Planning for 2026 with 10 Ecommerce Finance Predictions

I am Stephen Brown. I am the COO and co-owner here at LedgerGurus. I'm also a CFO and co-owner of an ecommerce brand, Solé Toscana. And I've done a bunch of other things.

0:29 Stephen Brown

With me, I have Lauren Maillard. Lauren is our Director of Service Delivery here at LedgerGurus. She is also launching our income tax practice. She launched our sales tax practice, and she also has a lot of things as well.

We're not going to spend a lot of time talking about us. Let's talk about the predictions and what they mean to brands.

0:49 Stephen Brown

So I have 10 predictions. We're going to go fast and furious. We'd love to take your questions as we go. We already covered some of these as part of a podcast that released last week. So I'm going to try and focus really on your questions, as well as how they're relevant. And Lauren's going to keep me on track and ask me good questions.

1:09 Peak tariffs and interest rates

Stephen Brown

Okay, prediction number one, peak tariffs.

And first of all, as background, I'm not an economist, but I do read a lot. I do own a brand like many of you, and I am trying to understand how to plan my year.

1:24 Stephen Brown

Prediction number one is, I think we're at peak tariffs, with some exceptions. The reason I would say that is what we've seen in the second half of 2025 was, as tariffs got implemented, they are going down where they're problematic.

1:42 Stephen Brown

Now, where are there exceptions? I do think they're a tool that the current administration uses. Case in point, we saw this week that the Trump administration threatened anybody doing business with Iran with additional tariffs. That included India. And so I do think if there's a dust up politically, tariffs are going to be used as a tool and you could see spikes.

2:04 Stephen Brown

But I do think, as I'm planning for the year, as they sit is probably what I would plan for.

Now, do I think they're going to go away with the Supreme Court case? I don't. I was slightly optimistic, but what I've seen is they're going to be looking at other legal ways to keep the tariffs in place. And if they do go down, I don't think we'll see them go down to 2024 levels.

2:28 Stephen Brown

So as the year looks, I would plan on tariffs as they stand, and don't expect them to get worse unless you're working with a country that's on the bad side, but they could get better in certain cases.

2:42 Lauren Maillard

Stephen, how have you seen tariffs impacting our customers?

2:46 Stephen Brown

Well, I think what we saw in 2025 was a lot of people inventoried earlier, especially bigger companies. So I think we're really feeling the full impact of the tariffs now.

We launched a tool last year, the Tariff Impact Calculator. You can download it from our website to see what those impacts are. And I think we're really going to see the full impact of tariffs this year. So I would plan on the cost increases for the full year, and don't expect them to go down.

3:13 Stephen Brown

Okay, prediction number two. I do think interest rates are a mixed bag.

Now there are two interest rates I want to talk about. The federal funds rate is what gets a lot of conversation. This is what is set by the US Federal Reserve, but there's some nuance. What they do is they set a rate that banks use to lend overnight.

3:30 Stephen Brown

And there's a lot of pressure to go down. We've seen this week there's a political battle going on. The executive branch is launching an investigation into the chair of the Federal Reserve. We do see that everybody's seeing that as pressure to further drop rates.

The Federal Reserve said they're going to drop the rates probably once this year. I think there's a desire from the executive branch for that to go down further.

3:54 Stephen Brown

But here's the problem. Whether it goes down once or multiple times, the federal funds rate is really a driver for a couple of key things.

So that's good if you have a line of credit that's based on the prime rate. The prime rate is usually based on the federal funds rate. You saw that go down last year. You should see it go down this year. If you have an SBA variable rate loan, credit card rates could go down.

4:15 Stephen Brown

On this note, there are conversations around capping interest rates on credit cards, which could be good for consumers, which would be good for ecommerce businesses.

4:24 Stephen Brown

Now on the other hand, when you look at other types of interest rates, those are often tied to the five and 10 year treasury bills. Things like fixed lending, SBA fixed rate loans, mortgages, not montages, mortgages.

And I think that's a lot more uncertain, and I actually am a little bit pessimistic around those. We've seen those go down a bit in the last year and a half, but there's a lot of concern around the financial health of the United States on a longer trajectory, which would keep those higher and the products behind them higher.

4:58 Stephen Brown

So there's a mixed bag. It could be good for consumers if credit card rates go down, but at the same time, mortgages and other types of consumer debt could pressure the consumer.

