2026 Is FORCING People To MAKE MONEY ONLINE… Or Lose Everything (Ep 169)

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🗣 In this in-person Dropship Unlocked Podcast episode, Lewis Smith and James Eardley sit down to talk candidly about what’s really changing as we head into 2026 — and why the next year will reward smart, lean operators while punishing outdated business decisions.

With rising costs, mainstream AI adoption, layoffs across traditional industries, and changing consumer behaviour, this episode breaks down what actually matters if you want to build a resilient, profitable e-commerce business going into 2026 — and what mistakes are quietly killing businesses before they get traction.

🎥 Prefer to watch instead? Watch on YouTube → https://youtu.be/JCZl0oVsEm4

🧭 Topics Discussed
★ Why 2026 will be unforgiving for bloated, slow, high-overhead businesses
★ How AI is changing execution speed — without replacing real business owners
★ The difference between being scared of AI and leveraging it as an advantage
★ Why high-ticket e-commerce is still resilient (even with economic pressure)
★ The skills that won’t disappear as automation increases
★ Why supplier relationships matter more than ever
★ Escaping negative news cycles and focusing energy where it compounds
★ Using data (not passion or guesswork) to validate products and niches
★ Why demand comes before supply — always

🛠 Links & Resources Mentioned
Lewis’s Book → https://dropshipunlocked.com/book
Shopify £1-for-3-months Offer → https://dropshipunlocked.com/shopify
Free Trial of a Professional Phone Line → https://dropshipunlocked.com/circle

💡 Key Takeaways
★ 2026 Rewards Speed & Leverage: AI won’t replace business owners — but it will replace slow ones.
★ The Model Matters More Than Ever: High-ticket, low-overhead businesses have room to breathe and scale.
★ Don’t Manufacture Demand: The safest businesses sell what people are already searching for.
★ Ignore the Noise: Worrying about politics and tax changes doesn’t build profit — execution does.
★ Follow a Proven Path: Strategy beats motivation, and systems beat guesswork every time.

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Website → https://www.dropshipunlocked.com

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Transcript

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2026 is going to change that. We approach E commerce and so we've got ourselves together today to record an in person podcast to talk about how we're going to approach the new year with high ticket e commerce and our lives more generally. So excited to come together to record this emergency episode if you like. Yeah, nice to be able to do the episode in person and not over technology. But yeah, looking forward to this one and I think quite a timely point to be able to discuss what is lined up for 2026. A lot of things changing on the horizon, big updates in the industry. So let's dive into it. Let's dive in, let's dive in. Yeah. Long term drops of a knock. Podcast fans will know we've already done a few of these in person. Usually we're on Riverside, the recording recording software. But it feels like a good time for ourselves to get together, talk about business. Anyway, why don't we turn the cameras on, record a podcast episode. Things that are changing right now, Lewis, and change, far as you can tell in the business, the way that it makes you approach business slightly different. What are the things that you're aware of that other people should be aware of as well? Well, I think the, the first is the state of the economy, the cost of living crisis, everyone being a little bit more conscious. I get the impression than they ever have been previously in, in my lifetime about purchasing decisions. And I think that alongside that you've also got the rise in AI that's starting to really become quite prevalent outside of just the world of early adopters. So is now becoming extremely mainstream and you're seeing like even quite traditional and stuck in the mud type businesses really adopt it and put it into place. Although there's still a huge amount of room for growth, it's causing some big real shifts in the economic landscape. So like we're hearing records redundancies or even just layoffs, people's jobs just literally being made redundant like it is no longer required because I can now do that job in many cases. So it's is creating an interesting dynamic where I think we've got to adapt, we've got to embrace the skills but I think for the right, the people that do, for the right people that really employ those skills and upskill in those areas, they can leverage these technologies to make 2026 the best year yet. Because those that aren't putting those things in place are getting left behind and those that are, are going to end up with taking the lion's share of the market is My prediction agree it's. A tool that we can make the most of or be scared by. So in your opinion then with AI coming, do you think with all these jobs being replaced, is that it for the high ticket E commerce business owner? They're going to be just AI taking over that role? Is that something that's going to get removed because of AI or. Yeah. Is there still space for people to create high ticket E commerce businesses or will AI do that for us? Well, I think, I mean it's scary to try and predict too far into the future with anything because I think any industry is potentially open for disruption with the way the world is at the moment. My view on where the role of an E commerce company sits, specifically using our model, the home turf advantage would be that you have to ask yourself the question, are companies still going to want to sell products online and our customers still going to want to buy products online? If those two things are true, then there is a place for the people in the middle that actually facilitate that sale where they create a retail shop front. Will E commerce businesses be easier and faster to be able to get off the ground? 