Post room boom: Workplaces are being overrun by packages delivered to employees, research by Barclaycard shows

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British shoppers now spend more than £100bn online every year, with the weekend - Saturday afternoon and Friday and Sunday evenings in particular - the most popular time for consumers to indulge in online retail therapy.



The growth in personal shopping deliveries to work places can also be attributed to the rise in urban living, with almost one in five (18 per cent) of Londoners saying they no longer have a private letter box and over half (51 per cent) saying they can't take the time off work to go to a collection office if they miss a delivery.

Books, cats and a unicycle

Books are the number one online purchase Londoners get sent to the office, Barclaycard said, while almost one in five get their weekly shopping delivered to work.

However, as well as the sheer volume of parcels and mail, corporate post rooms have also had to process deliveries including live animals (cats and dogs), an axe, a unicycle, an inflatable zimmerframe and a car.

There are also some items it seems that Londoners are too embarrassed to have sent to work, with 28 per cent saying they would never get lingerie delivered to their workplace and 26 per cent saying they would avoid being sent weight loss products, for fear of embarrassing themselves in front of colleagues.

"We all love the speed and ease of shopping online, no more so than when the weather is miserable, as we can still get our fix from the sofa," Marc Pettican, managing director at Barclaycard, said.

"There's no denying how handy it is to get our deliveries sent to the work place, so much so that people working in post rooms will likely be feeling quite rushed off their feet, as we anticipate a busy week ahead. With online shopping continuing to increase in popularity, this post room boom looks here to stay."