The Winning Formula: How Boutiques Win the Holidays and Own 2027
-with Ashley Alderson, CEO of The Boutique Hub
The biggest selling season of the year is almost here! So, we brought in the person who knows boutiques better than anyone...
Ashley Alderson, CEO of The Boutique Hub (the world’s largest community and education platform for independent boutiques), joins Indie Insights Live. In this candid discussion, we’ll cover what to expect this holiday season, how to make the most of Pink Friday and Black Friday, and how AI is changing the way boutiques run day to day, including The Boutique Hub’s new AI-powered Operating System.
Plus,how to plan holiday inventory so you sell through the season, avoid the January markdown hangover, and start 2027 right.
What we’ll cover:
Holiday 2026 outlook: what boutiques can expect from shoppers, traffic, and spending this season
Pink Friday and Black Friday playbook: tips for making the most of the busiest weekend of the year
Inside Pink Friday 2026: what’s new for The Boutique Hub’s shop-small event on November 20
AI for boutiques: how AI is changing independent retail, and how The Boutique Hub Operating System (BHOS) and the Retail Bootcamp Accelerator give boutique owners AI that tells them what to focus on every day
Plan holiday to set up 2027: how to buy and manage holiday inventory, when to chase and when to stop buying, and how to get through January with clean stock and open-to-buy for spring
2027 and beyond: Ashley’s insights on the future boutique retail
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Indie Insights Live - “The Winning Formula: How Boutiques Win the Holidays and Own 2027”
Featuring: Dane Cohen (Management One) and Ashley Alderson (The Boutique Hub)
Host: Management One
Aired: Oct 22, 2026
Transcript
Dane Cohen: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Indie Insights Live. Okay, I know I say this a lot, but… This one is the big interview. This is the one we've been waiting for for a while now. Don't be bashful, Ashley. She is one of the most influential voices in the boutique industry. If you've been to any market, if you've been anywhere in the fashion apparel space, you have seen Ashley, and of course, the Boutique Hub. She's the founder. the CEO, my former boss, actually. And now she is joining us on Indie Insights Live. Welcome, Ashley.
Ashley Alderson: Oh, that's the best intro anyone's ever given me, Dane. Seriously, that was so nice, thank you, I really appreciate it, I'm happy to be here.
Dane Cohen: Well, it is true, and, you know, just a little housekeeping before we jump in. Of course, this is going to be recorded, so we like to be live because we want your questions. You have Ashley here for the next 45 minutes to an hour, so you'll be able to interact and ask questions. So please, we want to see in the chat, chime in. I'll be watching the chat, so if you're here, let us know where you're coming from, where you're calling in from, the name of your boutique, we'd love to hear from you. And of course, this is being recorded. We will send it out to you if you have to jump off early, and it will, of course, be on our YouTube podcast playlist, so you can watch all Indie Insights live weekly. Okay, Ashley. So, we are coming up on… well, we're in Q4, we're coming up on the big season. Before we jump into all things boutique and holiday and the future, I want to take a little bit of a step back, and I think that really getting to know our guests and how their, you know, retail and business view is formed, I think, is really essential to the conversation. So, take us back. I mean, you have a really incredible past, an incredible story, so give us the highlight reel, so to speak.
Ashley Alderson: Oh, man, yeah. Well, lots of ups and downs. I'll give you the Cliff Notes version, and while I'm sharing this, like Dane said, you guys, I'm really happy to be here, and I would love to be able to tailor everything we talk about today to you guys specifically who are watching, so please let me know where you're from, and also what you sell, in the chat. I would love to be able to see who's here. But, yeah, Dane, so, this is our 13th year in business. And I started, you know, the idea for this started long ago. I actually grew up in North Dakota. I grew up on a ranch. Middle of nowhere, town of 1,600 people, one flashing red light, and about, I don't know, 100 miles away from a Walmart? Like, middle of nowhere, but… Surprisingly, this is what I love about independent retail is, as rural as we were. We were really like a shopping destination for the middle of nowhere. Everyone who was around us in the middle of nowhere came to us. to shop. So we had a beautiful, thriving Main Street, and I remember that from my childhood, and then after I went to school for marketing, communications, PR, I came back and I worked in economic development for about 7 years, and I ran that for our county and for 4 cities in the county, and so I really fell in love with retail. I really fell in love with small businesses. My dad always said, it's not what you know, it's who you know, and so I believe in surrounding yourself with, you know, smart people who challenge you and help you, you know, think bigger and think differently, and so economic development really formed me, and I love just, you know, putting these ideas and pieces together for business owners. But eventually, my dad passed away, who was kind of the patriarch of the ranch. And when that happened, and everything was kind of changing over to my brother, my husband and I decided, okay, it's time to go on an adventure. We moved to Wisconsin, where my husband's from, and we've got 3 small kids at this time. We move into a random small town, and at that time, when I left economic development, I knew I wanted to do something in that same space, but I didn't know what. And I'd always had a love of boutiques specifically. Anytime I traveled around the country, I loved finding unique retailers, whether it was downtown of a big city, small town, it was a vendor at a rodeo in Reno that had something really cool. Like, I wanted to find, how can someone like me, who grew up in the middle of nowhere, find these really cool stores all over the world. So, selfishly, we could all shop these really cool stores. And so at that time, I took our life savings, Eric and I had no money, we were broke broke, didn't come from anything, and I think I took credit card money on top of our life savings, and randomly built a website. And the intention of the website was, it was going to be an online shopping mall of Boutique, so that people like me could find them. Well, as we started to build this, what I realized was all the stores that I started to talk with, they were all former stay-at-home moms, teachers, nurses, maybe didn't have a lot of experience in retail, or maybe they were a really old, established retailer who was unfamiliar with internet marketing. It was kind of the gamut. And so I thought, you know what? What people really needed wasn't the website I was building, it wasn't an online shopping mall of Boutiques. It was, they needed… community. They needed education. They all needed to be put in the room with one another to say, hey, how was your fourth quarter? What promotions did you run? How do you run Facebook ads? What do you do for content? All of those, those things. So, I had a big, giant pivot, and started what the Boutique Hub is today, a couple of years later, and started the membership for the Boutique Hub back in, I think, maybe 2017, 2016, something like that. And today, what we do is we connect retailers around the world. So, we've served about 200,000 small businesses now. And we connect you with, really, the community of people who have the right answers, whether it's fellow retailers, wholesale brands, or industry experts, like yourself. We connect you with education, so literally the latest in strategy on all aspects of business. We do our best to provide discounts to our members, so because of the volume of our members, we really want to make sure you guys save money with a lot of the brands or tools, apps, service providers you're using. Our members typically get a discount. And then we want you to be in the know of what's happening. You know, you're so busy wearing so many hats as a business owner, it's hard to see the forest through the trees. So, if there's industry news or, you know, things that are changing, like AI, we want you to be the first to know of what's working right now with all of those tools. So we try to be on the cusp of those things, too, and our team now is made up of 30 people from around the world who are all industry experts, who are here to serve your business.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, and one of the things that I think is so great about the Boutique Hub, and we've been long-term partners here at Management One with the Boutique Hub, and very proud to be. But, you know, when Ashley talks about, and I'm giving this from my perspective, when Ashley talks about, you know, getting the answers from other retailers and being able to be in that room, it is so interesting to me because it's not just, you know. BS general advice and kind of, you know, fluffy guidance. I mean, you… the community gets down and gritty, right? So, real solutions, I need help, what are you doing for this? And there is just real information and real solutions. And I think that is one of the best things to see, because independent retailers, right, historically. just were alone, right? You were alone in your small town. You were alone in who you could talk to about your business problems, or, you know, getting cash together, or being able to stay open, or how to market your business, and now it exists in one place. So, you know, it's so exciting to see the tremendous growth that's happened over the years.
