At a time when the UK has been officially declared in recession, Checkatrade www.checkatrade.com founder and CEO Kevin Byrne, announced that the Selsey, West Sussex company is still growing at an average 3.5% per month. Turnover in the 2007-08 year increased from £1.2 million last year to £1.8 million. Over 15,000 individual people now use the Checkatrade website every day to search for vetted and monitored traders, doubling the number from the same time last year.

Kevin said, “There is no recession here! In October 2008, the company grew at an astonishing 7%, our best month ever and this was in the middle of the credit crunch. Many companies are shedding staff in order to survive – I am having to find more space to house all the staff I need to cope with the growth of the company.” He went on, “We moved into our current premises in 2005, utilising only a quarter of the available floor space. Now, we occupy the entire building and are bulging at the seams.”

Checkatrade recently purchased just under an acre of land opposite their current headquarters, on which they plan to build offices to house around 150 people. Kevin said “Plans for the building are currently being drawn up and we hope to finish construction by 2010. This will be a real boost for the local economy, with many of my staff coming from Selsey and the surrounding areas.”

When asked why he thought that the company is enjoying such success, Kevin said, “Consumers are understandably more cautious these days when choosing a trader. They do not want to waste their money employing rogues who will do a substandard job. The Checkatrade website clearly shows all a member's qualifications, skills, insurance and reports from previous customers. We do not ask users of the site to tell us what they want done, nor do we text them with the names of three or four traders, selected by us. We allow consumers to choose for themselves the traders they want to approach, after they have seen all the information that we have on them.”

He continued, “We now process over 5000 customer feedback reports a month and have just processed the 150,000th report to have been received. This represents just a fraction of the work that Checkatrade generates for its members as not all consumers take the time to report back to us.” He believes that Checkatrade members share an incredible 350,000 jobs a year, from people using the Checkatrade website or from them using one of the 50 plus printed local area trade guides published by Checkatrade every year. “I am extremely optimistic about the future of this company” Kevin said. “The next 12 months will see the biggest investment yet in informing the consumer we exist, it can only get better.”

-Ends-

Notes to Editors

Checkatrade helps combat the UK's rogue trader problem by continuously vetting and monitoring local traders such as builders, plumbers and electricians. The idea was born in 1998 after a tornado hit the small West Sussex town of Selsey. Traders poured in from as far away as Liverpool and Manchester. Unfortunately, some ripped off the inhabitants of the town. Local businessman, Kevin Byrne, realised there was nowhere to check out the traders' credentials and the company that became Checkatrade was formed.

Today, Checkatrade, still based in Selsey, has over 2700 genuine trade members and publishes 4.8 million local area guides a year.

Contact

Kathy Simmonds PR/Marketing Tel: 01243 608807 Mob: 07525 379691 Email: kathy.simmonds@checkatrade.com

Kevin Byrne, Founder/CEO Tel: 01243 604288 Email: Kevin.byrne@checkatrade.com