100% absolutely. If you can employ AI tools to be able to help create the business, run the business, manage it, track your stats, deal with customer service like it's the people that will be that dedicate themselves to being able to figure those things out. They will be so much more valuable in a marketplace where AI is is prevalent. So yeah, I think it's really exciting time if you're willing to keep your skills sharp and be an early adopter and play to your strengths as to like the different types of technologies that are coming out. But yeah, things are definitely change changes on the horizon, that's for sure. 100% yeah, I agree completely because it's so fundamental. An E commerce business is just selling physical products online. As long as somebody wants a physical product delivered to their door, there's a space for an E commerce business owner because we can deliver those products to customers. And as a high ticket e commerce business owner, the model we teach ultimately skills that aren't going to go away is how can we get those products in front of the people that already want it. So what are the skills that we should be focusing on in 2026 to get really good at? If AI is taking over as it is or as we're seeing it's taken over in so many different industries, what skills would you say are the most important to adopt next year to make the most of where the direction of the economy is going. So I don't think that AI has fundamentally change the entire game with this. Like I think the, the fundamentals of this are that you could still do this very much without AI, it would just take you longer. So I think AI has become a tool that can massively speed up the journey and the execution speed of a business operator, a business builder, a founder getting one of these up and running. But there's more to it than just AI, I think that's the important thing. So, you know, contacting suppliers, building your store, putting in place training and customer support teams because they probably will still need to be some human oversight on certain decisions in the business, at least for now, until the robots completely take over to make sure that you're, you know, you're still running an actual business. Because if it was as simple as just hand over the keys to AI and say, cool, I'll come back next year, collect my profit cheque, you know, once that's the state of the world, I think we've got potentially bigger concerns in terms of like what is the purpose of humanity and you know, universal basic income to make sure that people can still feed their families. So yeah, I think as it stands at the moment, the fundamentals are still very much there. You gotta be able to build the store, sign suppliers, run traffic. All of these things can be enhanced by AI. Like the type of ads. We've seen a massive shift, haven't we, in the last few years from like manual Google text ads and Google shopping ads through to performance max machine learning, AI driven stuff where now Google is kind of giving you the signals of like, you might think you want that headline, but like I know what headline you want. And it's like giving you these very kind of strong suggestions now to try and like direct you in a certain way. Because all of the data that has it can underlie what, all of the decisions that it wants you to input. It can kind of give you those suggestions now. So there's various parts of this. I think those are the main skills and they didn't, they haven't really changed. It's just about how you'll execute on those to, to get the outcome faster and potentially be like, well I've done it once now why not launch another business? Why not launch three businesses? Especially once you set one up the first time, you know, those are the skills that no one can take away from you. And if you've put systems in place that you've set up, you know, AI as kind of an Enhancer within your business, things are going to move much, much faster for you in 2026. 100%. Yeah. I mean, the way I look at one of my stores at the moment is thinking about how can I. If I need to revamp it or set up a new ad campaign, the first thought is through the AI lens, rather than thinking about how I have to do it all manually. So immediately that means that something that may have taken a month to set up will now take a matter of days, if not hours, because of the way we can just prompt AI tools to create things that would have taken weeks. That's if you could do it yourself at all. So I'm hugely excited about. About the way it is moving, but the things I'm doubling down on as well is supplier relationships. Getting really good at speaking with people to sign the best suppliers so I can then sell the best quality products. Because we see time and time again the people who've got the best product on their site will sell the most. Regardless of how hard you work on the marketing and the website, if you've got the right suppliers, the right products, then you'll sell and that's not going to go away at all. So then exciting. That's one side of the storey. What about the more negative outlook that you might have or some people have when they come to us and they're considering joining and they are looking at the state of the economy, seeing what's happening in the news and thinking, the last thing I want to do is start a business. What would you say to those people coming out into the new year who are viewing starting a business in more negative light rather than maybe a few years ago? That there's always going to be a reason not to do it. If you're looking for those, they're prevalent, they're everywhere. There's always a million reasons why it's not the right time to do something like that. And you could continue through the rest of your life with that mindset and never strike, never actually move forward with it. So I think is a dangerous mindset to be in, especially if you do want to escape your current reality. If you're. You're trapped in a job or a kind of a routine. Yeah. Just a way of life that you feel you're intended for more and that you feel that you should have a more of a more autonomy and more