For businesses, again, mixed rates. If you've got good lines of credit based on the prime rate, you should see further improvement.

5:17 Lauren Maillard

Are SBA variable rates or fixed rate loans more common?

5:23 Stephen Brown

Well, if you look at an SBA loan, if you're buying a business, you're usually using the [unclear] loans. Those tend to be variable rate loans. So that'll be good if you have one of those loans.

There are other types of fixed rate loans for real estate, for equipment. I don't know if you're going to see a ton of improvement on those. So really, SBA has a number of lending products, and they're going to be impacted differently in my prediction.

5:49 Sticky inflation

Stephen Brown

All right, number three, inflation remains sticky.

I think we have a lot of, what the tariffs, I do think that's inflationary in nature. There's been a lot of conversation about why we haven't seen greater inflation from tariffs. But beyond that, I think there are some pressures with energy, with just general wages.

6:11 Stephen Brown

Everybody's thinking that inflation is going to be sticky. It could go up even. I don't know if the current environment will create lower inflation, even though everybody wants it to be.

The other thing is the big beautiful bill had a lot of stimulus in it. And so that could put more money into the system.

6:31 Stephen Brown

What does this mean for a seller? Well, for the consumer, there's going to be continued pressure on their wallet.

For you, the seller, I would say price. We need to be looking at price increases at least annually, analysing pricing, doing price adjustments at least annually. I think that is the way of the future. Gone are the days where you can keep prices for years at a time.

That's prediction three.

6:57 AI as a tailwind

Stephen Brown

All right, let's talk about something. This is my most bullish prediction.

A lot of talk about AI. I think this is a tremendous tailwind for ecommerce in three areas.

7:08 Stephen Brown

Let's talk about the profits. Efficiencies from AI tech. If you're not really leaning into AI technology, you're missing out.

I think the ability to do creative has gotten very efficient, which should mean if you're using agencies, you should get more creative than you've ever had, or you might be able to replace some of those roles. So I think marketing productivity is through the roof thanks to AI.

7:35 Stephen Brown

And then general operational, you're seeing AI bleed into every technology stack. And that should drive down some costs and hopefully improve profits.

7:46 Stephen Brown

Now on the revenue side, there are two areas that I'm really excited about. And let's talk about some recent news, AI shopping and checkout.

Since we released the podcast episode, Shopify came out that they are launching their AI platform. They're going to make it so every store can be AI enabled for AI checkout.

8:06 Stephen Brown

If you haven't done AI shopping, it's fantastic. It's really cool going into ChatGPT and starting to do research. And essentially they're going to make it so you can do checkout through AI shopping onto your store. So they'll never go to your website, but they can still transact with you.

8:23 Stephen Brown

And I'm really excited about this, because there's so much time being spent in AI tools. If you're not keeping track of what's going on in Shopify or Amazon, you should.

Now the interesting thing about Shopify is apparently they're going to enable this for non-Shopify stores. They're creating a platform, I'm assuming you could hook up if you're a BigCommerce or some other store.

8:47 Stephen Brown

So I'm really excited. If you haven't bought something through this, it's really interesting.

My case study last summer is I had a bracket on my RV exhaust pipe that had broken. And I took a picture of it and I said, what is this? And it basically said, that's a blah blah blah bracket, here's where you can buy it. I bought it through ChatGPT. It was really amazing.

9:08 Stephen Brown

And so for me, this is something that brands should be looking at. I'm really bullish on it. It's hard to say what it's going to turn into, but I would definitely position yourself to ride this wave.

9:20 Stephen Brown

And then the third thing, which really hasn't emerged but I really feel like will this year, is advertising on these AI chatbots.

Again, there are a lot of eyeballs, a lot of time going in here. Everything I'm hearing is that they're working on advertising. When ChatGPT launches an ad platform, I would really be intrigued by that.

9:39 Stephen Brown

The interesting thing, and I talked about this with my business partner with a brand I own, AI is kind of this weird in between Meta and Google. It's very deliberate when you're doing deliberate research. So does that cannibalise Google? Maybe. Does it cannibalise Meta?

If you haven't, go ask your ChatGPT account about yourself, and you'll be shocked at how well it understands you. If they can leverage that understanding of their users for targeting, it could be a huge opportunity.

