Five Minute Friday: The 13 Strategies Boutique Owners Need for 2026

Hey, guys, it's you and me this week as we wrap up season seven of the Boutique Chat podcast. I can hardly believe it. We're full steam ahead into all the things right now, planning and prepping for season eight. I've started to have some of those conversations, record some of those episodes, kind of lay out what that experience is going to look like. But before we get to season eight, which is going to launch on February 24th, I just want to pause right where we're at, right where you're listening, and I. I want to take another minute because it's one of my favorite things to do on the podcast and just say, hey, here's where we are in business right now in this industry. And here's where I see things evolving, where I know things are going based on the literally thousands of conversations I've been having. And so today, I've got my little notebook, I've got tons of notes, if you're watching this on YouTube. But I have 13 things that I really want you to slow down, to speed up, and I want you to focus on these 13 things in terms of what I think is really working in 2026. Things that I think you should take notes on, lessons you should take to the bank, things you should put into place in your business this year. All right, so here's the 13 things I think really are worth your time, energy, and attention right now. And our industry, just to kind of recap, if we look back at what happened in 2025, we went through a huge evolution in this industry. Saw consumer spending definitely change. We saw people kind of slowing down to make purchasing decisions a little bit slower, maybe focusing more on value versus want and impulse buys. Right. So that shifts how you have to show up, how you merchandise, how you market, how you go live, how you, you know, drive traffic from everywhere. We definitely saw that. We saw pricing and inventory challenges kind of fluctuate, a lot of unknowns throughout the year with tariffs and what was all happening there. And then this is something I'm actually really excited about. We saw in 2025 was kind of a secondary effect of that tariff conversation, was the de minimis rule changing. And I think that really took the wind out of the sales of websites like Sheen and Temu, and where it was just really a strong, I don't know, frustrating, like, boiling point at the beginning of the year. I do think that that, like, kind of loosened a little bit toward the end of the year, and I did see customers going back for the holiday season, and stats are Showing this that they did lean back into supporting small businesses this holiday season. So I think that's great when it comes to trust. Consumers I think have been burnt enough now by some of those sites online that they're like, yes, I need to lean into people I know like and trust. And so that's kind of shifting again, these 13 bullet points in the direction of your business and marketing in the next year. So I'm curious, you guys, what you think of these 13 kind of strategy points for 2026 as you listen to these. I love the conversation. I love the back and forth. I'd love to hear your point of view. So make sure you message me on Instagram. It's AJ Alderson is my personal account. You're going to see me showing up there a whole lot more this year than you did last year. Last year I was like kind of mia, kind of trying to get my personal health in order after knee surgery and just struggling to show up in so many ways. I'm excited to feel good again and excited to be back. So come over there, come join me, send me a chat, let me know anytime your thoughts on the podcast and just continue the conversation. I love to voice memo with you guys. So meet me over there on Instagram as we go through these. Okay, Are you ready? Here's my thoughts. My 13 things that I think you should really focus on and strategize on in 2026. The first is community and conversation are key. And we've known this. If you've been in this business for a long time, I think that's really many businesses that were really successful during COVID Right before COVID you nailed this early on, you nailed authenticity. But then I think it became so easy to show up and just sell, sell, sell, because people were buying for quite a period of time. And now with the changes in the last year, and specifically toward the end of last year with the launch of Andromeda Meta's new algorithm, we saw Andromeda prioritizing content that was meaningful conversation starters. Meaningful conversation starters. So what were the things that you talked about that got people responding multiple times in the comments or responding to one another respond? Where were you getting in and responding to people in the comments on Instagram? Specifically, where were people saving your content or sharing your content to their stories more than just liking or commenting? And I think a lot of that is because we have a trust recession. I've heard a number of creators talk about this. We have a trust recession happening right now where everyone online is Trying to