A Guide to Selling on Not On The High Street

If you want to turn your hobby into a business and begin to sell your own products online, a great place to start is by selling on Not On The High Street.

Not On The High Street offers small companies a simple, effective way to get their products in front of over 2 million unique visitors each month, which is perfect for start-ups who don’t want to go it alone just yet. But even though this platform has great benefits for smaller, start-up businesses, there is a lot that must be considered before choosing to sell on Not On The High Street.

There are many reasons as to why selling on Not On The High Street is great. It’s the perfect platform for small, start-up companies to start selling their products and here are a few reasons why:

They’re number one: Not On The High Street are the top curated market place in the UK, ahead of Etsy and Amazon hand made.
Increased exposure: Not On The High Street have over 38 million unique visitors each year
Marketing: Not On The High Street pay a lot of attention towards marketing their brand. They spend a lot on TV advertising and work closely with the press and advertising agencies. The more exposure their brand gets – the more yours get! They often feature their partners and their products too.
Business guidance: You’ll get plenty of guidance to help grow your business. With everything from help with SEO to a storefront review, Not On The High Street will help maximise your sales.

Before you begin selling on Not On The High Street, you are going to need to establish who you are as a brand. If you’ve already done this, fantastic! You can skip straight to part three. If not, here’s a few pointers on what you’ll need to do.

Create a brand name: Having a brand name is essential if you want customers to be able to refer back to your company and find you of social media platforms. Think of something quirky that describes what you sell or simply use your own name – the choice is yours.
Create a logo: Create a logo for your brand that shows the customer exactly who you are. This should follow the style of your products/designs and can either be an image or a fancy version of your brand name. Either way, it’s essential to improving customer trust
Create a product range: It goes without saying that before signing up to sell on Not On The High Street, you are going to need to know what products you want to sell. Why not check out our product range here and discover what we can fulfil for you.

The process of selling on Not On The High Street starts by signing up for the service, here. Unlike other curated market places such as Etsy and Amazon market place, not every business that applies to Not On The High Street gets accepted to sell. Which means it’s super important that you make your application stand out.

The application will require you to fill out some basic details, including your name, your business name and business location, but will also prompt for some more important details such as a company website and company classification.

Don’t have a website? Don’t threat. Not On The High Street simply ask for this information so they can have an in depth look at the products you sell. If you don’t have a website for your business, create an account on a photo sharing site, such as Flickr, and add your product photos to this. Not On The High Street are more than happy to view your product range this way.

At the end of the application form, there is also the chance to provide more information about your company and product range and although it is not compulsory to fill out this box, it will certainly enhance your chances of being accepted if you do so. Feel free to put any information in this box which you feel will benefit your application. The history of your company, the inspiration behind your designs – anything that makes you unique!

As with all curated market places, there are fees associated with selling on Not On The High Street. The first fee you’ll incur is the setting up cost. All businesses are charged £199 (£238.80 including VAT) to start selling on Not On The High Street. This simply covers the cost of setting up your Not On The High Street shop and though it may seem expensive when compared to competitor sites, it’s definitely worth it.

The other cost you will incur will come when you make a sale. With each product you sell, Not On The High Street will charge 25% commission (plus VAT). Although this is pricier than competitor sites such as Etsy, you are likely to make more sales this way and therefore it’s definitely worth considering.

Not On The High Street have strict policies as to who they accept to sell on their site. They only have a limited number of businesses currently selling through their site and are focused on only choosing the best of the best. If you want to increase your chances of being accepted, here are a few ways to do so:

Take high quality photos: If you take a look at the Not On The High Street website, you’ll notice that all of the products are photographed to a high quality. Not On The High Street aim to keep consistency will their style of photography and therefore it might pay to hire a professional photographer for a few hours to capture some great quality images of your products

Create something unique: Alongside a great set of photos, you must have a great set of products. Not On The High Street openly admit they are looking for products that have a unique edge. And whether that’s achieved through the design on your product or through the type of product itself, this is sure to give you an added advantage
Get a UK or Irish business address: Not On The High Street are currently only accepting applications which have a UK or Irish business address. They are working on accepting international businesses, but this option won’t be available for a while yet

If you want to learn more about getting accepted to Not On The High Street, you can read their curation policy here.