Alternatives to Amazon for everything but books (UK), checked against who actually owns them
We’re Highstreett, a search engine that tells you who owns what, so this is the list of Amazon alternatives with the ownership read off the register rather than off the About page. Of the 22 names below, 4 have closed, 7 belong to a listed company, an investment fund or a larger group, and 7 end at named people or a charity. The other 4 have no majority owner, or none we could confirm. Two changed hands this year. Every row carries the company number and the date somebody read it. Last verified 2 October 2026.
Find a shop near you, independents first
If you just need the thing
Three general marketplaces sell more or less everything Amazon does. None ends at a single owner, and only one of them is a listed company.
| Shop | What it is | Who controls it, and how we know | Independent? |
|---|---|---|---|
| eBay | General marketplace, new and used. Anyone can sell, private or business. | eBay Inc., a US company listed on NasdaqeBay (UK) Limited, company 03726028, is the company UK users contract with on eBay's own user agreement. Its person with significant control is eBay Inc., 75% or more, notified 6 April 2016. US listed company, SEC CIK 0001065088.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✗ Listed company |
| OnBuy | General marketplace of business sellers, which says it never sells against them. Sellers pay a monthly package, from £25 plus VAT, and a sales fee by category. | No majority owner; Cassion Paton, a director, is the largest holderOnBuy Ltd, company 15611912, named in OnBuy's own customer terms, sits under Visor Commerce Limited, company 09108414, whose only person with significant control is Cassion Lloyd Munro Paton at more than 25% but not more than 50%. The last full shareholder list, made up to 21 August 2025, names 66 holders, nominee and crowdfunding vehicles among them.Checked 2 October 2026 | No majority owner |
| Fruugo | General marketplace run from Ulverston in Cumbria. Any business registered in one of more than 40 countries can sell, so a seller need not be in the UK. Sellers pay a flat 20%. | No majority owner; Dominic Allonby, a director, is the only registered controllerFruugo.com Ltd, company 06553460, sits under Fruugo PLC, company 13564409, which is a public company by legal form but not a traded one. Its only person with significant control is Dominic William Damien Allonby at more than 25% but not more than 50%, notified 13 August 2021. The last full shareholder list, made up to 12 August 2024, has 157 holdings.Checked 2 October 2026 | No majority owner |
Gifts, handmade and food
The two famous names here are not independent, and one of them changed hands this year. The three that end at a named owner are smaller and take UK makers only.
| Shop | What it is | Who controls it, and how we know | Independent? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Etsy | Marketplace for handmade, vintage and craft goods. Sellers anywhere in the world; items must be made, designed, handpicked or sourced by the seller. A 6.5% transaction fee, plus a listing fee, payment fees and advertising fees. | Etsy, Inc., a US company listed on the New York Stock ExchangeEtsy UK Limited, company 07540118, is the merchant of record for UK buyers on Etsy's terms, and its person with significant control is Etsy, Inc, 75% or more, notified 6 April 2016. The contract itself is with Etsy Ireland UC. US listed company, SEC CIK 0001370637.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✗ Listed company |
| Not On The High Street | Curated gift marketplace. Sellers must be businesses registered and trading in the UK; the site counts more than 4,000 brands. Commission is not published. | Executive Equity Partners, a Munich private equity firm, with two incoming managers, since January 2026Notonthehighstreet Enterprises Ltd, company 05591382, sits under Upminster Bidco, Midco and Topco. The last, Upminster Topco Limited, company 13150875, still records no person with significant control. All six of its directors left on 26 January 2026 and two German directors replaced them. The buyer's own announcement, dated 28 January 2026, says it took 100% from sellers including Burda Principal Investments. No filing yet names the new shareholders.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✗ Private equity |