Ashley Alderson: I appreciate it. Thank you for that. And really, I think the reason that it works is our model's community over competition. What does that mean? It means, you know, a rising tide truly does lift all ships, and when our industry works together and we share knowledge with one another. It shouldn't be from a place of, I don't want to share this knowledge with you because Susie across the street's now going to beat me, and we're in competition with one another. Absolutely not. What I learned in economic development was, wherever two or more like businesses come together, you become a destination. So the stronger you are, and the stronger your neighbor is across the street, the stronger you both are together, and the more… independent retail shoppers you're creating. So that's our mission, is this whole industry has to strengthen itself, because we're together competing against Shein, Temu, Amazon, Walmart, like, all these big guys, so we've all got to stick together and strengthen the industry as a whole, and we do that by sharing really detailed information, not any fluff.
[09:06] What's Working in Boutiques Right Now
Dane Cohen: Yeah, and you know, listen, I come from the era of retail, you know, when I was first starting out in retail, where it was super competitive, and you were on lockdown mode, and there were distribution wars, and you didn't speak to your competitors, and people were poaching with, used a competitive shop, and people were poaching salespeople, so it's just so funny to see the exact opposite, and how the exact opposite actually works, and I'm sure a lot of people on here, you know. remember those days when it used to be so, you know, top secret, and everything was a competition, so it's good to see it on the other end of that. So, okay, we are in October. of 2026. I can't believe that we're already, you know, inching towards the end of the year. Halloween is just a… A week or so away. I'm gonna start with a broad question, and then we'll get down into it. what's working right now in independent boutiques? What are you seeing out there that is kind of differentiating small boutique owners, businesses, or, you know, even medium-sized businesses out there that are, you know, kind of the big draw in town?
Ashley Alderson: Yeah, ugh. there's not just one thing. There's not just one thing, and I want to talk about this in a couple of different buckets. I think the first bucket, I'm going to talk, like, internal and work external. The first bucket is, you know, obviously AI is a huge talking point this year. Why I want to start with that is because I think what's happening is boutique owners are finding ways to work smarter, to understand their numbers and their data in a way that they never were able to before, and they're finally utilizing, the information they have, whether it's marketing data, inventory data. Sell-through data, customer data. We're using this smarter to make better buying decisions. better buying decisions means better merchandising decisions, means understanding our customer better, and being able to solve our customers' problems with what we're stocking. So I think internally with operations, we just are so much further than we have ever been ahead with really understanding the data and what's working. So, I think a couple of things we need to learn from that. So, if we're stronger internally. We're gonna be stronger externally. And by that, I mean content. So what's working with retailers right now is a really strong content mix. of what's going to be branded content, telling us, you know, who are you as a company, what's the day in the life of business? What's happening behind the scenes? Why are you in business? What's your mission? What's your economic impact in your community? Like, tell us about the company. Then there's engagement data, or engagement content, which is, I'm just trying to stop the scroll. I want to have a conversation, I want to build a relationship, I want to ask you a question, I'm going to post a funny quote, meme, real, whatever it is. And then there's sales content, which is, here's my products, here's how you can really quickly buy this and get it into your cart, whether it's online or brick and mortar. And it's having a strong mix of that every single day. And I'm seeing boutique owners and retailers just show up in their content in such a different way in the last couple of months. Where it's a lot more personal. There's a lot more person behind the brand, it's a lot more personality behind the business, it's what it means to be a small business owner in today's economy. That content is definitely working. So you've got internal, you've got external, and then I think when those things work together, and you can nail those two things. We're seeing a ton of success with retailers who now are pouring gas on the fire by running ads. So, whether it' It's Facebook ads, or it's shop ads, which, if you're on Shopify and you're running shop ads, it's the only guaranteed ad platform that exists today. Literally, you don't pay unless you've made a sale. That doesn't exist on any other platform. So, people who are taking that risk, stepping out and saying, you know what, I'm willing to bet on myself and put a little money behind it in ads and amplify my message, we're seeing huge success in those areas.
[12:44] AI Slop vs. the Human Touch
Dane Cohen: By the way, I am such a sucker for those shop ads, because I will get one come up, and, you know, it was something I've been looking at 10 times, and now they give me, like, a 15% coupon, and, you know, that pushes it over the edge. I want to ask you about the correlation between two things that you just talked about. You know, obviously we're talking about AI for more operational and that internal side of things, but then you're talking about branded content, engagement, sales content, and, you know, the external facing. Have you seen people mixing those in the wrong way? And what, you know, some feedback that we hear is, you know, copy is getting very generic, and some images are starting to look really artificial or AI. And, you know, you talked a little about still having that personal touch, so where does that line get drawn today?
