I interviewed Qurrat-ul-Ain Farrukh, the co-founder of Urban Truck Art, a Pakistani home goods store that makes products using the cultural style of “truck art” and uses this style in all sorts of home goods, ranging from tissue box to coffee table to chopping board.
I asked her what inspired her to start this brand. She said that her husband is passionate about Pakistani culture. 2 years ago during the pandemic, he met some truck art artists. From there, she and her husband got the idea of doing fusion in home decor with truck art. They started the company with 4-5 products and now have 300+ products, and 3 warehouses. She mentioned that it took time and financial investment to figure out the “product-market fit”. They did research and development and worked on product development. This process took a year. They learned more by launching products and getting responses.
She also mentioned that initially, people who liked truck art would purchase Urban Truck Art’s products but now, even people who originally did not like truck art purchase products, given that supply has created its own demand in the market. Given the good quality of the products and it being difficult to find good quality truck art products due to lack of quality control in local stores, with time, these products became trendy. She mentioned that their manufacturing is in-house, in order to avoid quality issues which poses a hindrance in selling of cultural products and crafts.
After hearing about her work, I asked Ms. Farrukh, “What advice would you give to people who wish to contribute to the reclamation/promotion of Pakistan’s culture/Urdu language through cultural products?”
Her response to this question was, “You have to make it happen and not listen to what others say, it will take hard work and persistence. Good quality cultural products with a contemporary touch is a growing niche and people should definitely work on it! We often under-estimate the size of our own Pakistani domestic market.”
In order to learn the response from the diaspora/international community, I asked her the percentage of people ordering from abroad?
She said that 15% of the orders are placed from abroad, the main constraint being high shipping cost. This percentage could be higher if the shipping cost was lower. As an alternative, often people buy when they come to Pakistan from abroad. She also mentioned that Urban Truck Art’s resellers take things abroad and sell them in order to reduce shipping cost at the customer’s end. She mentioned that customers are emotionally attached to them, given their unique spin on cultural products.
She also mentioned that they have done some projects that contributed to representing Pakistan’s truck art culture abroad. For instance, one of their clients got a grocery store painted in Australia. In some of their other big projects with embassies, they have gotten positive reviews from foreigners which reflect the role of culture in representation and connecting people to identity.
It is inspiring to see niche companies like these in making culture commonplace and accessible in an exciting way. It gives reason to believe that this is an untapped market which can serve as a way to allow Pakistanis or non-Pakistanis alike to celebrate Pakistani culture!
