Want to know what inspires a driver to pull off the road and do a little impulse shopping? Well, I can tell you.
I’m the founder of a business called Roadside Republic. For the past 12 years, we’ve partnered with family- run orchards to sell peaches from roadside setups across high-traffic locations. Every day, about 80% of our customers are first-time buyers, and most hadn’t planned to buy peaches. But over time, I’ve figured out the secret to grabbing their attention and turning them into shoppers.
It’s simple: nostalgia. And I believe it can work far beyond the peach business.
I don’t have a background in agriculture. Until 2013, I was the COO of a family-run software company in Fort Worth, Texas. But that year, my dad was diagnosed with small-cell lung cancer, and I needed to make a change. I had a friend in South Carolina who kept insisting I learn the peach business. He called it “boring, cash-rich, and wildly overlooked.” So in the summer of 2013, I took my 11-year-old son, Finn, down South to work the stands together. (Today, Finn is 23 and my business partner.)
We started out with 100 stands across South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia. Our early setups were straightforward: tents, tables, and printed vinyl banners that read “Peaches.” Our branding was clear, functional, a little corporate, and easy to understand from the road. Sales were okay, but nothing about them had momentum.
So I decided to experiment. I grabbed paint, found scrap boards, and started making signs myself. I put them out — and sales ticked upward. How interesting! From there, we started replacing everything — banners, visuals, even the colors. Out went anything that felt neutral or modern. In came hand-painted boards, folk-art peaches, and bold primary colors from another era. We also changed the layout of our stands to bring people inside our tents, and piled up so many peaches that our tables strained under the weight.
The sales impact was immediate and transformative. We went from subpar business to genuinely hot. Even more striking was how our customers’ behavior changed. Strangers lingered — asking questions, telling stories. They returned with their kids, and treated the parking lot like a place worth staying.
We realized: Peaches are a commodity product, so really, we were in the business of selling a feeling. Our nostalgic stands gave people a way to step outside their lives, and to participate in something that felt larger than themselves. This was no longer just about peaches; it was about community and belonging. And every business can do this, in its own way. It just requires thinking beyond the product to what experience you can sell.
For example, we started training our employees to talk about the local farms where the peaches come from. We learned varietals, flavor profiles — which peaches you eat standing over the sink, which ones belong in a pie, and which ones hold up for canning. We learned how an early-season peach is completely different from one harvested later. We learned how a warm winter weakens a crop, and a cold winter strengthens it.
This way, when customers walked up, they got more than a price and a piece of fruit. They got context and insight, and a story they could take home to tell their friends and family.
Customers do not want a product. They want an improvement in their lives. So find a way to signal that — and to make the experience surrounding your product as compelling and engaging as the product itself. That’s what will get them to pull off the road (or stop scrolling on social media) and pay attention to you. That victory is as sweet as a peach.
Want to know what inspires a driver to pull off the road and do a little impulse shopping? Well, I can tell you.
I’m the founder of a business called Roadside Republic. For the past 12 years, we’ve partnered with family- run orchards to sell peaches from roadside setups across high-traffic locations. Every day, about 80% of our customers are first-time buyers, and most hadn’t planned to buy peaches. But over time, I’ve figured out the secret to grabbing their attention and turning them into shoppers.
It’s simple: nostalgia. And I believe it can work far beyond the peach business.