Ashley Alderson: Oh, that's a great question, and it is an issue today. I call it AI slop. There is nothing that annoys me more than AI slop, when someone just… you know, oh, they think their chat is the most brilliant mind on the internet, and they just take everything at face value and copy and paste it. To me, that's AI slop, and it's lazy. The beautiful part about AI is that when it's used correctly, I think it allows you to get more done faster, and allows you to bring the human touch that nobody can replicate. So it's gotta be, you know, what is your photography strategy? Is it you in the photos? Is it your team in the photos? Is it a human being in the photos. Because it should be. I don't think AI photography, unless you're in Home & Gift and you're just, like, solely doing products, you've got to still have that human touch. Still has to be human in the video. It still has to be your personal stories that are a part of your content. Anyone can use AI to write copy. Anyone can use AI to write product descriptions, so you have to make sure you edit everything from your human point of view so that you don't blend in with the crowd. And what you're seeing on Facebook and Instagram right now is you're seeing them put on AI labels. You know, if your content's created with too much AI, it'll say AI-generated content. You don't want to be in that bucket, because your customer's already kind of fighting this trust war. They're already wondering, like, is this a knockoff website from China? Is this a real person? you know, is my money safe if I put it into this website? So I think being human, and if you're brick and mortar and you're selling online as well, you just have a real advantage to adding that to your content.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, it's actually funny, because something that I do, just in my personal emails, is if I'm writing an email and there's a typo, I don't change it anymore. You know, I use.
Ashley Alderson: Yay!
Dane Cohen: I don't change it, because I want you to know that I actually wrote that email.
Ashley Alderson: Yeah.
[15:13] Finding Your Boutique's Voice
Dane Cohen: Alright, let's talk a little bit about, you know, I want to continue down the road of content and engagement. You know, I love that engagement content, because I think that, you know, like you said, that just bombarding someone with sales content, you know, sales content, sales content, sales content, it gets old and tired real fast. So, I love this idea of engagement content. I think the Boutique Hub really teaches that very well and executes it themselves really well. And just looking through our chat right here, you know, we have a pet supply store on with us, we have home and gift on with us, of course, apparel, and fashion retailers. how do you develop that personality? Like, how do you develop a voice? I know, I know some people are kind of scared to be a little too out there, or too… politically incorrect, or to this, like, how do you develop your boutique store retailer voice.
Ashley Alderson: Oh, that's a great question. I think a lot of things come back to… you probably have a great idea of who your customer is already, but if you're unsure, running a survey twice a year, I think, is a really great place to start. It's going to help solidify and help you build out your customer avatars. Now, chat and AI is really great at helping amplify those customer avatars, and help you plan content directly for who you know your customer really is. But I think you just start by asking questions. You know, if it's… let's just say it's Halloween. Ask an open-ended question. What's the funniest Halloween costume, you know, you've ever dressed up as? What's your craziest Halloween memory? What's your favorite Halloween candy? What's the scariest, you know, movie that you've ever watched? Like, anything that's kind of a seasonal question, yeah, it's not related to your product, but that's not the point. The point is you're generating a conversation, you're building a relationship, you're building community, you're building trust, and you're allowing you to insert some of your own personal story and your personal taste. into the conversation. Like, that's what people want. They really are craving connection. So, stop talking about just the products, but bring in something that's a seasonal, you know, story or question that you can ask, and that starts to become the voice of your customer. And then, it's just about testing and repurposing. You know, we might put out a slew of content, and then go back every 30 days and go, okay, this worked, and this worked, and this worked. We're gonna take those things, we're gonna change them slightly, and we're gonna double down and repost them again. And I think every retailer should be doing that same thing. You know, every 30 days, what worked? What worked? Let's go back and recreate that content, ask it in a slightly different way, or present it slightly different, and keep doubling down until you find something that really connects and converts.
[18:19] Digital Ads and Boutique Hub Black
Dane Cohen: Yeah, I'll give you a fun example. When I was, you know, working on the retail side of things, the engagement that would just go crazy is, you know, if we put, you know, it was a family business, so if we put the original founders on there, who were, at that point, you know, grandparents with the grandkids, like, it just would explode, right? Like, so much more than any cool outfit we'd put up there. It was the family, the kids, the… You know, that's what really resonated, so we continued to double down. Okay, digital ads. This, I think, is a topic that comes up for me time and time and time again. And it's such a confusing place for retailers, right? If you're a retailer, that does not necessarily mean that your skill set translates to now this whole new world of digital advertising, and it keeps changing and evolving. I know I want to talk a little bit about Boutique Black, because we're such advocates of it here at Management One, but how does a retailer keep up and make this a part of their business? It's overwhelming.
Ashley Alderson: Yeah, it is overwhelming, and that's, I think there was a lot of misconceptions. Before we started Boutique Hub Black, I think a lot of retailers felt like, I don't have time for this, this isn't my skill set, I should just hire somebody else to just take this over and do it all for me. And I'm a big advocate for do what you do best and hire the rest, like, there's a time and place for that. However, I also am an advocate for, if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. And so…
Dane Cohen: Love that.
Ashley Alderson: when Jeff and I started to talk about Boutique Hub Black and what it could be, that was the idea, is, you know what? We can't see retailers wasting their money and just… hoping that somebody takes care of this for them, like, yeah, sometimes that works. We would rather you keep it in-house and really strengthen your knowledge base, or build your team, or build this as an asset that you own. So that's what Boutique Hub Black really is, is the opportunity for a retailer to sit down with a coach every single week who has access to your data. And you just go in and you start building things together. And there's so many retailers who are in there that are… they're brick and mortar, they're older, they're more established, and they're not tech-savvy. And so it's literally, like, click by click on a screen with your coach going, okay, you're gonna do this, and then you're gonna do that, and you're gonna do this. And it's amazing to see the results and what actually works. I just, before I got on the webinar today, I had a couple of podcast interviews, and I had a woman who was a brick-and-mortar store in Florida. And this year, when she started to run Facebook ads and Google ads and shop ads. She beat all of her 2025 revenue by the month of May in 2026.
