Mail order, telephone sales and internet commerce were rated at 15.5 per cent higher in February, than at the same time last year.

According to the latest research from the British Retail Consortium, the freezing weather and consumers who had received goods late after carriage delays, had helped improve the figure.

Retail sales in Britain overall increased by 2.2 per cent, in measure for measure terms, since February 2009.

At this point transactions had fallen 1.8 per cent – again because of snow and apprehensiveness among customers.

Sharon Hardiman, head of non-store retailing at the BRC described the news as 'good growth', as customers are steadily becoming more comfortable with this way of shopping.