Find out how a Peterborough man is saving video gamers thousands of pounds

Daryl Williams (33) has created the Game Swap Shop UK web app, which in just months has attracted hundreds of users and has won five star reviews on Google.

Former care home chef and private investigator, Daryl, who says he is not a gamer or a technie nerd or any good with computers, said: “I just had an idea and found the people who knew how to make it happen.”

Game Swap Shop UK began as a Facebook group 19 months ago but Daryl says it became apparent quite quickly that its growth in users - 5,000 of them - meant it would have to become a web app.

He said: “Developing the app took 12 weeks and in the early stages I was working on it 18 hours a day.”

The app has four levels of membership including trusted trader status. The Basic level is free and the Premium level is £6.99 a year with £1 donated to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

For those who sign up to Premium level before July 31, Daryl is offering free lifetime membership.

The app allows members to find others who want to swap games and the swaps are done between themselves.

But members have to prove they can be trusted and newcomers must be prepared to post their games first in their first three swaps.

Daryl, who now works six hours day administering the site, said: “I had the idea for the Swap Shop when I went to return a game at a supermarket and had an argument about the amount of the refund.

“I then spotted a return game on a shelf for sale at just a few pounds less than a brand new one.

“I was seething. It’s just not fair.

“Gamers are fed up with being ripped off by the high street trade in prices for games.

“We have one member who has made 75 swaps. That is about £3,000 worth of games and all he’s had to pay is £198 in post and packaging.

“Overall, we have currently saved our members around £300,000 with £1,000,000 worth of games being sent in the post.”

Daryl, who lives in Fairfields Drive, Ramsey, with his partner and children, says that while he is not earning from the business at the moment, he expects to be taking an income within the next 12 to 18 months and to open an office in Peterborough next year.

He said: “The prospects are good given that there are 36 million gamers across the UK.

“It is a massive market.”