Dane Cohen: Mmm.
Ashley Alderson: And it was unbelievable. So now she's got this super viable, you know, great storefront, and really booming online business, because she doubled down and just taught herself, with the help of a coach, what was working. And then she looks at her inventory a lot, or her content that she's creating for ads, a lot like inventory, right? We're running inventory until it fails, right? We're testing, buying, testing, buying. When a trend is out, you know, it's out and I gotta move on. She kind of treats her ads and her content the same way. It's inventory. So what's working? Is it testing? Is it failing? When is it time to move on? When is it time to double down? When is it time to test out a new line or a brand? Ads and content are just like inventory.
Dane Cohen: I love that, it's almost like your sell-through, right? performing, that's…
Ashley Alderson: Yes.
Dane Cohen: That's really great. And by the way, I want people to get involved in the chat. I see, you know, some interaction, but ask questions as we're going through. We'll take them live as they're coming. But a question I have, right, is, you know, when I was working with you guys, I was just amazed at how fast things changed, right? Facebook's doing this one day, and Meta's doing this the next day, and, you know, Google Business, if you're not keeping up with certain profiles. And then the… even talking about shop, like, I wonder if the listeners today know about those shop ads, and how that's probably a new frontier to start engaging with. So what would you recommend? I mean, I know there's Boutique Hub Black. But just kind of dipping the toe of getting educated, like, how do you start even wrapping your head around these things?
Ashley Alderson: Oh, man, it's too much. It's too much weight to put on your shoulders to feel like you're gonna know and be able to keep up with everything. I mean, it sounds really corny and cheesy, but I'm just gonna say, like, just… just come to the Boutique. Just start at the very basic level. It's things that we talk about every single week. And if we are talking about it, other retailers are talking about it and where to just simply get started. I would just start getting consistent with your content as well. I think that's a good place to start. Are you showing up every single day on Facebook and on Instagram? Facebook specifically first, because that's proven time and time again to be the highest converting platform. So if you can get yourself into a good content routine, if you can get yourself into a good, product photography routine, because product photography really matters, and if you can start testing out video. So surround yourself by the right people, you know, come jump in, whatever part of the Boutique Hub, whether it's Black or the basic level, surround yourself by the right people, and then get consistent with your content and how you're presenting it, photography and videography. I think those are two really important places to start.
[23:21] Pink Friday: Shop Small First
Dane Cohen: Yeah, and I'll just say this, and I don't want to get too salesy here, but if you're not a member of the Boutique Hub, you know, general membership, just get involved, because it's such an easy way to make sure you are on the pulse of everything happening. So that, to me, is the biggest no-brainer. Speaking of, Boutique Hub happenings and events, we have something coming up that's very exciting. Now, everyone knows Black Friday, people know Small Business Saturday, people know Cyber Monday, but there's another very important event in the mix, and that is Pink Friday. So a lot of people on here will know exactly what Pink Friday is. But if you don't… What's Pink Friday?
Ashley Alderson: No, let's talk about it. Okay, you guys, I've got to see you in the chat. If you have participated in Pink Friday in the past, will you please tell me, yes, I have, in the chat? Or if you're like, what the heck is Pink Friday? Please tell me that in the chat, I would love to see it. So, in a nutshell, I'll share this. Traditionally, Black Friday's great, Small Business Saturday, wonderful. What I don't like, and has always been my beef about Small Business Saturday, is it's an afterthought. It comes after Black Friday. And if I've heard one retailer say it, I've heard a thousand, and it's always, my customer comes in the door and says, you know, I spent all this money yesterday, or, you know, I just have a couple things left on my list for today because Black Friday was the day they went out and shopped. So, what we saw happening across the industry was, we saw a lot of retailers, you know, doing your holiday open house. Holiday preview, your big holiday launches, weeks before Black Friday. And this year specifically, Dane, the Christmas creep, as they call it, it keeps getting earlier and earlier and earlier. People are doing more and more earlier. So, our community really started to rally together in 2020, and that's when we first launched Pink Friday. Everyone said, you know what, typically we're doing an event, typically we're doing something, let's band together and let's use our voices to amplify one another and create an event together. So that's where Pink Friday came from. So, first one was in 2020, and the idea is, the motto is, to support small businesses first, before Black Friday, before the big box stores. We want small business owners to be the first place people go when they do their holiday shopping. So, literally, it's become a worldwide movement We have stores in all 50 states in about 8 countries that participate in Pink Friday.
Dane Cohen: Wow.
Ashley Alderson: And…
Dane Cohen: Wow, wow, wow.
Ashley Alderson: is we want you to tell your story. It's not about a discount. It's not about competing with what's Amazon doing, what's Walmart doing. It's about an event, an experience, building loyalty, building community, and telling your story. And if there's anything we want you to do, it's collaborate with your local news media on Pink Friday. Because we all know with the media, there's a narrative that will be pushed over the Black Friday holiday. You know, they will report on retail sales and Black Friday. Friday sales as to what the big box guys are doing, they don't report on what the small business owners are doing. So, if you want to own the media cycle, you've got to do it early. That's what we do on Pink Friday. So, when you participate, you get press releases, you get on the Shop Small First map, which is a big map of worldwide, where are their Pink Friday celebrations happening, and then you get an entire kit on how to create an event in your community around Pink Friday, and it's not just for boutiques. I mean, we have pet stores, salons, tire shops, bars, delis, flower shops, restaurants, like, it is for any small business owner to collaborate, together on Pink Friday, and again, push that narrative of supporting small businesses first.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, and that's a good point, like, the local media part of it is… it's often overlooked. You forget that local newspapers, local news stations, like, they're looking for content, right? They're out there… you know, they want stories, so if you're in their face, and you're putting it forward, and if you have the tools, right, Ashley, you know, if you're signing up for Pink Friday, I believe it's free to sign up for, you know, all the Pink Friday assets, if I'm correct.
