For many retailers, Black Friday marks the start of the most frenetic stretch of the year. But for Jessica Nesbitt, CEO of Not On The High Street (NOTHS), an artisan homeware and gifts marketplace, it also highlights a deeper tension: the widening gap between businesses competing on sheer speed and those built on creativity, story and craftsmanship.
“We’re definitely seeing a lot of new value entrants come into the market,” she says. The platforms she refers to – ultra-cheap, hyper-fast marketplaces such as Shein and Temu – operate with a single-minded focus on volume. “Those businesses compete on speed and price and scale at any cost. If you sign up to their push notifications, you will essentially be offered your product for a lower and lower price, until it’s actually free.”
That model, she argues, increasingly defines retail’s gravitational pull. But it is also “the complete antithesis to the small brand,” the businesses built on originality, intention and ideas rather than speed and replication. As UK consumers head into another Black Friday week surrounded by relentless promotional messaging – or as Nesbitt puts it, “It’s not Black Friday anymore, it’s Black November” – the contrast between those approaches has never felt starker.
When originality becomes a liability
It is not simply that fast-fashion platforms can produce lookalike items more cheaply; it’s that they can do so almost instantaneously. The impact on independent makers is profound. “We did a really interesting piece of research with our partners,” says Nesbitt. “Eighty-eight per cent of small brands have been copied and 78% of those have been copied multiple times.” Some small businesses are losing “tens of thousands of pounds annually”.
The copying goes beyond inspiration. “Your photographs might be copied, your brand name might be copied, your product might be recreated at a fraction of the price with poor quality materials,” she says. For many makers, it’s not just a financial blow but an emotional one. “This business is your baby and, if you’re a sole trader, you don’t have a legal department to go to.”
A shaky pricing model is not going to build any trust with your consumer in the long term
What’s happening in the small-business world is a concentrated version of a broader leadership challenge: what do you do when the market rewards speed over integrity and when the thing that sets you apart also makes you vulnerable?
For Nesbitt, the first step is clarity about the value of originality – not as a marketing line, but as a strategic asset. In tighter economic periods, she argues, the businesses that thrive are those that offer meaning, intention and authenticity. “When budgets tighten, people become more intentional,” she says. Products with real thought behind them – and the businesses that can articulate that thought – retain relevance even as price pressure intensifies.
The second step is removing unnecessary fragility. Small brands may lack an in-house legal team, but there are still protective measures available. At NOTHS, partners are offered resources that explain how to register trademarks, patents and IP and what steps to take when a design has been lifted. The principle is universal: shore up the weak points before the crisis hits.
Finally, resilience hinges on mindset. “You need to be agile, you need to be creative,” she says. “You need to see hard things as an interesting challenge.” Treat pressure as fuel rather than threat.
Black Friday and the question of trust
If ultra-cheap marketplaces represent one extreme of the industry, Black Friday can sometimes represent another: a race to the deepest discount. Nesbitt’s view is more measured. “Consumers are in the market for an offer, a deal, a bargain,” she says, “but it can’t be at all costs.”
For Nesbitt, the emphasis must be on pricing integrity, particularly in a period when some large retailers have been criticised for marking items up before discounting. “I definitely would not be supportive of a strategy like this,” she says. “Part of being a retailer is about building trust. Trust equals retention, equals repeat shopping.”
You need to be agile, you need to be creative.
This focus on trust is not simply ethical positioning. In a noisy retail environment, credibility becomes a differentiator. Customers understand the difference between a thoughtful promotion and a gimmick. They also understand when a brand’s pricing behaviour is erratic. “A shaky pricing model is not going to build any trust with your consumer in the long term,” she says.
Even so, she acknowledges that Black Friday has staying power – perhaps no longer as a single day, but as an early-season shopping moment. “What customers love is that they can shop pre-Christmas at a deal,” she says. But she expects its format to keep evolving. With so much promotional noise, “it does become a little bit overwhelming at times,” and she sees consumers responding more strongly to meaningful offers rather than blanket discounts.
Resilience in a year of uncertainty
What ties Nesbitt’s views together – from design theft to discounting – is a consistent belief that resilience comes from alignment: between what a business stands for, how it prices, how it protects itself and how it responds to volatility.
She describes her approach as helping small brands “adapt with speed and not stress,” but the sentiment applies well beyond the creative sector. Businesses facing uncertainty, she says, stay relevant by staying close to consumer behaviour rather than trying to ride out the changes. In her words, the biggest risk is “not staying on top of where the consumer is” – whether that means overlooking the new ways in which people search for products, underestimating the pull of low-cost players or failing to articulate why their products cost what they do.
And while her focus is independent makers, her closing advice speaks to leaders across industries: keep honing your point of difference, communicate it clearly and keep close to the customers you already have. “Your existing customers are your advocates,” she says. “They will tell their friends. They will tell stories.”
In a retail landscape dominated by speed, scale and imitation, originality may not move the fastest – but it remains the thing most worth protecting.
For many retailers, Black Friday marks the start of the most frenetic stretch of the year. But for Jessica Nesbitt, CEO of Not On The High Street (NOTHS), an artisan homeware and gifts marketplace, it also highlights a deeper tension: the widening gap between businesses competing on sheer speed and those built on creativity, story and craftsmanship.
“We’re definitely seeing a lot of new value entrants come into the market,” she says. The platforms she refers to – ultra-cheap, hyper-fast marketplaces such as Shein and Temu – operate with a single-minded focus on volume. “Those businesses compete on speed and price and scale at any cost. If you sign up to their push notifications, you will essentially be offered your product for a lower and lower price, until it’s actually free.”
That model, she argues, increasingly defines retail’s gravitational pull. But it is also “the complete antithesis to the small brand,” the businesses built on originality, intention and ideas rather than speed and replication. As UK consumers head into another Black Friday week surrounded by relentless promotional messaging – or as Nesbitt puts it, “It’s not Black Friday anymore, it’s Black November” – the contrast between those approaches has never felt starker.
