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Shop N.O.A. has been established by a not-for-profit organisation: NOT ON AMAZON CIC. Our intention is for this website to serve two purposes.

The primary reason for this website existing is as the e-commerce platform requested by the members of the Facebook group NOT ON AMAZON. The secondary, yet equally important reason, is to raise awareness of a different type of corporate structure that is not pre-dedicated to making shareholders or board members rich. Community Interest.

The letters CIC stand for Community Interest Company. In order to form a CIC the regulatory body must be satisfied that the company’s main reason for operating is to serve a community, in our case this is a worldwide community of Artists and Makers. We don’t just represent “The Best of British” or “The UK’s Finest” we represent some of the best, most forward thinking creatives you’ll find anywhere in the world!!

The ‘non-profit’ aspect of non-profit organisations is easily and often misunderstood.
A non-profit organisation is expected to generate a profit from its activities but that profit has to be used to expand the company’s scope and further serve its community. A CIC’s profit doesn’t get shared between the directors and owners as is the case in a regular “for-profit” limited company. You can find details of how any profits we generate will be used here.

So, the key difference between this marketplace and the others already out there is that this one is not being built for individual financial gain. Shop N.O.A. will take zero commission from sales, sellers will pay a fixed fee subscription for their shop and pages, that’s it. We will never share our users’ data with any third party.

Since its inception in 2020 members of the Facebook group NOT ON AMAZON have consistently been asking for a dedicated online marketplace. The main reason for it not happening sooner was the fact that all the quotes we received were between ten and twenty thousand pounds. With no financial backers or any other kind of funding in place we decided to have a go at building the website ourselves.
Twenty members of NOT ON AMAZON spent a month uploading their products and testing the basic functionality of the website and providing feedback for things that need changing or adding. Their input meant that we were been able to condense a large, potentially expensive workload into an unusually short time frame and prove that we had a viable project. At that point we launched a Crowdfunder campaign which raised over £11,000 and enabled us to finally get the fully functioning website built. A dream made real by people coming together- The NOT ON AMAZON Effect!

That’s the other thing which will set us apart from other marketplaces. This one has been developed by the users, for the users. Starting out we may lack some of the features and systems that you’re used to seeing on other marketplaces but that means that as features and functions are gradually added, they’ll be the ones that our users have asked for.

Thanks for reading this post, I hope it’s given you a clearer understanding of our organisation.

Jamie Rackham. Founder of NOT ON AMAZON.