10:11 Lauren Maillard

When you say compete with Meta, it's like Facebook. Can you explain that a little bit more? I'm a little confused.

10:17 Stephen Brown

So Facebook, Instagram. I think basically there are really two key advertising platforms.

Meta, Facebook is the dominant one, and that's good for product discovery, for reaching customers that had no idea that they needed your product. Think about it, Facebook is always surfacing products you didn't know you needed, or you never even heard of. And that's because they know a lot about you.

10:43 Stephen Brown

AI also knows a lot about you. The more you interact with those chatbots, the more it gets to know about you at a much deeper level.

Google tends to be more surfacing product intent. Hey, I need a bracket for my RV. Hey, I need a new hat. I need a new pair of shoes. And that's where I think the AI shopping and checkout will be a really key thing.

11:04 Stephen Brown

But the advertising, I believe if it's done right, will be very comparable to what you have with Meta, where product discovery is available.

So I would be on those waves. If you're not, if your teams aren't already, that's an opportunity you don't want to miss. This is my most bullish prediction.

11:23 Lauren Maillard

Do you have recommendations on where someone should start? Because I'm looking at that, it's a little overwhelming to think you've got to attack it from all the fronts.

11:32 Stephen Brown

I've been putting a lot of stuff in our newsletter every time this stuff comes up. Shopify's got a lot of articles. There are a lot of articles on how to enable your store for AI shopping and checkout. And I would definitely be going down that path.

11:52 The value economy and emerging channels

Stephen Brown

Okay, next prediction, prediction number five. I believe that this is really the value economy on steroids. We've really been moving here for a couple of years.

One of the conversations out there, there's an economic term called the K-shaped economy. And so if you think about a K, the lower leg is the lower end of the economy. So that's your lower consumers and they're getting squeezed. They don't have investments, they don't have assets. They may be renting, not owning a home, so their housing prices are less fixed. And that leg of the economy, the conversation is, it's getting squeezed a lot.

12:26 Stephen Brown

The upper leg on the other hand is the one that's benefiting.

Now, the thought I have as a value economy is, are people that are on that upper leg starting to go to that lower leg? We're starting to see a lot of worry and concern in the professional class, the software people, the accountants, people where AI is potentially posing a threat to their jobs.

12:50 Stephen Brown

So my argument is, with this mixed economy, value is more important than ever. Even elements of the upper K are feeling pressure, and messaging value, creating value with your products, is going to be more important than ever.

13:05 Stephen Brown

What does this mean? Well, it might mean packaging differently, creating bundles that create better value.

But my thought process is you have to be really aware of what's going on, that you have a segment. So if you're selling to lower end consumers, that's a huge risk. If you're selling to upper end consumers, you've got to really be thoughtful about them. Are they going to be riding that growth wave, or could they slip down into the lower leg of the K and be under pressure?

13:33 Stephen Brown

And so I think messaging value, realising that people are under a lot of pressure from inflation, that the general economy is a mixed bag, is really important.

13:43 Stephen Brown

Okay, those are predictions one through five. Let's go through six through 10.

We haven't had any questions from the audience. I'd love to take them as we go. I'm going through this very quickly. These are designed to be quick webinars, so feel free to jump in and drop a question in the chat if you have one.

13:58 Stephen Brown

Next prediction. I continue to feel a lot of optimism around some emerging channels.

Now I've talked about one, this is the AI shopping. I carved that out into its own prediction.

14:12 Stephen Brown

TikTok Shop, if you didn't hear at the end of last year, is now as big as eBay. eBay is still a small portion of sales for most ecommerce sellers. I've yet to see somebody who's got a multimillion dollar eBay business. I'm sure they're out there, but most of the time what we see is eBay is a secondary channel.

14:32 Stephen Brown

But TikTok Shop is really defining social commerce and is paving the way. We've seen a lot of stabilisation of TikTok Shop politically. A year ago we're like, is it going to get banned? Now that's going away. It looks like there's going to be a carve out of TikTok Shop as a US entity. So it's stabilised.

14:52 Stephen Brown

And what they're doing there is really unique in terms of the in-product checkout. They've done a really seamless experience. They've done a really great job with influencers.

Do I think this is going to overtake Amazon or Shopify or Meta as a sales channel? Not necessarily. I don't see that happening. But I do think you're going to continue to see a lot of traction, and for the right products and the right experiences.

