Online shopping boom, door-to-door deliveries, and faster transportation, in general, becoming faster are factors that make you look for the best trucking business ideas.
Many drivers, owning straight trucks or tractor-trailers, make a good living in trucking business.
Below, find some of the best truck business ideas with an overview on which trucks are suited for that truck business idea.
1. Towing Service
One of the most profitable truck business ideas is a towing service.
A towing business help drivers whose vehicles has stopped while being on the highway.
Vehicles constantly break down and that is an opportunity for a towing service to help a driver out and, as a result, make money out of it.
If you ever had your vehicle broken down in the middle of the highway, you should probably understand how frustrating this situation is that you don't mind paying someone to get your vehicle somewhere to a safe place.
2. Trucking
In the US, trucking is a popular and profitable business idea because of its important value for the economy.
Trucking links the imported, manufactured, and cultivated goods to their final consumers.
Before the imported goods reach the small retailers and their final consumers, these goods need to be transported to several states and cities.
In the trucking business, there are many options and opportunities.
You can work locally, or be an over-the-road driver who transports freight long distances across state lines.
See below a few types of goods that need transportation services:
Wine transportation
Transporting valuable wine is a great way to get involved in the trucking industry.
You can work with local wineries or wine retailers to transport their products.
Farm equipment and agricultural products transportation
Farmers often need transportation services for their produce, especially on days when they need to transport them to the market for sale. This is another lucrative niche that you can choose from.
Farming and agriculture are two industries that rely heavily on trucks. If you’re interested in starting a trucking business in these industries, you can haul farm equipment or agricultural products.
Oversized load transportation
You can also haul oversized load transportation.
You can find work hauling oversized loads at construction companies, manufacturers, or retailers.
Though this business idea is for experienced truckers who can handle big-size trucks and weights.
3. Truck rental
If own a cargo van, box truck, or even a tractor-trailer but you don’t use it for business, you can rent it out to people who need the for some time and charge reasonable fees for this service.
4. Truck driving school
Starting a truck deriving school is the next good idea to make money.
As the popular saying goes, there is money in the trucking industry and, because of that, there a people trying to learn that skill or ability to grab their portion of the market.
So, if you are a good truck driver, you can start a truck driving school where you can teach people to drive trucks.
To involve in this business opportunity, you need to obtain the required license, permits, and approval from the appropriate authority in your state.
5. Local delivery services
Another trucking business idea is to start a delivery service.
A delivery service type of business is the pickup of one or more local products from a local merchant and transport them to a customer's place.
Generally, local delivery services do not include any delivery requiring over 75 miles of travel from the local merchant to the customer because that kind of delivery requires longer travel.
Examples of local delivery services can be:
Local food delivery services
A local food delivery business is an ideal business opportunity for vehicles like vans because vans are better suited for driving through a city having better maneuverability than bigger trucks.
By owning a van, you can deliver food from local restaurants and pizzerias to people's homes or their working offices. In today's fast-paced world, sometimes, cooking is not an option. That's why many people like to order-in food from their nearest restaurants and enjoy it at home or the workplace.
Local bread delivery service
You can buy a bread route and deliver fresh bread to local bakeries or local supermarkets.
Local stores delivery services
By owning a box truck, a good business idea is to offer your local delivery services to local stores where the customer needs to transport the bought product to their home.
Local online stores delivery services
Online stores need delivery services to ship their products to their customer as fast as possible.
Large items delivery services
Businesses that sell large items need help or larger trucks to transport large items such as furniture or appliances to the customer's home or office. These items or often too bulky for people to carry on them in their cars.
6. Moving business
The next popular truck business idea is moving service.
Throughout the year, people are always moving their belongings and personal assets from one home to another.
From those who move out of expensive cities to business owners who move merchandise from place to place, there is demand for box truck moving services.
The most popular vehicle used in moving services is the box truck.
To provide moving services, you need at least two people because some items like furniture are so heavy that you need help to move them without damaging anything around. Also, moving services include actions such as packing, loading, transporting, unpacking, cleaning, and carefully arranging the items in the new location.
7. Snow removal
For people, snowy roads can make traveling freely challenging.
If you are located in the northeast during the winter month, this is a great business opportunity for dump truck owners.
Dump truck owners can provide snow removal services to local businesses and homeowners and make good money per winter season.
8. Food truck
The next trucking business idea is starting a food truck business.
One of the first major hurdles will be acquiring the necessary licenses and permits, which are crucial for any food-related business.
