Online shopping continues to grow strongly according to the IMRG Metapack UK Delivery Index. Order volumes were up 7% year on year to February according to the index.

The fall from January was greater than previous years at around 21%.

The IMRG Metapack index showed that next day delivery is growing strongly at the expense of longer periods. There was also a significant fall in on-time deliveries, from 90% in January to 88% in February.

Andrew Starkey, head of e-logistics at IMRG: “The huge surge in online retail orders placed in January, when online appeared to benefit from footfall to high streets hitting a five-year January low, appears to have flowed through to lower February volumes.

“The extreme weather conditions experienced in February have clouded start of year performance trends so it is difficult to predict the outlook for online retail overall at the moment.”