solved in place.  So we are seeing a rise in the number of single-person computer repair businesses.
 
As you go through your days and months, look for of what kind of service people or businesses hate going to a fixed location to get the service, and then try to start a business around providing that service at the customer’s location.  This concept is not new.  I remember when I was a child, there was a person who had an old school bus and drove around neighborhoods selling groceries for people who didn’t want to go out for something.  This may no longer be a good business but back then families had only one car and the home keepers needed the service since they couldn’t go to the neighborhood store for an ingredient needed to prepare dinner.  I still respond in the same way to the daily ringing of the ice cream man’s bell when he drives through our neighborhood during the summer.
 
Oil changes and lubrication for cars, computer repair, dry cleaning and laundry delivery services to health clubs or office buildings, personal training at home, lawn mower and snow blower repair in your garage, and computer printer inks refills in a truck outside large office buildings on a fixed weekly schedule are all lucrative areas to explore.  But don’t let this small list limit your ideas.  Think of other ideas.  There are hundreds.  If you think of a good one, go to the forum on my web site and let me know your ideas so I can spread the word around.

Ed. Here’s an idea to increase income in retirement with a senior business: I read recently my city pays ten thousand dollars a month for someone to maintain the giant salt water aquarium at the library.  Also, maintaining flowers and plants in a business would be great for someone with green thumb.