control and more freedom over, like, where you travel to and how you spend your time. I think that's going to be really important for people to. To just Consider, like, when, you know, beginning of a new year is the typical time. New Year's resolutions, new me, fresh start. But there is a reason for that as well. It's because we've kind of wrapped up the end of a calendar year, got to the point of like doing Christmas, doing all of that. Now the opportunity is just there, it's just fresh, it's available, but whoever wants to seize it, and it will be those people that stand up and bravely, boldly take action and just say, I may not have all the answers, but I'm for sure going to find figuring them out and I'm not going to stop until I do. And if you have that kind of determined mentality, then it's going to be very, very difficult for you to completely fail because you just make sure that every time you get stuck, every hurdle. You hit, which you will hit, many. Of, you know somewhere where you can ask for help, you get support, you can keep moving through it. And. And so, yeah, I think that is a. It's probably a deeper question, like, what would you say to someone who's in that kind of pessimistic mindset? I'd be like, well, try and see the work, see the heart, the glass half full, if you can. Yeah, it's a whole different mindset. Shift to. To watch something in the news and feel like you can make it work, regardless of the. The messages that you're being sent, that it might not feel at the right time. But then you look at all the members that will be meeting up with the inner circle meeting tomorrow or the member dinner tonight or the masterclass event tomorrow evening, and you realise all these people have started within the last three or four years. Some people, I started about four and a half years ago in dropship a lot. And everyone in that will have started at a time when somebody out there will have said it's not the right time to start. Everyone in the room has done it regardless. And we've got some amazing success storeys that no doubt will share after the events or bring on the podcast in the next few weeks, regardless of what time, what was going on in news. So what do you think it is about them and what can we learn from them? To. Yeah, to just go in after our goals rather than feeling like we have to hold back. Yeah, it's. It's funny, we've. We're speaking to the members of our meetups like, we've got our dinner, like you say, tonight in our mastermind, tomorrow, speaking to them. Sometimes when I hear Things they say. I'm like, are you saying that? Because that's the job ship unlocked way and we've like had some kind of influence on you to think that way or did you already think like that and you've joined this programme because it was aligned with the way you thought? You know what I mean? It's like nature versus nurture and I can't figure out sometimes where. Yeah. Because I think a lot of the members in our community think the same way and that, that's like tune out the noise. Don't necessarily watch the news. You know, I, it's funny, I walked into the, the room the other day while the Alexa was playing in the bedroom and like literally said and the news at 9, like 9 people have been murdered, so and so has died in you know, some kind of crash. And I was just like this is horrific. Like I've only just opened my eyes and like the, the bombardment of negativity first thing on like a Monday morning. And so I was just like an extra stop. Like I can't, I can't deal with this. But, but. And you know, I guess it might sound heartless to some people or like I guess people who haven't wrote who, who don't think like that and maybe think actually, you know, I need to keep track of everything that's happening in the news. Well, if your mind can, you know, calm down that noise and still have a nice level headed day to think about the problems in your business that you're trying to solve and not be affected by like the global issues that are so far out of our control that like is it worth our mental energy units that we only have finite of every day anyway to expend trying to, to fight those fires. It just feels like, yeah, right now with um, you know, a young family and several businesses to run, like I have got limited energy, it's in any one day. So I'm very conservative about how I deploy those and I don't want the news presented to tell me the first five things I've got to worry about in the morning. So I just don't do that. And it's kind of. And that's one of many examples. But then you speak to members of our community and they're like, yeah, no, I don't listen to the news, haven't watched the news for years. And it's. Yeah, it's funny, I think that there are a group of people that think like us and are aligned with the kind of optimist. If someone can do it why can't I type mentality that grass half full, like go getter mentality. But perhaps they just haven't had the strategy before. Maybe they've been burned by, you know, scammy courses in the past that like promise the world and then you get in and it's like videos and, you know, no delivery, it doesn't work. And so this is like where we're, I guess, trying to be fundamentally different, offer like above and beyond kind of support levels and fulfilment levels once you're in. And yeah, I think we're in a good place to continue doing that, especially with some of the stuff we've got. Lined up for 2026. Yeah, very excited for the. For what we're doing with the members. But just to go back to that and the way I was was I was already inclined that way in my mind before I joined the dropship. A lot masterclass in that I already fundamentally had the realisation that I've only got so much energy units per day and if I allocate them to trivial things or things well outside my control, then less of my energy units goes towards my goals. So I had that already drops of not definitely distilled into me watching your videos, the programme and talking about not being a dabbler and that really made me bring out that side of me that was