| Folksy | Handmade and craft marketplace, based in Sheffield. UK-resident makers, designers and artists only, no resellers. Commission of 6% plus VAT. | James Trevor Boardwell, an individualFolksy Limited, company 05968981. He is registered at 75% or more of shares and votes, notified 6 April 2016; Daniel James Barker is registered as having significant influence.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✓ One owner |
| The British Craft House | Juried handmade marketplace. UK makers only, each application reviewed by a person. Commission of 6%, or 7.2% with VAT, never on postage, plus a subscription. | Susan Mary Bonnar, an individualTBCH Ltd, company 11898875, named in the site's own terms. She is registered at 75% or more of shares and votes and has been the sole director since incorporation on 22 March 2019.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✓ One owner |
| Numonday | Handmade marketplace. UK makers and designers only, nothing mass-produced. No commission: sellers pay £5 a month. | Not confirmedThe site names no company in its terms, its privacy policy or its footer. A Numonday Limited exists, company SC737560 in Glasgow, controlled at 75% or more by Michael Benjamin Wight, but it files dormant accounts, so on its own filings it is not the business taking the subscriptions.Checked 2 October 2026 | Unconfirmed |
| Wolf & Badger | Curated marketplace for independent fashion, jewellery and homeware brands, with its own shops in London and New York. Brands must be owned by their designer; not UK-only. Fees are not published. | No majority owner; George Zachary Graham, a director since 2009, is the only registered controllerWolf & Badger Ltd, company 06980629. He is registered at more than 25% but not more than 50% of the votes. On the last full shareholder list, made up to 4 August 2025, the largest single holding belonged to an investment nominee, GAM MNL Nominees Limited. In August 2026 the company allotted 50 million new ordinary shares, nearly two thirds of those now in issue, and no filing yet names who took them.Checked 2 October 2026 | No majority owner |
| Yumbles | Food and drink marketplace. UK small-batch makers only, by application. Sellers pay from £6 a month plus a fee per order. | Simos Kitiris and Katherine Kitiri, two individualsYumbles Media Ltd, company 08496408, named in the site's own terms. Each is registered at more than 25% but not more than 50%, notified 6 April 2016, so neither holds a majority alone.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✓ Two owners |
Second-hand
The two big resale apps are owned by a listed company and by a spread of investment funds. eBay, above, sells used goods too.
| Shop | What it is | Who controls it, and how we know | Independent? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vinted | Second-hand marketplace, person to person, with its headquarters in Lithuania. | Venture and growth funds, with no single controllerVinted Limited, company 07874344, is an English company that files the group's accounts and states that it has no person with significant control. Its confirmation statement made up to 15 April 2026 lists 257 shareholders, the largest of them funds named for Accel, Insight, EQT and Lightspeed. Vinted announced an €880 million sale of existing shares on 27 April 2026, led by EQT, Schroders Capital and Teachers' Venture Growth.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✗ Investment funds |
| Depop | Second-hand fashion marketplace, person to person. | eBay Inc., since 30 July 2026Depop Limited, company 08316342. eBay Inc. was notified as its person with significant control on 30 July 2026, 75% or more, and Etsy, Inc ceased the same day after five years. eBay told the SEC it paid about $1.4 billion in cash.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✗ Listed company |
| Oxfam Online Shop | Second-hand and donated goods of every kind, plus new fair trade lines, sold by the charity itself. | OxfamRegistered charity 202918 in England and Wales, and SC039042 in Scotland. A company limited by guarantee, company 00612172, with no person with significant control. The shop's own terms and footer name the charity as the seller.Checked 2 October 2026 | Charity ✓ |
The ethical shops
Most of these are single shops that buy stock and resell it, not marketplaces, whatever the name suggests. Two of the five are owned by a larger group or a fund.
