UK commercial director Sean Whelan declined to comment on the circumstances surrounding individual staff, but confirmed that Whiting had left the firm on 28 February.

PrintChannel.com chief executive Oliver Pflug said the firm was reducing its costs by 35% through redundancies and cuts in discretionary expenses.

He said its UK business was performing well, but that the uptake of e-commerce in the French printing industry had been slow, while US business continued to be "unpredictable".

Pflug said it had been forced to cut jobs because it had "overestimated the number of new accounts we would bring on board".

He could not confirm the exact number of redundancies as negotiations were ongoing. The firm employs around 35 staff in its US, UK and French businesses.

Pflug said PrintChannel.com hoped to make its Print I/O platform commercially available by the end of Q2 or early Q3.

Story by Gordon Carson