maybe laying dormant. So I really pushed on becoming an action taker but I. I'd also failed on previous programmes or just watching YouTube videos, really trying to set up a business. And I think what it was, a dropship a lot, was that it finally gave me an opportunity to go all in and be around people that were like minded and bring out that side of me that could go and achieve my goals. And so I think it's a bit of both. I think we probably attract people that. Are quite ambitious, but then it's dropped. A lot of the culture that you've got and built up in the environment here gets people to bring out the best side of them rather than the procrastination side, which can often win when you don't take something seriously. And I'm interested to. Something that came up recently is obviously the budget in the UK and there was a lot of negative backlash around that. There's a lot of buildup to it. There's probably even more negative than the actual backlash when it eventually came into being. When you were confronted with the budget and the impact it was going to have on your business, something outside of your control, how do you react? Do you even how much attention do you pay to and how much, what do you react when things might not be pushed in the direction that you. Want it to go? I don't really, I don't really react because that would be expending energy. So something that is, you know, I say beyond my control. Obviously I can vote and I can like provide some say into things but in, in terms of like what's happened and what's been decided by the government, like regardless of, you know, who's in power at the time, business is going to figure it out, they're going to have to. And interestingly like the way you said it, there something that's outside of my control I think you said, or like something that I can't control, I guess my mind goes to, well, here are the cards we've been dealt with. How do we best control it? What do we need to do? What are the smart strategies now? What are the smart tax advantages that are now on the table for limited company owners in terms of, you know, like the, the way that you pay yourself is now different. The dividend thresholds have moved around, the pension rules have changed, all that stuff. But it's like, well there are much cleverer people who are in that role as their full time job, whose job it is to distil that kind of like, okay, here are the cards we've been dealt now here's what you can do as a business owner to figure that out. So yeah, financial advisors, accountants though that stuff kind of, you have to trust I think to an extent that that stuff will trickle through and you'll be fed the right decisions to make at the right time if you've got the right advisors around you. But in the meantime, focus on the big picture. You know, focus on like, focus on making enough profit so that the profit becomes the tax on the profit becomes something to worry about. And I think that's been my kind of main approach on things for the last few years. It's like you just run a successful business and then yeah, if you have to pay a bit more tax only after, if there are ways that you can help like reinvest some of that tax, cool. Find smart strategies to do that. But if you spend all your time worried about how you're going to reduce your tax and like being angry and out, you know, and complaining about the hand that the government has dealt you, you're going to find yourself no time to actually run the business in the first place. So that's the way I view it. Yeah, in the same bracket. Is that the news that you talk about before where if it's something outside of control, where it's going to expend energy units then there's no point focusing on it and also outsourcing so getting around the right people to advise you so that that comes in place with accountants. But also if there was differences in the way that I now affects E commerce, we're not in this together. We can also get around experts who are always evolving in AI or we can learn ourselves the different strategies that work today. So it's a mindset. Do you think that's something that you can. We can teach to people through dropship or not to have that mindset of a. Or do you think it's something that's fixed for somebody that can never get out of that mindset being too affected by global events? I think there's, there's probably some unlearning that that would have to be done. Like if I'd worked in a. As you know, a finance job where I had to like keep an eye on the global events because of the stock market and I was at 24 or 7 watching CNN on one screen, you know, and Bloomberg on the next screen and like just constantly tracking news events. Firstly, I think my stress levels would be through the roof if I was in a job like that. Getting no sleep and having to worry about all these catastrophic events that I can't control and then try and move people's money around. Like don't think that's the job I would want to be in but. But if you're coming from. And obviously that's maybe a slight exaggeration but I think there's people who are coming from worlds like that where they've had to be quite eyes on the views and maybe that is something that maybe it's just me, maybe I just can't tune that stuff out enough in the day to day. Maybe some people can and that's totally fine. Like we don't want to impose a certain way on anyone. But the point that I make, and you said that it, it impacted you about like not being a dabbler and like being quite intentional about calling that out early in the programme is because I know that unless I do that there will be people that will come into the programme and then use every possible thing as an excuse other than the fact that they didn't take action to say that something didn't materialise or didn't work. So I guess it's just removing all of that stuff off the table and then everyone's starting from the same blank canvas and then we just build it up block by block. Yeah. You know, and then, yeah, you don't have to turn into a monk and like go to a silent retreat