Ashley Alderson: Yeah, it's free to sign up, and I want to direct you to… I know Nico's gonna have the link for you, but when you sign up, it's free, you get all the assets, you get on the map, you get all of those pieces, but at the bottom of the sign-up page, this is an exercise I would love for everyone to do, and this is my economic development brain speaking. A story that I think is really powerful to tell is the economic impact that one small business has in a community. And I don't know if you guys know this, but the average dollar turns 7 times in a local community when it's spent with a small business. So, we added a calculator for you to calculate that on the bottom of the.
Dane Cohen: I think fried.
Ashley Alderson: sign-up page, and then I want you to take that number and tell that story when you put out your press release, reach out to a local newspaper, women's magazine, TV station, whatever it is. So the formula is this. You would add up these things. You would add up how many local donations did you do in the last year? what was your rent or your mortgage payment in the last year? Because that money stays local, right? Maybe it's even to yourself, even if it's you own your building, you're paying your own LLC, put it in there. What's the amount of local supplies you bought from other local businesses this year? What was your payroll? Because you're employing local people, all that money is staying local, and then what local taxes did you pay? So talk about sales taxes, you probably have another 1 cent community building tax, whatever it is, property tax, if you own your property. Add those 5 things up for the entire year, and you could do it last year, you could go year-to-date, and then times that number by 7. And that's how an economic impact… er, in economic development, that's how we calculate local economic impact. So when you have that number, that is a wild story to be able to tell. Hey, thank you for shopping small. Thank you for supporting my small business first. Here's why I'm in business in the first place, and because you guys supported us so well all year long, this is the economic impact we were able to have in this local community. like, so it's a big thank you. It's not a, I'm so desperate, please shop me because I'm a small business. Like, nobody wants to hear that. It's… desperation is a stinky cologne, but we want to see Oh my gosh, thank you for supporting me, here's what we did together.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, and listen, you gotta earn your spot as a small business, right? It's not just, hey, I'm a small business, come shop with me, but we do have, speaking of small businesses, we have Rebecca here, who hasn't done anything for Pink Friday before, but she wants to get involved this year. She's a dog bakery called The Barkery. I think they're selling.
Ashley Alderson: I hope you have that trademarked, Rebecca. That is a great name.
Dane Cohen: it's… the full name is somewhere up there, but I know that Barkery was in, in there. So, she's asking, you know, how to stand out for Pink Friday, and then I want to go into a larger conversation right after this, but… about Pink Friday, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, how to keep up. But, you know, I think most people, when they hear about these events, it becomes so promotionally. driven Yeah. So, what's your… let's talk first about ways to stand out, and then… I would love to segue into a little, philosophy about, you know, promotions, but what's a way to just stand out? Rebecca talked about maybe doing some pink bakery items, but outside, like, how do you actually grab people in?
Ashley Alderson: I think the best thing you could do is, again, our motto is community over competition, that's what Pink Friday is rooted in. I would say, go grab the resources and tools that we have, and one of them is how to create a local, like, boutique crawl. So, are there other businesses you can all band together and say, hey, we're gonna celebrate Pink Friday together, maybe each of you is gonna get some balloon arches that are pink, or you're gonna put some streamers in your window, or something that's pink. You're gonna put together a press release, a joint press release, to any local or statewide media you can, listing all the businesses that are participating. You're gonna share your economic impact with that press release, and then on Pink Friday, you're gonna drive media conversation, you're gonna have, you know, an event. Let's say you have a pink charcuterie board, or pink dog treats, or you have a pink merchandised corner. You know, you can have a promotion, sure. You can have a sale or a discount, sure. But that's really not what Pink Friday is for. It's about telling your story, giving back to your community, really emphasizing the importance of shopping small first. So, collaborate! That's my best advice, is to collaborate with others.
[31:36] Black Friday: Don't Sell the Diamonds with the Dirt
Dane Cohen: That's very interesting, you know, I never thought of it from that, you know, actually band together with other shop owners. If you're on a main street, that's a cool way of thinking about it. Okay, but we gotta talk reality a little bit, Ashley. on Black Friday, every big box retailer out there is going to be doing doorbusters and you know, 20% off, 30% off items, like, it's a reality that people do, you know, come in around Black Friday, and they want deals. How does, you know, in your view, how does a small… I don't like using the word small business, because some of these businesses are very… very successful and very high revenue driven, so I never… I don't want to say small, I'm just comparing it to, like, an Amazon in the world, but how do independents… that's what I'll go with. How do independents… like, fall in that mix. Do I promote too heavily? Do I stay in the game, or do I just, like, back out and not even try against the big boys?
Ashley Alderson: I still see a lot of stores having successful Black Fridays. I don't think you need to try to compete with some, I hate blanket sales. Can I just start with that? Can we just cut to the chase? I hate blanket sales. Like, if you're just gonna put the whole store a percentage off, what happens? And it was a management one, Individual who taught me this, but you can't sew the diamonds with the dirt. So, if you're gonna do a strategic sale, it's gotta be on what you've bought to be promoted. What you've bought low… I'm sorry, what you've… yeah, what you've bought low so you can sell high, still mark it down, and still maintain that margin. So, you've gotta be specific with whatever promotions you're gonna run, and I think you still can compete and show up on Black Friday, but just don't sell the diamonds with the dirt. Be really strategic about the categories that you're selling. A lot of our stores in the Boutique Hub. We just took a big trip together to LA, where there's a lot of… if you're in apparel, there's a lot of wholesale manufacturing and buying that happens there, and we did it just with the purpose of, what are the margin builders, what are the door busters, what are the things you can get a really great deal on? So you can buy them in bulk, buy them low, and still mark them down on whatever day you want to do it, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and still get a good margin on.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, I think that's a little bit of a lost art, you know, working with your vendors or going to, you know, places where there's kind of high margin opportunity, but actually working with your vendors and saying, hey, do you have any off-price opportunity for me? Could I buy into any product? And you're actually buying for Black Friday. Like, that's a mentality that doesn't… you know, it used to be very prevalent, and I'm happy to hear your kind of training retailers on that, because you don't just have to promote and mark down things that are In your store, you could also actually buy into it so that you're prepared And these things look promotional, but really… Yeah. You know, you've already, you know, given it the forethought.
