Five Minute Friday: The 4 Mistakes Costing Retailers Profit Going Into 2026

Boutique Chat

Ashley Alderson

Business, Entrepreneurship, Marketing

5 • 853 Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

As we close out the year and head into a new one, it's time to get honest.

Most businesses won't fail in 2026 because of the economy — they'll fail because they're still operating like it's 2019.

In today's Five Minute Friday, I'm breaking down the four biggest mistakes I saw retailers make over the last year — mistakes that are quietly costing you time, money, margin, and momentum. If your business feels busy but not profitable, chances are one (or more) of these is holding you back.

You'll learn:

What winning retailers will do differently in 2026
The shift from "pretty branding" to real customer relationships
How ignoring cash flow and margin creates long-term stress
Why underutilizing AI and automation is no longer an option
The dangerous gap between sales and actual profitability

🛍️ Join thousands of retailers who've transformed their business with The Boutique Hub.

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Ashley Alderson: Instagram

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey guys, welcome back to Five Minute Friday. And as we close out the year, welcome in a new year. I love this time of year because it's out with old and with the new. But I think in order to plan our way forward, we have to do a really good job of looking back at not only what worked and what we want more of, but also what didn't work. So I would say most businesses aren't going to fail in 2026 because of the economy, but I think
0:23.4	most businesses that are going to fail in 2026 are because they're operating like it's 2019.
0:29.5	And I think that is one of the biggest mistakes I saw in the last year is people just not
0:33.9	adapting to how fast our industry is changing and the new trends and the new content
0:38.1	strategy, all of it. So today, my word of caution is just, if you feel like your business is
0:44.2	busy, but it's not profitable, then one of these four mistakes might be the reason that you're
0:50.1	feeling like you're in this trap. And it's definitely one of the top four mistakes that I saw
0:54.0	happen over the last 12 months. You're costing yourself time, you're costing yourself money,
0:59.1	you're costing yourself momentum if you don't address these four mistakes. So do you want to hear
1:03.4	what they are? All right, let's hear about it. So mistake number one is confusing activity or being
1:09.6	busy with progress, right? Being busy isn't effective. So doing things like
1:15.4	posting every single day, but not understanding your traffic or your conversions, right? Running constant
1:21.3	promotions like blanket sales, but not really maintaining margin and profitability. Or you're feeling
1:27.3	like you're just always working,
1:28.7	right? You're doing the next thing. It's the to-do list that you're crossing off, but you're not
1:33.2	actually looking at the things on your list that are the things proven to move the needle, right? Being
1:38.4	busy, but not effective. And it's a trap that every single one of us can fall in. I've fallen into it
1:43.3	myself many times. And it's just a strategy. It's a mindset. It's a trap that every single one of us can fall in. I've fallen into it myself many times.
1:44.9	And it's just a strategy.
1:46.9	It's a mindset.
1:47.9	It's a conscious awareness of pulling yourself out of this cycle, this hamster wheel that we're on.
1:52.9	So if you feel like you don't actually know what's driving revenue and you're just guessing, right?
	...

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