MILLIONS of internet shoppers face a “rip-off” Christmas after a decision by leading electronics companies to force up online prices for DVD players, hi-fis and similar products to high street levels.

Manufacturers, including Sony, are charging shopping websites wholesale prices between 10 and 15 per cent higher than their prices to high street stores, the trade group that represents online sellers says.

The rises mean that e-retailers will find it difficult to carry on undercutting prices in the high street. Manufacturers prefer traditional retail outlets because it allows them to “showcase” their goods.

Sony denies penalising internet shopping sites, arguing that it is rewarding stores that can demonstrate its products.

Internet traders will meet today to decide whether to “name and shame” the companies involved, which include the leading household names in home entertainment goods.

The Office of Fair Trading and the European Commission have already been asked to look into the pricing policies of Sony, the Japanese giant.

The Times has learnt that the practice of charging different prices to internet retailers and high street stockists — known as dual pricing — was started by Sony and has been followed by other manufacturers.

The managing director of one website said that the electronics firms were too big for many of the independent website traders to argue with.

He said: “If you are seen to be a troublemaker it can have a detrimental effect on supplies. If they want to, they can just put you out of business.

“We are struggling to stay in business and some companies have already gone to the wall.”

Sales of electronic goods on the internet have risen to 20 per cent of the total market over the past five years and total online shopping is expected to amount to £5 billion, or 9 per cent of all retail sales, this Christmas.

But the big retail names still have the largest share of the market and are understood to have exerted pressure on the manufacturers to offer them a better deal at a time of falling high street sales. Sony and the other manufacturers also have an interest in protecting the exclusive outlets that carry their brand names. There are around 100 Sony Centres in the UK which are independently owned but sell only Sony products.