| Shop | What it is | Who controls it, and how we know | Independent? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ethical Superstore | One online shop, not a marketplace: it buys and resells fair trade, organic and eco brands, and you contract with it. | The Whistl group, a mail, parcels and fulfilment companySpark Etail Limited, company 07551349, named in the site's own terms, sits under Whistl Ecommerce Group Limited (08030236), Whistl Limited (04261268) and Whistl Group Holdings Limited (09779561) to Whistl Consolidated Limited, company 11995959. That company's only person with significant control is Nicholas Mark Wells, at more than 25% but not more than 50% of the votes, notified 30 May 2025.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✗ Part of a group |
| Big Green Smile | One online shop, not a marketplace: natural toiletries, baby and cleaning products, bought in and resold. | An investment fund, FBP Merl LP, alongside a holding company whose registered controller is Nicholas BuhlerBig Green Smile Ltd, company 05730015, has two registered controllers, each at more than 25% but not more than 50% of the votes: FBP Kris LLP (OC440831) as general partner of the fund, notified 4 March 2022, and Big Green Smile Topco Limited (10883520). On the confirmation statement made up to 22 January 2026 the fund's general partner holds 2,778,215 of 5,317,868 shares, just over half, though about a third of them carry no vote.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✗ Fund-backed |
| Ziracle, formerly Wearth and Veo | Marketplace of vetted ethical brands that send their own orders; 118 brands on the day we looked. It takes a percentage of sales, which is not published. | Hamish Alexander Lawson, an individualwearthlondon.com now redirects here. Ziracle Ltd, company SC844466, incorporated in Edinburgh on 8 April 2025, is named in the site's terms; he is registered at 75% or more and is its sole director. The original Wearth London Limited, company 10627883, went into creditors' voluntary liquidation in May 2023 and was dissolved on 20 February 2026. Its two registered owners were other people.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✓ One owner |
| Social Supermarket | One online shop on its own terms, not a marketplace: gifts, food and homeware sourced only from social enterprises, which send the orders. | Three individuals, all directors; James Rennie Nicol Palmer holds the majorityThe Social Supermarket Ltd, company 11548215, named in the site's footer. Palmer is registered at more than 50% but less than 75%; Alex Owen and Matthew Charles Shepherd at more than 25% but not more than 50% each. Those three bands add up to more than the whole, so at least one entry is out of date.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✓ Its directors |
| Buy Me Once | Curated shop for things built to last: cookware, tools, bedding and clothing basics, chosen maker by maker. | Tara Button-Cohen, an individualBuyMeOnce Limited, company 10050381, named in the UK site's footer. She is registered at more than 50% but less than 75% of shares and votes and has been a director since incorporation in 2016.Checked 2 October 2026 | ✓ Majority owner |
Four that have closed
Four names you may remember, checked so you don't go looking for them. None is taking orders.
| Shop | What it is | Who controls it, and how we know | Independent? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trouva | Was the marketplace for bricks-and-mortar boutiques. | Not tradingOn 2 October 2026 trouva.com was a bare storefront listing 49 products, none of them available, and naming no company. Trouva Ltd, company 16266915, received a first notice of compulsory strike-off on 22 September 2026. The original operator, Streethub Ltd, company 08346380, has been in liquidation since June 2024.Checked 2 October 2026 | Closed |
| Down Your High Street | Was a marketplace for high street shops. | A liquidatorDown Your High Street.com Ltd, company 08489251, has been in liquidation since December 2022, and its web address is for sale. The match rests on the name: the site's old terms gave no company number.Checked 2 October 2026 | Closed |
| ShopAppy | Was a click-and-collect marketplace for local shops, town by town. | NobodyShopappy Limited, company 10285855, resolved to wind up in October 2023 and was dissolved on 18 February 2025. The address shopappy.com now carries a retail news magazine with no shop and no named publisher.Checked 2 October 2026 | Closed |
| Made by Hand Online | Was a curated shop for British contemporary craft. | NobodyClosed to new orders by May 2024 after almost fourteen years, on its own notice. HonnorJames Ltd, company 07295535, was struck off at its own request and dissolved on 12 August 2025: a voluntary closure, not an insolvency.Checked 2 October 2026 | Closed |
The route none of the above replaces
A marketplace takes its cut whoever owns it. Buying from the shop itself is the only route where the shop keeps the whole margin.
| Shop | What it is | Who controls it, and how we know | Independent? |
|---|---|---|---|
| The shop's own website | Buying direct | The shopDifferent for every shop. Ours are checked one at a time in the directory. | ✓✓ |
Two changed hands this year
Not On The High Street was sold in January 2026. The buyer, Executive Equity Partners, is a private equity firm in Munich, and its announcement says it took the whole company together with two managers who now run it. Until then the shares were held by Burda Principal Investments and by funds named Great Hill Equity Partners, on the confirmation statement made up to 20 January 2026. The register has not caught up: the top company still says it has no controller, and nothing filed since names the new shareholders. What the register does show is the handover itself, six directors out and two in on a single day.
Depop is the other. Anything written before August calls it Etsy’s, and since 30 July 2026 it is eBay’s: the register, eBay and Etsy all give the same date. So eBay and Depop, two of the three resale marketplaces above, now belong to one company.
