RETAILERS and e-tailers are at war over moves by the electronics industry to push up internet shopping prices in an attempt to save the high street.

Battle has been joined over Christmas price rises for shoppers looking for DVD and MP3 players, plasma screen televisions and hi-fis on the internet.

There are concerns that friction between the shopping centre and the world wide web may spread to other sectors where online sales are growing at the expense of traditional outlets.

Panasonic and Sharp confirmed to The Times yesterday that they had followed Sony in offering discounts to "bricks and mortar" retailers before the busiest shopping period of the year. Phillips and Hitachi are understood to have re-examined their supply contracts.

The online shopping sites say the electrical giants have, in effect, imposed price increases of 10-15 per cent on them for home entertainment products and claim that consumers are being penalised by a pricing policy that is anti-competitive. They have lodged a complaint with the Office of Fair Trading.

The electrical giants maintain that their policies are lawful and that they are merely rewarding shops which showcase, promote and demonstrate their products and offer an after-sales service.

The manufacturers devised their new pricing policies after a forceful lobbying campaign from high street retailers who feared that they were being driven out of business. Traditional electrical shops have borne the brunt of the rapid rise in online shopping and have suffered further with a slump in consumer spending.

A leading figure on the side of the high street was Julian Richer, founder and owner of the Richer Sounds chain, who has attacked some internet sellers as "parasites".

"The internet is having a massive negative impact on our industry," Mr Richer said. "Electrical retailers are going bankrupt in their droves and we are surely entitled to fight — legally of course — for our survival.

"I honestly believe that if our industry’s shops didn’t exist this would not be in the interest of consumers who either don’t have internet access or want to receive assistance, product demonstration, immediate availability and onsite back-up.

"Because of the massive difference in overheads between an efficient e-tailer and an efficient retailer, which we believe to be around 15 per cent, I do feel that manufacturers should help us to literally survive, a principle which they seem to agree with."

Mr Richer, who has 45 stores, called for the rooting out of "dispreputable e-tailers" who, he says, advertise non-existent products, falsely claim to be authorised agents and provide "appalling delivery times or aftersales".

In an interview with the industry magazine ERT Weekly last month, Mr Richer called on leading distributors and manufacturers to boycott the web. Shortly after that interview was published a number of the big manufacturers altered their terms of trade with online businesses. The electronics firms also faced lobbying from the Radio, Electrical and Telveision Retailers Association (Retra), representing 1,450 independent businesses.

Mike Floodgate, of Retra, said his members felt strongly that it was unfair that internet retailers could purchase stock at the same price as traditional shopkeepers without offering the same level of personal service. "We had to make the manufacturers keenly aware that we offered services that were beneficial to their brands and to the consumer," he said.

The Interactive Media in Retail Group, which held a meeting of online businesses yesterday to discuss the issue, called for meetings with Sony and the other firms to revise their terms of trade.

James Roper, IMRG’s chief executive, said: "The manufacturers have taken a step which is anti-conumer, anti-internet and anti-competitive." The price comparison website, Pricerunner.co.uk, said that the industry was "limiting consumer choice".

The manufacturers, some of the leading global brands in the electrical goods sector, are adamant that their supply contracts are fair. Panasonic said it had introduced new arrangements "to recognise customers who add significant pre-sales value to our products". A spokesman confirmed, however, that the arrangements applied only to retailers in Britain.

Phillips said it had supply contract arrangements which favoured retailers, whether online or on the high street, that promoted its brands and offered good after-sales services to customers.

Hitachi refused to comment but Sharp confirmed that it offered incentives for shopkeepers who demonstrated and promoted its products directly to shoppers.

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