Royal Mail has named Monday 4th January as the busiest day of the year for returning online purchases and Christmas gifts.

The mail provider, which referred to the day as 'Mail-back Monday', expected customers to clamour to send back unwanted gifts and mistaken purchases.

Figures predicted for the mail-back day were forecast to be 50 per cent more than the number of average daily returns in the whole of December 2015.

Predictions were based on the number of return parcels handled through Royal Mail's tracking service. This Tracked Returns service is used by over 500 online retailers.

Although the numbers are yet to be recorded, figures from the week after Christmas show that the amount of tracked returns increased by 41 per cent than during rest of the month.

Shopping online accounts for 56 per cent of shoppers and records 77 per cent of consumer's Christmas spend, according to research from the Royal Mail.

Speaking on the level of returns Nick Landon, managing director, Royal Mail Parcels explained: "At this time of year the easiest way for many shoppers to return their items is to pop them in the mail rather than tackle the post-Christmas queue."