sell something, everyone online, it's kind of like we're past the Internet boom, right? And everyone now is like, oh, I can make money here. Okay, great. I'm gonna try to do that. And so everyone's selling something. Not everything they're selling is good. And again, that's kind of going back to that idea of the downfall of Sheen and Timu. So with that trust recession, you have to position yourself in a position of authenticity, a position of authenticity, authority, and of trust. And that all starts with meaningful conversations. So what are you sharing behind the scenes? What are you sharing, which is daily conversation starters, questions, personal stories, video, going live. All those things are really important to build the trust in the community first and then sell to them secondary. All right, Second opportunity is. This is really important. You know, we're in the AI boom. We're in this crazy AI boom. I would say the majority of you by this point have at least used chat GPT and you've seen a lot of content from us. We did an entire AI mastermind in 2025. If you didn't see some of those AI tools, message me. I'd love to share more of them with you. We have our own AI bot here at the Boutique Hub called Ask Ashley. It's available to our members. It's all of chat GPT, but then specialty trained on every single guest we've ever had on the podcast, every single course we've ever launched, every training we've ever created, every piece of content from the Boutique hub for over 13, now 14 years is all trained with our AI bot. So you can ask that questions anytime. AI is here. The boom is here. But here's my lesson for 2026. AI is your assistant, but AI is not your brain. And so I'm going to encourage you, do not be lazy. With AI being lazy. I can't tell you how many resumes I've gotten of people I'm trying to hire in the last year where it was an AI generated, generated resume. They all started with the same sentences, social media, product descriptions, graphics, just, you know, kind of some very general generic content. AI is not your brain. It's your assistant. So you still have to leverage your unique perspective and your unique point of view and how you see the world. You've got to be willing to take a stance and stop being vanilla. AI is going to make a lot of people vanilla if we allow it to be our brain. So don't do that. Make it your assistant. Help you become smarter. Learn how to prompt properly. If you haven't already. Don't be lazy with it. Make it your asset. And you're going to soar above the rest if you do that. All right, lesson number three for this year is consistency beats creativity. Consistency. And I want to kind of double down on this in terms of traffic and video specifically. I think it's great if you've come up with like the most wonderful piece of content ever or the most Wonderful reel or TikTok ever. Good for you. You're so creative, like woo, awesome. But that one hit wonder is going to not matter four days from now or 12 hours from now for that matter. But what it is is you showing up imperfectly, consistently. So getting on live video, not every. Not having everything together, not having all of your makeup done, continuing to post reels, continuing to just share your point of view and perspective. Even if your day doesn't feel perfect behind the scenes or the lighting is right or you've got everything laid out, you people want to know that they can trust you. And so consistency builds that trust, not just amazing creative content once in a while. So show up consistently. Let us trust you. All right, number four, Done is better than perfect. Ooh. And I want to talk to this point of view for e commerce retailers. I'm going to double down with this. Speed beats polish. Right? Done is better than perfect and speed beats polish. So I am all about beautiful websites. We do website audits sites all the time inside the boutique hub, whether it's in retail boot camp or boutique of black. And you have to have some elements right? Right. Like you've got to have your menu bar. We talk a lot about like order of priority in your menu bar, keeping it short, sweet to one line, most important to least important, going right to left. Collections, new arrivals. Like there's very standard pieces of your website that need to be there. Great lighting, same sized photos. Like if you don't know that, like that's four years ago. But now we've gotten into like optimizing them almost so much on in some cases that we've done things that really slow down our load time and our page speed and that is killing you when it comes to search and it's killing you on Google and it's going to kill you with chat GPT as chat GPT reads your products as you get them indexed now. So speed beats polish and done is better than perfect. Stop slowing down and making everything perfect. Just get it done and get it out there. Number five, being memorable somewhere, being means more than being everywhere. I still Like, I'm going back to kindergarten. Being memorable somewhere is more important than being everywhere. Can I just say that? Oh, that