and tune out all global events to make this work. But there is definitely some advantages, I think, that you can stack the cards in your favour. If you are finding yourself like at the end of every day, like exhausted or so frustrated and angered by like global politics and the tax system and what's going on, it's like, hang on a sec, all that energy, you could have just channelled that into building the business and then, you know, figured out how you wanted to run it from there. Yeah, yeah, agreed, agreed. We've got a finite amount of energy so we've got to put it in the right places. I can agree more with a way to approach it and not to get too carried away, but yeah, we don't exist in a vacuum. There are things going on all the time in the world and so it is affecting the way that our businesses should be set up to succeed today. So as a general rule, for people that are thinking about getting started in business and they want to get started this year, they've built up enough energy to get started. What are the overall principles that you think that they should apply to whatever business they want to start? What are the overriding rules that are going to give you a much higher chance of success this year? Well, the model that you choose is going to be a big one. So we always talk about sell high value products if you can, high ticket products. So typically that's £300 upwards, up to £3,000, up to £30,000 for a sale, for an item that's going to give you like the, the profit margin and the cash profit on each sale that allows you to then spend money on ads to acquire that sale and still have a good amount of profit per sale left behind, rather than trying to sell like 2 pound 46 dog toys from China and then, you know, make a loss every time you make a sale because of the ad spend. I'd also be very selective on the type of products that I sold. So I wouldn't just think, oh well, I'm passionate about, you know, tables like this. I'm going to go and sell tables because I just think there's a market out there that could very well be. There are more scientific, data driven ways for me to validate those products and the demand and, and then go into business knowing that I've done my research and if for whatever reason something doesn't stack up in the data, I know that going into it. So I'm going in eyes wide open and I can potentially pivot or changed before I've committed loads of money and time into the business. So that's another one. Obviously with those things in place, if you're selling higher value items, you're making a thousand pounds in profit per sale for example, then you don't need as many customers or as many sales through the door to make your target income. If your Target income is 10k a month and you make a thousand pound profit on each sale you make then 10 sales a month and you've got, you've kind of achieved it and that's like one sale every three days in a month. So you need to deal with one customer every three days and eventually you don't even need to deal with it because your virtual assistant can take the phone call, have them replace the order, fulfil it, your supplier does that. You literally just have to have things set up. So it's a lot of front loading. But yeah, like this is what we were saying fundamentally I don't think things have changed that much but the business model itself needs that much, you know, moving around. Yeah re engineering it's all the same as still selling high ticket products online to customers who are already searching for the same products. But it's interesting that you talk about the validating that the niche so key because it is very clear to us that that's very important to sell a product that's in demand rather than trying to manufacture demand. But it's not that common to people that haven't started a business yet. So just, just yesterday evening went for a family dinner and met up with a few friends or family while we were there and one of them was thinking about getting into business and was. Saying that their reason to try get. Into a business was, was based on the fact that they could supply certain products and they knew how to, they knew the right people that would be able to supply certain products. And of this isn't just this person that spoke to me about this. I've heard it quite a lot of people that they want to get into business because they've got an idea of how to supply a certain product. And my reaction to that through learning through dropship a lot basically was don't we don't want to start a business based on the fact that we are not supply constrained because you've got products, we know how to get Product. That's not a good reason to start a business because you can fulfil on an order. The reason we just start a business is because you've identified as a demand or there's a problem that you can fix and then you can then work out the supply side. The supply side is the easy part of the business to work out. Getting products to a customer is not difficult. Getting in front of a customer with a demand that they have or a problem they're looking for, that's the tough part that you need to nail from the start. But I don't think that's necessarily front of mind for people that have never started a business before. They're just thinking about, have they got a way in or they got access to a supplier. So would you have had the same advice on the right lines there? Yeah, and it's very difficult, especially with families and friends and stuff. You don't want to. You don't want to, like, lecture anyone. And, you know, I think it's, you know, this from coaching inside the programme. The best way, often of coaching is to ask the right questions that allow people to come to the conclusion themselves until eventually they're like, actually, I guess when I think about it like that, that is the way I should proceed. And it's much stronger because anything you say to someone or I say to someone can often just go in one ear and out the other because they're like. But not change the way I've thought about it. Whereas if you ask