About Street Vendors
The life of a street vendor is relatively relaxed, but inordinately low paying. Street peddlers sell food, souvenirs, clothing, bootleg fashion items, pirated movies, used books, old magazines and more. They are often subject to inconsistently applied regulations and harassment from police, business owners and pedestrians. Many are under constant pressure to pay for leased equipment or licenses and to pay for supplies.
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Significance
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Many street vendors are immigrants with limited language skills and few other employment opportunities. Food vendors in particular must secure licenses from relevant municipal authorities, such as a department of health, and are subject to random inspections for cleanliness and accordance with relevant regulations. If they can manage their resources well and build a steady customer base, they can make as much money as a typical permanent small business but with much lower overhead costs. If they can't, however, they will likely only squeak by on a poverty wage, barely able to pay for their equipment.
Function
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A typical street vendor chooses a high-traffic area and caters to a specific clientele. Coffee and baked goods vans can make a brisk trade parking near to mass transit hubs and major employers of white collar workers like lawyers, professors and others. Sometimes, they may position themselves near where employees take smoke breaks. Others, like taco vans, will drive from place to place, providing hot lunch to hungry workers.
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Features
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Many of the people selling non-food items on the street are military veterans, who are not affected by licensing caps. The expense and difficulty of acquiring a vendor license make it very difficult for independent operators to work the streets legally. Even operating a small business out of the back of a van could put you at risk of a high fine or jail time. Street vendors can expect to be regularly treated poorly by law enforcement--the government has a strong incentive to crack down on even minor regulation violations because all street vendor transactions are in cash, and therefore extremely difficult to tax effectively.
Considerations
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Street vendors often need to pay expenses that are comparable to those of renting a commercial space, as they often need parking space within commuting distance. The advantage they gain is in mobility and relative flexibility of costs. However, those who want to build up a regular clientele will need to be able to show up at the same spot on a regular basis, show up every day and potentially even learn the names and preferred orders of people who they do business with.
Benefits
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Street vendors enjoy a lot of freedom relative to other small business operators, even with all of the difficulties, particularly if they own their own license and equipment. They can choose when and how they get to work. They get to work with people all day and create jovial working relationships with their customers. For recent immigrants in particular, it can be a wonderful opportunity to work on language skills and communication that may open up other career paths for them.
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Resources
- Photo Credit kimberleyfaye, Flickr