15:15 Stephen Brown

I am hearing about brands that are having a lot of traction. Again, I don't see anybody that we've worked with that's having a dominant revenue stream, but I do think this could become a new big leg.

15:28 Stephen Brown

On the advertising front, I keep hearing good things about AppLovin. Again, there's a lot of attention. If you've used any apps that are very advertising heavy, like mobile games, the ads that they're surfacing are terrible. So there's a huge opportunity.

AppLovin really started big but has been coming down market. So you had to be spending a lot. They're continuing to open up to smaller and smaller ad budgets. And I continue to hear a lot of positive things.

15:57 Stephen Brown

Other areas that I am keeping an eye on, but I don't know that they have emerged, streaming ads. I think you're seeing all of the video streaming platforms moving to an advertising model in addition to a subscription model. And sometimes it's a little bit of both. Case in point, Amazon Prime Video. Now I have to pay extra if I don't want to get ads.

16:19 Stephen Brown

And so again, I think a lot of these emerging channels in some cases will start towards larger customers and then they work their way down. That's what we're seeing with AppLovin. I expect something similar with streaming.

TikTok Shop did it a little bit different. I think that's a little bit more of a ground up approach. So I think they've really made that possible for anybody who's willing to get in there and deal with the suck. And I think AI shopping is the same thing. Those who are willing to put in the effort are going to have the opportunity.

16:48 Winners, losers, and ad costs

Stephen Brown

Which leads me to my next prediction. I feel like as sellers go, there are going to be winners and losers. But the defining factor is not going to be the size of your business, although that will give you some advantages. I really think it's going to be execution.

17:02 Stephen Brown

And I really think there are a number of key areas. Now for years, if you had a decent enough product and decent enough marketing, you could build an ecommerce business.

But really, I think we're all going to have to level up in a number of areas, including manufacturing or working with manufacturers, supply chain, finance, and tech.

17:24 Stephen Brown

We're in a more sophisticated era of ecommerce than we were a few years ago. A few years ago you could go outsource on Alibaba, set up an Amazon store or Shopify store, throw some money at Facebook, and you had a business. Not to say that that was easy, there was a lot of complexity. But now you're going to have to be really good at a lot of areas. It's not going to be enough to just ignore key areas of the business.

17:47 Stephen Brown

Obviously here, I feel like finance is really important. I feel like those that are leaning in, learning to be sophisticated with finance, are going to be on the winning side.

But again, there are a number of areas, and I would say lean in. If you're using an agency, don't just assume they know what they're doing. Learn what you need to learn about marketing, hold them accountable. Same thing with your manufacturing, your supply chain. Lean into those areas. It's hard. You're smart. You can do it. Those who do, I think, will win. Those that don't, I'm concerned about.

18:20 Stephen Brown

Okay, next prediction. Ad costs will likely rise.

Now, this is an easy prediction, and I have an asterisk here because I want to talk about some negatives and positives.

18:31 Stephen Brown

On the negative side, ad costs always rise. You should assume they will rise. And there are some out there that are theorising that with AI creating more ads and pushing ad spend higher faster, it will be easier.

18:45 Stephen Brown

Here are my counters to that. One of the things we see in the brand that I own is, yes, we've seen ad costs rise, CPMs in particular, but we are seeing better conversions. So on the other side, AI could improve efficiency.

19:01 Stephen Brown

AI ad platforms will create more competition. So wouldn't we love it if ChatGPT created this killer ad platform and pushed Meta to get back to the glory days?

An interesting idea that me and my partner talked about is, what if CPMs do go up, but conversions also go up? So the ad platforms get more money, but we get the right type of impressions. We're not just getting any impressions. We're getting impressions for the right customers who are actually going to buy product. That could be a win-win.

19:33 Stephen Brown

Now, a little bit of a bear case. If there is for some reason an economic downturn, there's almost always a drop in ad costs. The downside of that is there's usually a downturn in consumer purchasing.

So overall, I would say plan on higher ad costs, but your ad efficiency might still stay the same, and it could even improve depending on how things play out. As I look at the year, I had planned on somewhat comparable ad efficiency, with the hope that we see improvements with AI and competition.

20:06 Inventory and the economy

Stephen Brown

Okay, I'm going to make a case that inventory, and this is a little bit of a derivative of the winners and losers execution, but I would make a case that inventory optimisation is critical.