the right question to force us, then to internalise that question and think about it. So, yeah, I mean, you could be like, well, you know, I've got loads of gravel in my drive, I've got loads of stones in the drive, so I've got an abundant supply of those stones. I'm going to start business selling stones. And it's like, but does that look at the other side of the coin? Like, now there are people wanting to pay good money for those things. Are there people? And maybe there are. Maybe we should, you know, consider that as a niche. But it's just because you have a supply of something that you say and because you perceive that it's high value, let's just validate it, let's just ask the question and make sure that we're not guessing and that we. Because there are tools we use, we. We go through it inside week two of our masterclass, where we'll validate the demand, we'll look at trends, we'll make sure that it's not seasonal. We'll make sure that we've got like solid demand year round. And then from there then we can kind of rule out any of the niches that don't meet those criteria and move on to one of the next seven criteria that we have. Talking through all kinds of things like average price points and are the suppliers in that niche going to be happy and willing to dropship all these things that if you don't do them and then you go into the business, you're going to at some point come up against a really difficult door that you can't get past. Because, you know, this was something that we were trying to signpost to you earlier on through the research process because we've done this many times now, we know where people hit those roadblocks. So if we can just enable you kind of that way, it's like checking is that door open, is the next door open, is the next door? So that when you go for it, you've just got a clean run through all the doors rather than risk running into something later that you can't get past. That's a really good bet for Nick. Yeah, it's opening up the fences to go for it from the very start. And it all makes sense once you have progressed. Sometimes it feels like, oh, I'm doing all this setup for what reason? But then it's when you get to that stage, you realise why you put the phone line in place while you validated the price point, why you validated the suppliers were already drop shipping. And then it all makes sense later down the line. But yeah, I did a. You always approach it. Like you say, my coaching kicked in and I was asking the right questions about, okay, great, you've got supply, but what's the problem that we're solving? Okay, if we're going to sell to this particular demographic, have we actually spoken to this demographic? Have they told you that they would move to. To using you as their. As their new retailer? And then it's kind of bringing out that. Making sure business is based on a problem or a demand that's already in place, rather than building a business on supply, which is the way that we're now well conditioned through the programme, but also through setting up successful stores. I know the reason for their success is because I'm tapping into existing demand. I'm not having to generate demand, which would be a massive capital, capital heavy business to start, which was the type of business I was looking to start. So people that are starting to get a business, starting to put a business plan they want to build a business into the new year. What would you say be the most simple, most practical way to get started with a business, considering the current environment that we're operating inside? So I think the simplest way is to follow a proven path where we've done this time and time again. We can give you the roadmap, we can lay out the steps, we can provide everything there for you, just in a kind of very straightforward sequential format that gives you bite size, actions to do so that you don't get overwhelmed and so that when you do inevitably hit a question that you don't have an answer to, you don't have to rely on AI to like ask and then hope that it doesn't lead you down the rabbit hole like we know these LLM tools do often do. They'll kind of have a bias towards just telling you what you want, what it thinks you want to hear, rather than actually giving you nuanced specific advice to someone doing this in the UK with a limited company, like it doesn't have any accountability, it's never done that before. So it's really important to have that. I think the best way that we've made that available is at the link dropship, unlock.com forward/start, that's where you can go to and get access to all of that. Join the free training that we're running. And yeah, just using an E commerce business model like this that allows you to start a business without having to take any stock upfront, without having to ever buy any inventory, without having to put any capital into purchasing stock that may never sell, without having to lease a physical premises or hire a huge team or like there's so many things that can inhibit a business from being able to grow. We've tried with this model to just rule out all of those potential failures and then even look forward at, like you said, all the different fences, like can we get past all of those things? And so there's quite a lot of front loaded mental work. I think with this model where you have to really think about things and like get all your ducks in a row, be ready to go, but as soon as there's a green light straight, straight ahead, it's full, full systems go. Like we can just move at the kind of speed that traditional business owners can't even imagine. And literally within a week of doing that, you can be making sales, you can have people calling up to give you 2,000, £3,000 an order and you could be anywhere on the planet with a laptop or a phone. Forwarding an order over to a supplier and then keeping the 30% profit margin. One of those sales. So if I was doing this from scratch again today and I knew that I wanted to have some kind of online business, but I didn't want to take all of those liability risks