Ashley Alderson: I had a great call this morning with, with a rep. And he and I were talking about the lost art of really working with reps, showrooms, agencies, or going direct to vendor for your orders. In this day and age, it's so easy to go to Faire, FashionGo, Hub Inventory, you know, Joor, NuORDER, any of those places to try to buy. But what's lost is the real relationship. In that relationship that you have with vendors, the more you work with them one-on-one, the easier it is to pick up a phone and go, hey, John. I'm looking for Black Friday doorbusters, like, what do you suggest? Do you have anything? And you're doing this clear back in, you know, July, and for some of you in Home and Gift, you're doing it in January. But you're really getting ahead of the game of what you might have as a markdown, as a vendor, or a special that you can buy into really early so that you're prepared for that markdown strategy around the holidays.
Dane Cohen: And one thing that I really love about, that I used to do, and this could be… a bit of controversial, but I think that it's a great opportunity when you're at the, you know, goods that have landed, you know, even in August, they've landed in, September, and they're late fall goods that are still lingering around the store. I used to double markdown on Black Friday, so a really good way of promoting that for me was, like, hey, there are some really big savings available in the store, and those goods that have been kind of sitting on a markdown rack, I would just put another 20% off on, and just get them out of there while there's an influx of people in the store. And it doesn't compete with full-price sales, and there's a very specific customer that wants that, so that was my little Black Friday trip.
Ashley Alderson: I think that's a huge opportunity, and the other thing I would say is a huge opportunity is bundling. So if you have pieces of it sitting around, you know, our job as a retailer is to solve people's problems, and I'll just give you an example, okay? I've got… I've got young kids, and kids in high school, and so I'm busy. I'm, like, running 97 places at once. So the last thing I'm thinking about is. Teacher gifts. Like, God bless teachers, and they all deserve a gift, but I am the last person to buy one. So, if a retailer can make my life simple and easy and say, hey, I've got this bundled gift for you, like, just grab and go, it's a coffee cup with a gift card and with, like, some hot cocoa mix and a candle, like, whatever it is, I don't care. Bundle it together, make it pretty, so I can grab it and run to the kid's school and drop it off, because I literally thought about it 15 minutes before school came. drop off. like, solve my problems with bundles, and then that way we can also move some stale inventory, or just really, like, I don't know, move that product mix around that can sit after the holidays, because you don't want to have to, you know, slash it all off in January. You probably will to some extent, but sell it while it's hot.
[37:23] Know Your Numbers: Data and Operating Systems
Dane Cohen: Right, you have to… you have to take advantage of the traffic that you're gonna have in the store on those days, right? So you have to be really strategic, and now, when we're talking about AI and internal operations, you know. there's not really that much of an excuse for not knowing what's up in your business. And, you know, I'll kind of give a little joint management one, Boutique Hub shout-out, which is. you know, I think we're both on a similar trajectory of really being able to give people insights into their closed system of data. Right? And so for us, it's really on the open-to-buy side of things. You know, really being able to plug into SKU-level data about reorders, and how much open to buy you have left, and how vendors are performing. And I think for your, Boutique Hub members, I believe it's… Retail Boot Camp Accelerator, Participants, and, you know, there's also tools to take advantage of to have some answers, in these areas.
Ashley Alderson: Yeah, so, what's exciting for us, this year we built an entire business operating system for independent retailers. It's called Boss. BHOS, Boutique Hub Operating System, and all of our members have access to it, whether you're a general member of the Hub, whether you're in Retail Business Accelerator, whether you're in Boutique Hub Black. But the cool part is, it directly plugs into whatever your point of sale is. So we work with Square, Lightspeed, and Shopify, and we can get real-time, you know, not only inventory data, but there's really 3 parts of your business that we try to double down on with the operating system. Inventory. Task, and content. So, we know, like, a business owner has to be really strong in those three areas, and then I would say team is a big part of it, too, and there's an entire team section. So, once you're in Boss, think about it like you're probably already using Claude or ChatGPT. This is like a plugin to one of those systems. plus Shopify and all of your inventory data, plus all the Boutique Hub's knowledge base. There's… Jim told me the other day, I think there's, like, 2.6 million data points of retail stats and knowledge that we've added from the Boutique Hub alone into Boss. And every training we do, everything from the podcast I just recorded this morning to the webinar we hosted last week, everything is instantly uploaded, and it's trained on what is working right now. So when you have that type of operating system in your business. You can see instantly, you know, who's my customer, what content's converting for them, what inventory's converting for them, what should I focus on next in my business, and where is their missed opportunity? And then how do I take all of that knowledge and train my team and my employees? It's all together in one spot. And then Boss plays well with, whether it's Management One, or it's Faves, or it's all these other industry service providers. It's meant to really connect and collaborate with all of our partners as well. So, hopefully it's the go-to to really run your business smarter and not get stuck working harder. We want you to be the human of your business, not just constantly behind the scenes grinding.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, so yeah, that's something that we're really excited with, and you know, again, the more from our perspective here at Management One, right, like, the more you know about your business, the more you're going to be able to start wrapping your head around, you know, some of these other services, right? So the more that you have a command on, hey, where's my business stalled in my inventory? Yeah, I may need open-to-buy to really drive this, and so now putting those two things together, it's just It's such a natural. a natural marriage, so we're very happy to see, you know, to see that being such a deep support for retailers.
Ashley Alderson: Dane, don't you think that most retailers, like, most retailers are so creative, and a lot of them get into the business because they just want to spend time buying, and merchandising, and working with customers, but once you're in business for a while, you're like, oh man, actually, I'm at this desk, and I'm doing reports, and I'm doing all these very unsexy things that were not fun and creative. And so I know that's your mission, and that's our mission, is how do we get business owners to be creative again, because we're trying to streamline this, you know, more mundane and monotonous side of the business.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, and you know what? This is actually something that we've talked about in the past, and you kind of gave me this perspective, and so I won't put words in your mouth, and I especially won't speak for the fairer gender, but, you know, one of the things we talked about is there are some women who, like, have this mentality that they're not a numbers person. Right? And I've kind of, like, taken the approach, you know, because that's one of the things I hear a lot when I get on a call with a retailer, start, you know, conversations around. planning, financial planning, and that's kind of the line that I hear a lot, and it's like, you know what, like. like, you gotta get out of that right now. Like, that mentality, like, that's done. Right here, today. Like, you own a business, you're an entrepreneur, you have hundreds of thousands, if not a million plus of revenue coming in. I hate to break it to you, you're a numbers person. I don't care what you think, you're a numbers person. Like, you just have to change that story that you're telling yourself immediately.