was tough. Being memorable somewhere is more important than being everywhere. So what that means in terms of social content is it was really easy in the last couple of years to see what the Joneses are doing and try to keep up with them. So, gosh, I saw these people killing it on TikTok shop, and I saw these people saying, I'm still on Snapchat. And these people over here were like, pinterest is my go to Instagram, Facebook. I think it's really important that you double down on who's your customer? Where do they live? What is acquiring traffic for you the most right now? Like, what's the data telling you? And then double down, pick your top two places and double down for nine out of 10 of you, it's going to be still, Facebook is the highest converting platform, and Instagram, those are your top two. Some of you are going to kill it on TikTok and some of you aren't. TikTok shops is not for everyone. Um, it's for a very specific customer. If you kind of like to have returns that smell like cat pee, it's definitely for you. No, I'm just kidding. Um, it's tough. TikTok shop is tough. So make sure you're smart about how you leverage TikTok in terms of creating brand content, driving awareness, but then letting your conversion point be somewhere else, if that makes sense for you. Otherwise, if you're like, okay, I'm going to go all in on these certain types of product categories on TikTok. I'm going to sell them at high volume, at low cost, and I'm going to just get them out the door. Some of you are killing it. Like, do that if that's you. But remember, be memorable somewhere, and that beats being everywhere. Right? Can't be everything to everyone. Okay, I've got to get past number five. I couldn't even read my writing. Number six, attention and retention beats new customer acquisition. This is so important because in marketing, it is so easy to be like, acquire new customers, acquire new customers. Where are there new people? Meet new people, get new people through the door. And that's great, but it's the most expensive way to grow your business. You have a whole slew of past customers, right? And current customers. Let's market to them, bring them back around, right? There's only three ways to grow a business. Acquiring new customers, getting customers to buy more, and getting customers to Buy more often. So lean into getting customers to buy more and buy more often. So that means customer return rate, average order value. What is your outreach plan? What's your get back plan via email or postcard or phone call. Like clientele your customers. Serve them, make them feel important. Quit, like tossing them to the side and always looking for someone new. Like they're just, you know, another ex girlfriend. They're not. Make them feel important. All right, number seven. This is critical, you guys. Profit beats sales. Profit, bead sales. You've got to measure what matters for so many people. I talked about this a lot in January when it came to setting new goals, but it's so easy to say, oh, yeah, this year I'm going to sell a million dollars. I'm gonna sell $500,000, I'm gonna sell $10 million. But if you don't have any money in the bank to show for it, it don't mean crap. So stop focusing on sales alone and start focusing on leading indicators like we just mentioned. Average order value, conversion rate, units per transaction. Retain your customers by training your staff to serve them well. Getting your staff incentivized to have like a messiest dressing room contest. Right? How many things could people try on largest order? Right. Biggest fish. We could do lots of things with our staff to incentivize them to get customers to buy more, buy more often. Bigger orders, more of a get back rate. Those things drive profitability. Inventory management drives profitability. Pricing drives profitability. All things we talk about in retail bootcamp focus on profitability more than just what you're going to sell, because your discounts are going to crush you along the way. All right, number nine. Oh, man. Number nine. This might be controversial. I'm curious, because think about this, but I think that burnout is preventable. And I saw a lot of stores get really, really burned out this year. It's. It's definitely an issue. It's inevitable. It's something that is going to happen to probably all of us. But I do think it's preventable. And I think when you've been through burnout and you look in the rearview mirro, you're like, oh, yeah, there's some things I could have, should have, would have done different, knowing what I know now. And so before you get to that point or you get to it again, because sometimes we go through it multiple times, right? Business is this roller coaster. I want you to go back and focus on what does it mean for me to be a CEO versus entrepreneur again. I coach a Ton on this inside of the hub. But CEO mindset is building systems and processes and understanding that time is more important than money. So where do I take the resources I do have and use those to leverage and create more time in my business again for other