ONE of the brains behind the world's largest online retailer has set up his own web-based gaming business – from an East Lancashire industrial unit.

Businessman John Pollard was finance director at Amazon.com in the United States when the company’s founder, Jeff Bezos, launched the business online in the mid-1990s, right at the start of the dotcom boom.

Now 14 years on, the ambitious entrepreneur is going head-to-head with Amazon in the highly-competitive computer games market after he decided to create his own internet venture, Playgamesuk.com, based in Preston Road, Ribchester.

Mr Pollard has big plans for Playgamesuk.com over the next 12 months and his ultimate aim is to double his company’s £1million turnover.

He said: “It all started when my son Andrew and my step-son Andrew Wallin began selling a few computer games on eBay about two years ago.

“They basically sold games they no longer wanted and it proved so popular that we began speaking to distributors about selling various accessories as well.

“In the end, we started selling new Nintendo Wii games on eBay and other stock we had imported from America, until we became so busy that we decided to create our own website, and that’s how Playgamesuk.com came into being.”

Since the site went live last summer, the company has brought in sales worth more than £1million, thanks mostly to the success of the Wii.

At one point, the trio were taking more than £12,000 of orders a day and they have now expanded into the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 markets.

Mr Pollard studied at Seattle University before working at Ernst and Young and then Amazon between 1995 and 1997.

And with such expertise behind him, he is confident of long-term success with Playgamesuk.com.

He added: “We are just about to enter the busiest period of the year.”