For that, you need to convert your box truck or a cargo van into a food truck including all the necessary kitchen and food appliances
These days, food trucks seem to be everywhere in parks and street fairs, music festivals, beaches, private parties, and community events showing off their menus.
In your food truck menu, you can include things like burritos, burgers, sausages, smoothies and milkshakes, pad Thai, pizza, and ice cream.
Lovers of such food can track their location and get a text message when they're in the neighborhood.
Next, you can stop your food truck in busy areas targeting employees who need lunch meals.
9. Hot shot business
Hot shot trucking companies help out shippers who want to move small freight loads (Less-than-Load), quickly instead of paying for a large truck.
That is why, hot shot businesses specialize in small, time-sensitive loads such as farm goods and building materials that can be carried in a standard pickup truck and a trailer attached to it.
These deliveries are time-sensitive and are usually delivered to a single location.
10. Moving billboard
A moving billboard trucking business is a type of mobile advertising service where your truck displays advertisements on its sides while earning a fee for it.
The idea behind this kind of business is to provide local businesses with a cost-effective and attention-grabbing way of advertising their products or services to larger audiences.
This business idea works for trucks that drive along high-traffic routes such as highways, city streets, or popular events.
Or, if your truck is rolling, it can be used as a static billboard while placed in a high-traffic location.
This business opportunity allows truck drivers to diversify the driver's sources of income while still driving on their designated lanes.
11. Refrigerated trucking
A refrigerated trucking business involves the transportation of temperature-sensitive goods such as perishable foods, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals, in specialized vehicles that are equipped with refrigeration systems.
The key in the reefer trucking business is meeting the client's specific temperature control needs ensuring that the cargo is maintained at the optimal temperature throughout transportation.
This may involve implementing sophisticated temperature monitoring and control systems to ensure that the goods are transported safely and without any damage.
12. Long haul trucking
Long-haul trucking, also known as over-the-road (OTR) trucking, is a transportation service that involves the movement of goods over long distances by road.
Long-haul trucking provides goods across vast distances. It connects businesses and consumers across different regions of the country or of different countries and, by doing that, long-haul trucking plays a vital role in the global economy.
Typically, long-haul trucking uses tractor-trailers to provide their transportation service because these types of vehicles can carry large amounts of cargo over long distances such as consumer goods, raw materials, and industrial products.
Long-haul trucking is a complex and challenging industry. It requires skilled drivers and sophisticated logistics management.
Drivers must be licensed and trained to operate large commercial vehicles safely. They need to hold a CDL class A type of license.
13. Intermodal trucking
Intermodal trucking is a business idea that involves the transportation of goods using multiple modes of transportation.
Typically, intermodal transportation includes the use of trucks, railroads, ships, and airplanes to transport goods across long distances.
In an intermodal trucking business, trucks transport goods to and from a local rail yard or shipping port. From there, the goods are loaded onto trains or ships for transport over long distances.
Once the goods reach their destination, they are loaded back onto trucks for final delivery to their ultimate destination.
14. Expedited freight services
Expedited trucking is a business model that specializes in providing quick and efficient transportation services for urgent and time-sensitive cargo.
Businesses that deal with products that have a short shelf life or have strict delivery deadlines, such as medical supplies, perishable goods, and machinery, rely heavily on expedited freight services to meet their shipping deadlines.
Expedited trucking is an attractive means of transportation because these kinds of companies operate with a sense of urgency and offer faster delivery times than traditional trucking services.
15. Specialized freight services
Specialized freight business focuses on transporting oversized or overweight cargo.
This type of freight is typically too large or too heavy to be transported by standard shipping methods and requires specialized equipment and expertise to move.
To start this business, you would need to invest in the necessary equipment, such as flatbed trailers, lowboys, and specialized heavy-duty trucks. You would also need to hire skilled drivers who have experience in transporting oversized cargo and are trained in the proper loading and unloading procedures.
You would also need to handle logistics, such as obtaining permits and coordinating with local authorities to ensure that the cargo can be transported safely and legally.
16. Junk removal
There are times when people cannot throw unwanted belongings directly into the trash.
A junk removal business is a type of business that collects and disposes of unwanted items and debris from residential and commercial properties.
If you have a box truck, it can be a good business idea to get involved in.
You may help individuals or businesses get rid of unwanted waste.
To provide a junk removal business, you need to equip the truck with bins, lifts, and other equipment that can help you handle heavy loads and bulky items.