people to support me? Where am I willing to ask for help? Where am I focusing on the income generating activities? You know, what is the, the 10x that can get me further than 2x? Like, what is that mindset? These are all things again, I've talked a lot about in the last year, but I want to kind of die on this hill a little bit. Burnout is preventable if you choose to live in CEO versus Entrepreneur mindset. Tell me your thoughts on Instagram, AJ Alderson. Message me over there and let me know what you think. All right, number 10. This is important. This is so important, you guys. You've never made it or you're never too big to always keep learning. I have the privilege of meeting so many amazing retailers, so many of you and of all sizes. Right? Like, I, I get the new retailers who are like, I'm so excited to learn. You know, I'm here, I'm a sponge, I'm gonna soak it up. I get the retailers who are like, gosh, you know what, I've been trying this and that and the other thing, but I'm struggling a little bit. I'm actively looking for help and solutions. And then I have retailers who are, are successful and they're like, hey, I'm successful because I'm a lifelong learner. I want to know what I don't know. Like, I'm always going to be learning. I want to come to the hub because I know there's always a nugget and I know there's always a next level. Those are the three people or three types of retailers I freaking love. I look forward to meeting at market and you know, online and in the podcast and in my DMs. Like, you guys reach out to me. I freaking love meeting you. But there's one group of retailers that I struggle a little bit with and I've had not a lot, but a few encounters with these. And these are the people who say things like, yeah, but I already make a million dollars, so I really don't need the help. Yeah, I've already been in business for 20 years, so I don't really need the help. Yeah, I, I'm already doing that. So I think that everything else you teach me, it's going to be too basic. Like those things Just drive me crazy because I really believe, like, this is Shawshank Redemption talking, right? Andy Dufresne. If you ain't living, you're dying. If you aren't investing in yourself and trying to learn something new or surrounding yourself by people who are hungry, motivated, driven, excited to get to the next level, like, you're only going backwards from here. And I think there's a. An amount of ego that comes with business growth, growth that is unhealthy for us. Pride and ego can get in the way of the humility of becoming and birthing the next best version of yourself. And so I think being able to put aside, like, yeah, but. Or I'm already blah. I would just encourage you to be curious. Like, well, what else is possible? Gosh, if I've gotten here or if I've been in existence this long or if I've already made a million dollars, gosh, I wonder what else is possible for me and who can help me get there. So I think curiosity beats pride and ego every single day of the week. So be curious, stay hungry, and just start the conversation. If I can help you, I would love to. There's many of you who, I will say, man, in all kinds of areas of business. I'm not scared to say there's people smarter than me, but I think it's all about not what you know, it's who you know. So I love to surround myself by people who are hungry, curious, and ready to connect, you know, one another with the people who can get them where they want to go. So that's my mission here at the Hub. All right, number 11. Oh, my gosh. Okay, let me shift gears and talk strategically about inventory for a second. Number 11. This was something I thought was interesting. In the last year, live shows, like in person, trade show markets still dominated, which is fascinating because with the rise of fair and of course, fashion, go's been here a long time and we have our own site, Hubventory. You know, with the rise of so many people buying online, I don't know that it really deterred a ton from the shows. Like, yes, there were certain shows last year that were down, down, down. I won't name the names, but there were some that were very down. There were some that were way up. And then there was a whole slew of shows that emerged that were experience based. Like those of you who went to Hawaii, those of you who work with Gene and go to array, like, the experience and the in person relationship building opportunity of shows is a major one. And do not sleep on that opportunity. Get to an in person trade show if you have the opportunity to. Even if that's not your main channel you prefer to buy on on a regular basis. There's a ton of value of getting to in person shows. Right. Number 12, there is no excuse not to know your numbers. I think this is one of the beautiful parts about AI and making it your assistant is it was very easy before to go, oh, gal, I just don't know where I, you know, I don't know where to begin. I don't know what I don't know. I don't know where to start with my numbers. Reports are overwhelming. Numbers are overwhelming. Now with Shopify's Sidekick