Ashley Alderson: Yeah, I think that for far too long, business owners put their heads in the sand of, ugh, I'm not a numbers person, so I'm gonna double down over here, and it was like, ignorance is bliss. It's actually Mary who I think said it best. She said, you know, you're not a numbers person, but you're a dollars person. Do you like dollars?
Dane Cohen: works.
Ashley Alderson: I'm like, yeah, we all like dollars? Okay. Well, then why wouldn't you want to know where your dollars are sitting right now? How do you get more dollars in your pocket? Do you want to know that? Yeah, I do want to know that. So, there's all the tools available today, there's no excuse not to double down on it.
[45:13] Events, Mahjong, and the Art of Analog
Dane Cohen: Yeah, you want to pay yourself, you want to sell, or you want to, you know, have growth in your business, and… By the way, speaking of our dear friend Mary, Mary, I think, just won the, 2026, what was it, a little partner award in Dallas? Not a little…
Ashley Alderson: Big partners.
Dane Cohen: We're in Dallas.
Ashley Alderson: Our heart of the Hub! I mean, if there is anybody who has a heart of, like… the hub's purpose is to change people's lives. Like, that's all we want to do, is… our mission is to help people grow businesses. When you grow a business, you change a family, you change a generation, you change your employees, you change a community. And so she has such a heart of giving. There… she's literally one of my very, very favorite people in this entire industry, and her heart is bigger than anybody I know. So, very deserving.
Dane Cohen: Congratulations to Mary, big shout out to Mary. If you don't know Mary Landgrebe, she's one of our coaches here at Management One, and she's our lead with the Boutique Hub, so… You'll see her at… I don't know how she… I don't know. Every time I talk to Mary, she's in an airport, so you'll see her at every market, you'll see her everywhere, usually in the Boutique Hub showroom. Okay, we have a question. I'm assuming this is referring to Pink Friday. When is it exactly? What's the date? So, if we could just…
Ashley Alderson: talk about that and not even share it.
Dane Cohen: Could have been a tweet.
Ashley Alderson: That's kind of important.
Dane Cohen: I think we said the Friday before Black Friday, but…
Ashley Alderson: It's always the Friday before Black Friday, every single year, so this year is November 20th, Friday, November 20th. Now, a question I get a lot about that is, well, but people don't have work off on that day. Honestly, it has not slowed anybody down. I have seen more business owners have record sales days on Pink Friday, that has replaced the rest of the Black Friday weekend. So don't let that stop you. However, a couple suggestions. Some stores stay open late. And some stores call it Pink Friday Weekend, so they may continue their events throughout Saturday, maybe Sunday. So, you know, play with it. See what works for you, test it out. I just encourage you, if you do nothing else, if you don't host an event or do anything, please at least take the time and the opportunity to tell your story to the media. It is a lost art. It is Public Relations 101. The media needs positive stories today. And you could be that for someone. So, get your story out there.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, and something that I think is… I know that I'm using it in my personal life, I think this is a big discussion in business at large, and it kind of goes into… what you're saying about, you know, trying to get the promotion out, which is a lot of people now use ChatGPT or whatever, you know, system is kind of their go-to, and say, hey, what's going on in my neighborhood this weekend?
Ashley Alderson: Right? Yeah.
Dane Cohen: people want events, like, people… it's really nice to see AI actually facilitating live interaction, but I think in, you know, Ash, I think you could attest to this, like, we're seeing events be a huge driver for independent stores, right? Getting people in there, and there's no one doing it better. Funny enough. then the kind of hippest people right now in this area are two types of stores, right? One is Quilt & Sew. Like…
Ashley Alderson: Oh, needlepoint! Oh! So good.
Dane Cohen: Right? They're… they've really… because there's always been that core underlying business of, you know, classes and workshops, and so they're really seeing this boom right now, and then who would have thought Mahjong? Like…
Ashley Alderson: Yeah, I literally just interviewed the queen of Mahjong on the podcast this morning. Her name's Crystal, and it is unbelievable. She's the number one Mahjong seller for Oh My Mahjong, and one other Mahjong brand. But it all started, she literally was Googling, like, a customer told her, what is Mahjong? She's like, how do I even spell that? You know, how do I Google what is Mahjong if I can't even spell it? But she went on a limb, she ordered in a few Mahjong pieces. They're expensive, it's a luxury item. It's not a cheap thing to test out. But she brought it in, found somebody who was a coach and expert that could come in and, like, do a class. And people caught on. And so now she hosts Open Play every single Tuesday, she has strategy classes they put on, and she literally, like, she does a beautiful job of marketing the tablescapes of Mahjong. And I'm talking, like, her Facebook ads have popped off. She has tripled her business in the last year. Tripled it. And I'm talking, like, millions of dollars. She's doing a crazy awesome business in Mahjong. And she's videoing her tablescapes. You know, you might want the… I don't even know. What is Mahjong terms? What is it called? The pad?
Dane Cohen: There's, the clicks and clacks or something, I don't know.
Ashley Alderson: We're so ignorant right now. Whatever. Anyway, all the pieces, she mixes and matches them, and then she videos all these different tablescapes, and then she's running ads to all of that, and she's, I mean, literally online and in-store, her mahjong business is amazing, but it's all about the art of analog. It's all about getting people off their phones. Getting them out for events and experiences. We try really hard in our showroom in Dallas, at the Dallas Market Center. We're on the 13th floor, if you ever want to come, say hi, put up your feet, plug in your phone, meet with Mary, talk management one, she's always there, or talk to any of our team at the Boutique Hub. But we try to really mimic and give examples of events and experiences you can host in your store, or that you can host online. We try to do those in the showroom, so… Whether it's, a game day boot bar. Or it's a charm necklace bar, or it's a permanent jewelry event, or it's, you know, some kind of makeup and beauty event. Or it's mahjong lessons. Like, all of those types of things that we see working in retailers, we try to bring those into our showroom for experiences, so you guys can learn, and then take those things and those brands back to your stores as well.