20:19 Stephen Brown

We've been going down this path for years. It's been painful to try and drive better inventory accounting and management. A lot of our peers in the industry run away from it because it's really messy. It's hard, because it's really hard for sellers to do inventory management well.

20:36 Stephen Brown

Inventory is typically the biggest asset on the balance sheet. With tariffs, we've seen a lot of pressure on costs. So I would argue that the industry as a whole needs to do a better job. We need to do a better job at demand planning. Overordering could be really painful. We need to start treating inventory management as a really strategic capability.

20:57 Stephen Brown

So if you haven't already, I would say lean into this. You need to level up your game this year more than ever, because of the financial implications of carrying too much inventory, of ordering too much inventory, the impacts of tariffs, which are volatile. We've just got to get smarter about inventory in general, and it's something I would say is a strategic capability.

21:18 Lauren Maillard

Stephen, would you say then that everyone needs an IMS?

21:21 Stephen Brown

I think as a firm we have generally said yes, everybody should be using an IMS, an inventory management system. And it's not easy. You have to work to make that system work well. But yes, I think using an inventory management system is critical.

21:38 Stephen Brown

Okay, my last prediction. The US economy. I'm calling it the meh economy.

Now I'm going to give some bulls and bears. My bear case, well, some of it we talked about. Inflation, affordability, there's a lot of pressure. Tariffs. These are the reasons why I feel pessimistic toward the economy.

21:59 Stephen Brown

The reason I'm not going full bear in my prediction is there are some reasons to be optimistic as well. My bull case is, and this is where I'd love to hear from Lauren who's been digging into income tax, the big beautiful bill was a huge bill and there are a lot of stimulatory provisions there.

Just give us a few things that you think are really good for businesses and consumers, Lauren.

22:24 Lauren Maillard

Well, the accelerated depreciation is really going to free up some cash for our customers. I mean, that was such a great thing that the big beautiful bill did.

Another big thing is the state and local tax deduction was increased from 10,000 to 40,000. So that was another great thing.

22:47 Lauren Maillard

I think overall it's going to be a mixed bag, but I think where our clients are going to see the most effect is through the accelerated depreciation.

22:56 Stephen Brown

So it's good for businesses. There are some things for consumers, no tax on tips. So there are some stimulatory elements of the big beautiful bill.

23:05 Lauren Maillard

The no tax on tips, it's not going to have a very big effect. It really is just on the difference. So it's a very small portion that's not going to be taxed.

23:15 Stephen Brown

AI, we've talked about that. And I think we're in an overall deregulatory environment.

It's hard in ecommerce land to say that this administration is business friendly, because it has felt really bad for anybody selling imported goods. But in general, I think this administration is more business friendly than we saw with the previous administration.

23:39 Stephen Brown

I would expect continued policies. We saw some things that, a year ago they were talking about business ownership information registration, that went away. That means less time doing crap like that, more time focusing on your business.

23:54 Stephen Brown

Add it all up, I feel like it's kind of meh. So I'm not overly optimistic, I'm not overly pessimistic. I'm just like, hey, I think it could be an interesting economy. There are some really smart people that are saying they could see huge growth this year. The question is, who will it impact?

24:11 Stephen Brown

Add it all up, this is what we've got. What are you going to do with this?

Well, I'm using this information to plan out my year, to try and be strategic, to think about my financing, to think about how aggressively I'm ordering, to think about what things I'm tackling. Again, these are predictions. I'm not going to be perfectly right, but use them to help you plan a better year.

24:33 Stephen Brown

Hopefully this is helpful. If you have any questions, I'd love to stick around and take them.

We're going to do these quick 30 minute webinars every month. Next month, we're going to dive in and talk about ecommerce finance KPIs. Talk about the KPIs that I watch with my clients, with my businesses, what they mean, how to improve them. So join us on February 19th. We'll be here again.

24:53 Lauren Maillard

I dropped the link in the chat, Stephen, so everyone will have it.

24:58 Stephen Brown

With that, I'll take any final questions on any of the predictions, how I'm thinking about that, how I'm planning my businesses, the customers that I'm supporting with my services.

25:10 Stephen Brown

Thank you for joining. We'll wrap things up and catch you next month.

25:15 Lauren Maillard

Thanks, Stephen.

25:17 Stephen Brown

Talk to you next time.