and with Chat GPT, no matter what platform you're on, export your numbers, put it into chat, ask it to speak to you like you're a third grader who's intimidated by these numbers. Ask it to help you, you know, ask it better questions. Ask it to help you make decisions, have it give you suggestions. There's so many great tools out there and there's great resources inside of the hub as well. I mean, shout out to Christine Gray and to Mary and to Management one and to Harquin and to and to so many people who spend all day long helping people understand their numbers. There's resources so there's no excuse not to know them anymore. Okay, finally, last but not least, number 13. Lucky number 13. A sign of strength is asking for help. A sign of strength is asking for help. There are so many tools and resources available to us. And yes, digitally we can ask for all the help in the world, but nothing will ever beat having friends and allies in this industry. Leaning on people who are doing the same thing you're doing makes you stronger. Doesn't make you weak to ask for help, it makes you stronger. And so I just encourage you this year, lean into community over competition. Wherever two or more stores come together, you become a shopping destination. And I think the more that we can build up this industry and the more we can build up one another's businesses, the more it creates a need and a desire for people to shop independent retailers. So we've got us like band together. Our industry has to come together and push and promote what it means to be a boutique owner, what it means to be a gift shop, what it means to be an independent retailer. And encouraging people to shop small first and support small businesses first and for you guys to share that knowledge with one another. This is something on the apparel side of the industry. We've done really well for a number of years. Many of you have led the charge with this inside of the boutique hub on the home and gift side of the industry. This is becoming more and more common, but I would say there's still pushback if you're in the home and gift industry. Be a voice for community over competition. Be a voice for sharing knowledge. Be a voice for strengthening our industry, strengthening our brands and driving more people into our stores by working together and collaborating. Right, okay. Those were my top 13 focus points for 2026. Again, I want your feedback and I'd love to keep the conversation going. So here's what we're going to do. I want you to share with me your thoughts over on my Instagram @aj Alderson. And I would also love your feedback on season seven of the podcast. When did you listen? How did you listen? What shows did you like the most? Was it me interviewing other people? Was it some of these kind of short and sweet solo episodes I did? Was it the new 5 Minute Friday formats? Like, what did you love and what didn't you love? Like, were there episodes you hated? Tell me, I'd love to know. And then who would you love to see and what content would you love to see in the next year as we wrap up, you know, kind of planning for season eight and getting all the pieces in place? Who do you want to see on the podcast this year? All right, last but not least, as we close up season seven and get ready for the launch at the end of February of season eight, I've got some giveaways. I've got four people I want to give prizes to. I just like organize my office so I have totes of stuff I want to send to you guys. But I would love to hear this. We are right at 2.88 million downloads of this podcast, which is crazy. Thank you guys for listening. Thank you for listening to this podcast. 2.8 million downloads. My huge, huge goal, and I hope you can help me with it, is to cross 3 million. So please, please subscribe to the podcast, leave us a rating and review and tell your friends. I'm going to be going through before the launch of season eight and picking out four of you for my giveaways and who have left a review and a rating of the podcast. Because I just want to say thank you for being here, thank you for showing up and thank you for listening. Let's get to 3 million downloads together, you guys. I can't wait to see you. It's going to be just a short couple of weeks on break here at the podcast and then we will launch season eight together. So from the bottom of my heart, you guys, to you, thank you for being a listener of this podcast and I will see you next season. That's it for five Minute Friday, you guys. I hope you found some quick, actionable steps you can put into play in your business right away. As if you're not yet a member of the Boutique Hub, I would love to personally invite you to join us. It's where all of the daily conversations happen. The up to date what is working now in the industry conversations, the latest trainings, trend reports, discounts, resources, and of course, access to thousands of wholesale brands that you also know and love. So please take a minute, follow the link in the show notes and we would love to invite you to join us inside of the Boutique Hub.