Nimans has defended the launch of its new Nicomms end user ‘e-warehouse' (www.nicomm.co.uk) which has angered some if its core reseller customers who accuse the Manchester distributor of ‘double standards'.

John Pearson, Chairman & CEO of PA Communications UK, seethed: "I do not want my customers seeing products they have bought from us in good faith offered at less than trade price and feeling they have been ripped off. That, I consider represents an affront to our integrity which is the cornerstone of company ethos."

Richard Carter, Managing Director of Rocom, added: '"The Nicomm website features the plantronics CS60 at £119. But in the Nimans catalogue it has a trade price of £137. This is wrong in so many ways. At Rocom we use the web to generate business for our resellers, not to compete with them."

Simon Welch, Marketing Director at Horizon UK, commented: "This is outrageous! It has been well known for some time that some of the distributors operating in the voice channel have had 'hybrid' models in that they, via one method or another both distribute and sell to end users.

"When Horizon entered the voice arena we were amazed that resellers accepted this as the norm. It certainly is not done in the data channel. This is a step to far. Finally, for the record, Horizon does not, and has never sold direct, and only works through partners."

Nimans' Chairman, Julian Niman, said: "All that has happened is an existing website has been updated. We are no different to any of our competitors who all have similar websites."