Dane Cohen: Well, and one that I saw live was, at the showroom was the… and you have to tell me the name of the brand. It's the… you create your own fragrance?
Ashley Alderson: Oh, Mixology, yeah, the fragrance bar.
[49:21] Holiday Outlook, Live Selling, and Last Words
Dane Cohen: And it's so funny, because I was sitting there, and I was kind of like, I'm not doing this, like… and, like, 10 minutes… I kept, like, peering over, and then, like, I asked the rep, I'm like. You have any men's stuff? And she's like, yeah, of course! I know! And it's fun, like, people… listen, people want to interact, they want to get involved, so I love that analog, going back to that analog mentality. Okay, we have… 9 minutes left. Please ask some questions. We want to get you with us live, so we have 9 minutes, but Ashley, I'm going to pivot now. Let's look ahead. What is, if you had a crystal ball, you know, you have such a good insight into the industry, are you optimistic about this holiday season? Are we optimistic about 2027, you know, going into the new year? What's the vibe? What's the vibe?
Ashley Alderson: I think the vibe is, I'm optimistic. So all the data shows, right, spending is still supposed to be on the rise, people are still out there shopping like they are, they're doing it earlier, but I think they're doing it more thoughtfully. So, I hate the word cheap. It's not about being cheap, but I do think it's about creating value for your customers. So, to me, value is merchandising. Value is photography. Value is bundles. Value is… Events and experiences, or promotions, if you want to go that route. It's position of your brand. It's really knowing your customer and then being able to solve their problems. So, coming into the fourth quarter, or really any time of the year, with new arrivals, new collection just dropped, you know, check out what's new in the store this week. I'm using an accent, Dane, because I think that's really boring and lame, and it's not gonna work anymore. So, really getting specific. Really, who is your customer? Really, like, what is she struggling with? Who is she shopping for? What is the latest trend that you can turn into a collection? Really getting comfortable with who you are and how you're showing up in your content, and building the relationship and community with your customer as well, I think that adds value. So, the stores that add the most value, the stores that position themselves in a really unique and beautiful way that meets their customers' needs. Those are the stores, online and brick and mortar, that I think are gonna do the best this holiday season.
Dane Cohen: And speaking of putting yourself out there, question on… I get a lot of questions about these two topics, we probably don't have enough time to really go into them, but just a, you know, a lightning round.
Ashley Alderson: Yeah.
Dane Cohen: Live selling and TikTok. Those are two areas that either retailers are, like, embracing or petrified of.
Ashley Alderson: Yeah, okay, well, so a couple things. I think live selling is literally for everyone. I think TikTok is very for… a certain type of business owner. I don't think TikTok is for everyone. I think live selling is for everyone. I think the misconception about live selling is that I have to go live and sell things live. I would just say, take that out of it, take that misconception out of it, please just go live. I don't care what you do. It could be Wind Down Wednesday, it could be Dane's Picks of the Week, it could be, you know, Sarah interviewing the UPS guy as he comes into the store about.
Dane Cohen: It's like…
Ashley Alderson: of what does he think is gonna be in these boxes, and then you cut them open and see if he's surprised or not. I think going live is so important because it shows your personality, people want to do business with people, people want to shop with people they know, like, and trust, and live video offers that without someone having to come into your store. So, live is what sets you apart, and you know what? If there's any consolation, you don't have to like what you look like, you don't have to like what you sound like, you just have to test it out.
Dane Cohen: Yeah, wait, wait, wait. Unboxing videos? That is so… I love that, right? Like… that's such a popular thing, I never thought about it, and, you know, one of the things that customers always love is when you're unboxing right on the floor, and you're bringing out those fresh goods, and, like, you're hanging it on the rack, or you're steaming it. I love that idea in the live, like, that's… that's a really cool, that's a great immediate takeaway you could take home with you today. Okay. Well, Ashley, so we covered a lot, so get registered for Pink Friday. We're gonna put the link back up there, in the chat. Get registered. It's a no-brainer, for any independent out there, and like you said, it's everything from tire stores to pet stores to boutiques. It is a… independent For Everyone event, Boutique Hub Black, the importance of digital ads and understanding that, so we also have some more information in the chat on that. And any last words? Ashley, it's been such a pleasure having you.
Ashley Alderson: This has been so fun. The only thing I forgot to mention, you guys, is Pink Friday, if I could just say, consider it. Think about it. For every store that signs up, again, it's free to sign up for Pink Friday, but one thing I didn't mention, Dane, is we actually donate a dollar for every store that signs up for Pink Friday to Heart on Main Street. If you guys are not familiar with Heart on Main Street, it is an amazing organization. They are a non-profit, 501c3. They raise money all year long to help stores that have been hit by natural disasters. So we've had a lot of Boutique Hub members that have actually benefited from Heart on Main Street directly, so we love being able to support them. send them as many thousands of dollars as we can because of Pink Friday and you guys participating. So, I would encourage you to do that, and then I just wish you guys luck. This holiday season, you guys have busted your butts all year long. You wear so many hats, you're keeping up with technology that's changing more in the last 6 months than it has in the last 6 years. That is no small feat. So I hope you take time to just celebrate yourself this season. Take a break and look how far you've come, because you're doing amazing things. It is a tough landscape being a small business owner today, and you guys are doing a tremendous job. So, kudos to you, congratulations, and best of luck this holiday season.
Dane Cohen: I love that, and I have to take this opportunity, because I'm a cheeseball. Heart on Main Street, friend of the pod. We love… shout out to Heart on Main Street. Well, Ashley, thanks for those, departing, inspirational words. If you're not a Boutique Hub member, it's a no-brainer. Go join, go be a part of the community, and we will see you at… oh, we have Mastermind coming up, we'll see you there, we have so many exciting things, we'll see you at markets, Ashley, thank you again for being with us. We will see you next week on Indie Insights Live. We're talking to Harquin Bookkeeping, so make sure you get signed up for that. We're going to talk end-of-year taxes, how to close out the books for 2026. That's a big one, so we will see you next week on Indie Insights Live.