Orders placed via safe shopping online are typically fulfilled by delivering products direct to customers’ doors. But many e-commerce firms are guilty of going overboard with packaging to protect items during transit, a new Which? report has found.

48 per cent of people questioned in the survey said that opening an inordinately large cardboard box, filled with more packing materials, only to find their much smaller order within, is amongst the biggest issues facing online shopping at the moment.

Interestingly enough, 43 per cent said that they did not appreciate the idea of being forced to pay extra for shipping costs, especially in the face of the apparently wasteful packaging policies that many retailers have adopted today.

Another complaint raised in the report is that buying online makes it tougher to appreciate pros and cons of a product when compared with encountering it on the high street in person. All the images in the world seem incapable of conveying the true look and feel of items sold online, which could mean that e-commerce retailers need to seek new ways of achieving this.

Shipping hang-ups extend beyond excess packaging, with respondents also citing delays, missed deliveries and incorrect items being sent out. Over half of participants said that they had suffered some form of delivery problem, showing that this is fairly widespread and needs to be addressed.

As Christmas approaches, millions of Brits will be waiting for deliveries to arrive, and retailers will be under more pressure than at any other time of the year to ensure that there are no hiccups. The fact that packaging waste takes precedence over all other complaints suggests that things like speed and affordability of shipping need to be seen in a wider context to avoid further complaints.