Reseller consortium The Brigantia Group has taken the controversial step of offering its VAR members access to a European distributor and its reduced product prices.
Brigantia claimed its members can expect to see a saving of between 2.5 and 10 per cent on some SKUs supplied by Danish distributor Bridema via its distribution hub near Amsterdam Airport in Holland.
Consortium members will have access to the Brigantia PartFinder system, which allows VARs to access stock availability information from Bridema for vendors such as AMD, Apple, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Microsoft.
Iain Shaw, director of Brigantia EMEA, said the organisation will soon add European pricing to its Brigantia PartFinder system.
“The scheme with Bridema represents the start of a fight back against the supermarkets, multiples and e-tailers in the UK,” he said. “For the first time, this allows the smaller Brigantia computer solution provider members to access pan-European distribution.”
Chris Speight, development manager at Brigantia, said: “Often, stock availability and pricing in the UK is a little different to Europe. We have launched PartFinder to allow our members to get the cheapest price from Europe.
“Vendors will not be upset by this, but it might upset some UK distributors because resellers will be working to lower Danish prices.”
Speight added that VARs will not pay any VAT when making purchases, but will pay a quarterly VAT bill.
“We have 1,000 members in the UK and are looking for more, peaking at 1,500,” Speight said. “We want to move more into Europe and we will make more distributor signings in other European regions.”
However, Bernie Dodwell, European security manager at distributor Westcon Group, said: “Technically, this is legal because Bridema is trading in the European Union. But vendors may frown upon this because most operate on a country-by-country basis. This strategy is not something that should be entered into lightly.”
Dodwell warned that if a reseller uses a European distributor, vendors could consider holding back on their rebates.
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