The ethical shops are shops, and two have owners you would not guess
Ethical Superstore is named by five of the six guides to Amazon alternatives we read before writing this page. It is a single retailer, and the company behind it sits four steps below the top of Whistl, a group whose own site describes it as a logistics company for fulfilment, mail and parcels. Big Green Smile, named by four of the six, is also one shop, and an investment fund holds just over half its shares. Neither fact is on either shop’s About page, and neither says anything about what they stock. It is simply who you are buying from.
Wearth is the third to know about, because the name has gone. Wearth London Limited was dissolved in February 2026 after a liquidation that began in 2023, and the old address now lands on Ziracle, a new Scottish company with one owner. Ziracle’s own page says the team and the standards are the same. The register shows a different company and a different owner, so treat old recommendations of Wearth as recommendations of something that no longer exists in that form.
The marketplaces built for high street shops have gone
Three of the names above were built to put bricks-and-mortar independents online in one place: Trouva for boutiques, Down Your High Street and ShopAppy for ordinary high street shops. All three have stopped. What survives sells for makers and brands rather than for the shop on your street. Books are the exception, where the model still works, and the bookshop version of this page covers the two sites that pay a share to a shop you choose.
What the maker pays
Ownership is one half of where your money goes. The fee is the other. Folksy and The British Craft House both take 6% of the item price before VAT, and The British Craft House adds a subscription. Numonday takes no commission and charges makers £5 a month. Yumbles charges from £6 a month plus a fee per order. Etsy takes 6.5% of the price including delivery, then a listing fee, a payment fee and advertising on top. Fruugo takes a flat 20%. Not On The High Street, Wolf & Badger and Ziracle do not publish a rate, so we won’t rank them against the others.
How we checked
For each name we opened the site’s own terms to find the company that sells to you, then read that company’s entry on the Companies House register and followed it upward until it ended at a person, a listed company or a statement that nobody qualifies. Etsy, Wolf & Badger and Fruugo were read from the most recent archived copy of their terms, because the live pages turn away automated readers and we don’t work around that. The terms of Depop and Vinted could not be read at all, so those two rows rest on the register and on the companies’ own announcements.
Where we fit
Highstreett is a search engine for products and places that tells you who owns what, puts independents ahead when it’s close, and points you to an independent seller wherever it can. We are not a marketplace and we don’t sell anything, so there is no basket, no next-day delivery and no returns desk here. Our search finds shops and places, and it is deepest in Lincoln; outside books it can tell you which shop near you sells the kind of thing you want and who owns it, not whether the item is on the shelf today. If you need it tomorrow at the lowest price, eBay and OnBuy are the closest swaps for Amazon on this page. If you would rather the money reached a shop near you, that is what we are for.
Find a shop near you, independents first
Questions
Is Etsy independent?
No. The sellers are independent, but the platform belongs to Etsy, Inc., a US company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Etsy UK Limited, company 07540118, is the merchant of record for UK buyers and Etsy, Inc holds 75% or more of it. Etsy is also not handmade-only or UK-only: its seller policy asks that items be made, designed, handpicked or sourced by the seller.
Who owns Not On The High Street?
Since January 2026, Executive Equity Partners, a private equity firm in Munich, together with the two managers it put in charge. That comes from the buyer's own announcement, dated 28 January 2026. The UK register has not caught up: the top company, Upminster Topco Limited, company 13150875, still records no person with significant control, although all six of its directors left on 26 January 2026 and two German directors replaced them.
Does Etsy still own Depop?
No. eBay Inc. has been the person with significant control of Depop Limited, company 08316342, since 30 July 2026, and Etsy, Inc ceased on the same day. Both companies gave the SEC the same completion date, and eBay said it paid about $1.4 billion in cash.
Is Ethical Superstore independent?
No. It is a single shop rather than a marketplace, run by Spark Etail Limited, company 07551349, which sits four companies below Whistl Consolidated Limited, the top of the Whistl mail, parcels and fulfilment group. That says nothing about what it stocks. It does mean the shop is not the small independent its name can suggest.
What is the UK alternative to Etsy?
Folksy and The British Craft House are the two we could confirm end at one named owner, and both take UK makers only. Folksy charges makers 6% plus VAT; The British Craft House charges 6%, or 7.2% with VAT, plus a subscription. Numonday charges no commission at all, only £5 a month, but its site names no company, so we could not confirm who runs it.