Not On The High Street is culling its website of “cheap tat” and mass-produced products in favour of British-made artisan gifts, Dragons’ Den star Sara Davies has said after buying a stake in the business.

The celebrity investor, who appeared on the business TV series between 2019 and 2025, has joined the online marketplace as a non-executive director and equity investor.

The company did not disclose the value of the personal investment made by Ms Davies but she described it as a “meaningful stake”.

Ms Davies said Not On The High Street was no longer trying to compete with Chinese online marketplaces such as Shein and Temu which are known for their vast and fast-changing inventories of cheaper goods that ship to consumers around the world.

She told the Press Association: “We’re in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis and there are customers who are shopping on Temu and Shein, and that’s what’s appropriate for them and their spending at the moment.

“But there’s a whole different wave of customers who want to buy quality, artisan, handmade, personalised products and it’s those customers that we want to reach.

“People in the UK are really rebelling against this fast-fashion culture,” she said. “They are being more thoughtful and considered in what they’re buying, so they’re not wanting to buy the cheap tat.”

She said Not On The High Street was “really vetting” its sellers, asserting: “This is not where you will find all that mass-produced, cheap rubbish.”

The 20-year-old Bristol-based business has around 4,000 sellers on the platform with a range of about 350,000 products from jewellery, clothes and food to home and garden furnishings.

In her decision to buy a stake, the entrepreneur said she wanted to “go right to the top” of the business and met its new owners to help shape the strategy.

Not On The High Street was bought by German private equity firm Executive Equity Partners (EEP) at the start of the year, and hired new chief executive Pascal Schuster to steer its turnaround.

It comes after years of declining sales since the pandemic online shopping boom, with total transaction value across the platform at £84.2 million in the year to March 2025, compared with £230.2 million in the year to March 2021.

The company has been going through a restructuring to reduce business costs and help return to sales growth and profitability.

Mr Schuster told PA: “One of the major missteps in the past was the thought that more products on the site might be better for the customer and ultimately the revenues.

“What we’re now doing is whenever we see a product that is on our site but also on Temu, Shein or wherever – and we use AI to filter that out – then our partner gets a warning.

“If they can’t explain where their product is coming from, then we de-list them.”

This includes “drop-shipping” where sellers import mass-produced products to the UK to sell on, as well as inauthentic sellers using AI to generate designs.

The boss said: “We only want things that are either manufactured and crafted in the UK or at least altered and personalised in the UK. You have to have a UK address.

“We try to filter out what is real craftmanship and what is a bit of a scam.”