Online retail start-up takes on rivals

An ambitious online games retailer believes it will be able to steal considerable” market share from Amazon, Play.com and ShopTo.net this Christmas after a major investment in its site.

GameGears.co.uk is eyeing a 2 million turnover for the next calendar year, after striking deals with publishers such as Activision for offers and branded sub-sites.

The Surrey retailer has been trading since January 2008 and claims to have generated a turnover of close to 1m this fiscal year. The newly revamped GameGears is set to go live next month.

The firm told MCV that it will be running a launch week promotion on titles such as Tekken 6, EyePet and Modern Warfare 2 – which it claims will offer the cheapest prices in the UK on selected games.

MD Sam Karam said: Due to our recent growth, we decided to take our business to the next level.

This will feature never seen before features for our customers and we will aim for the site to rival some very large retailers like ShopTo.net and Amazon.

Although this may sound ambitious, we are confident that we will be able to achieve a considerable market share within the next six months.”

An Activision spokesperson added: We will offer GameGears customers an Activision online store coming in November. This will be a hub for all Activision/Blizzard fans who want to benefit from competitive pricing, dedicated customer service, monthly competitions featuring fantastic gifts, weekly deals and more.”