and go down like the FBA route where I needed to bought a container's worth of stock from China and I didn't want to get into some like shady MLM thing or affiliate stuff and I thought might have no longevity and I wasn't building a real brand. Instead if I just decided actually I want a real defensible, long term sustainable business, this would be the way I do it. The Hometown Vantage model is, it's proof ready to go. Yeah. Fantastic. Couldn't agree more. And it's exciting to move into the new year knowing that we can, we can pull people through that process, start to finish. And something that we've added recently into the programme, which I think is worth mentioning because it's a way that we can all look at the business nowadays, is the AI modules that we're adding in. Had a lot of fun setting those up and putting them into the programme because there are so many different ways that we can benefit from AI now, whether that's within these foundation, choosing the right products, whether it's putting the website copied together, whether it's signing suppliers and practising supplier conversations with an AI voice agent before starting on the call, if it's setting up your ad campaigns, if it's setting up your customer service to be AI backed. So many methods now that made the exact model that we run so it's quicker and easier and more profitable because of the things that are at our fingertips. But only if you can get past the inevitable mindset blockers that are going to come up for people as they start this year. Because we're operating in a different environment than what we would have been a few years ago. So very exciting. Anything that you're very excited to see this year with the business that you're running, or maybe any travel that you want to have or any new modules that you're putting into the programme. Anything that people should look forward to with dropship or not this year? Yes, we've got some big updates and, and changes on the horizon. There's a. I think we're going to be leaning quite heavily into this AI stuff as to how you can enhance your existing business with AI, perhaps to the point where you can even keep your overall team overheads lower than they would have ever been historically with this kind of model. So that's exciting. Yeah, the AI updates, I mean, there will be regular updates throughout the year and as we always do when things change in the market. The other thing that I would encourage our viewers to consider is if you're thinking that I think I would like to start a business like this, but I'm just not sure, is it the right time? Maybe you're going through something at the moment, maybe you're waiting for something to land, maybe you're changing jobs, maybe a moving house, whatever. Just ask yourself the question. If I'm watching this couple of guys sitting in a nice boardroom, having a doing this podcast and chatting about e commerce at the end of 2026, you could be in one of two situations. You could either be that you haven't done anything, that you're still wondering whether it's the right time to act, that you're still worried that AI is just going to make everyone redundant, that you're still worried about the new tax implications because it's probably only going to get worse from whatever government gets in in the future. Or you could decide that actually this year is going to be different and that I am going to take action and not get overwhelmed, but just move through a proven roadmap step by step, so that by the end of 2026, I am an E commerce business owner. The trajectory of my life's changed. You know, I've now got control over my time, my income, I've built a brand, I've built something that's got real value that I could sell one day. But most importantly of all, I've developed into the kind of business owner that now has the skills to be able to do this again and again and again, again. And I think that is the most valuable skill set that we can impart on someone. So that would be my thoughts and hopes for anyone watching this at the moment. I think it's an exciting year lined up in 2026 and we're looking forward to helping you. If you so choose and would like to head over to popanlock.com and join us 100%. Yeah, absolutely. And if that happens, hopefully it does. You might even be in the same room with us next year because this is where we're hosting the Inner Circle Mastermind tomorrow. And so we're looking forward to getting our heads around other people in the industry, work on their E commerce businesses. And yeah, if you, if this becomes the day where you change into that person, where you decide to go all in and create a business with the opportunities that we've got today, then maybe we'll be seeing you in a year's time and less than that in the the inner circle meetups and we can help you grow that business that you want to build. So, yeah, very excited for the, for the year ahead. I think it's important we approach it in the right way. Yeah. As you say, there's methods to, to follow a proven roadmap. You can get as close to guaranteeing success as possible. Awesome. Good stuff. Enjoyed this. You better get to our VIP dinner. Let's do it. All right. Yeah. Thank you very much guys for watching today. Thanks everyone. Catch you next one. See you soon. Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Dropship Unlocked podcast. We hope you are leaving with new insights and inspiration to fuel your entrepreneurial journey. To get to kickstart your ecommerce business, head over to dropshipunlocked.com start. It's the perfect place to start and get access to resources that will help you build your business from the ground up. And don't forget to hit that subscribe button for more episodes packed with strategies, tips and success storeys. Plus, if you enjoyed this episode today, a five star review would mean the world to us and you might even get a shout out out on the next episode. Thank you for choosing to spend your time with us today. We can't wait to bring you more insights on the next episode of the Dropship Unlocked podcast.