Announcing the Launch of AltNation – A Social Marketplace

Charlottesville, VA, July 16, 2013 --(PR.com)-- A few short days ago, AltNation went live at myaltnation.com. This marketplace, which is designed and geared for small businesses, self-published authors, local bands and musicians, crafters, natural food producers and sellers and other small volume vendors, brings together vendors and customers in a way not attempted before; putting a 21st century sheen on the forgotten personal connections that used to constitute the way we did business.

“We used to do business with people from our community, people we trusted. We trusted them not only because we knew them personally, but their business couldn’t afford to garner a reputation for poor quality or bad service,” founder Brian Burgess explains. “This was slowly supplanted by corporate America, faceless conglomerates who do things like put unpronounceable ingredients in our foods and substitute pressed board for wood because they need to keep investors happy; it’s this new relationship, the wealthy with the wealthy, causing the socially-enforced guarantee of quality and value to die a disturbingly unnoticed death.

“What AltNation does is re-establish that contract by reconnecting vendors with their customers and each other by centering AltNation on the ‘storefront’. The storefront is a ‘personal’ space for the vendor. To support this personality-forward approach, it contains profile and contact information, a blog and a real-time feed to help establish interpersonal links that are incredibly lacking in the modern day marketplace, particular as that marketplace becomes more digitized. We also wanted to encourage quality and value over marketing, so we made a conscious decision to never accept any money for advertisements or ‘prime’ placement of products.”

AltNation can be found at http://www.myaltnation.com and interested parties, be they vendors who wish to slip the bonds of corporatism or people who would rather buy from somebody than from something, can learn more at http://www.myaltnation.com/market/whyus or http://www.myaltnation.com/market/aboutus.