Online shopping deliveries worth more than £250 million went missing in 2015, affecting around 3.6 million Brits.

Out of the 2,011 UK adults surveyed by Direct Line Insurance, 728 of them (36 per cent) said that their online orders hadn’t been delivered, with the value of these elusive packages averaging at £68 each.

More than one in five (22 per cent) said they had lost more than one parcel in the last five years, while one in twenty had failed to receive five or more packages.

Almost nine in ten UK adults now shop online but many of us request delivery companies not to leave our packages with neighbours.

Close to half of us (45 per cent) say we simply don’t want to burden or inconvenience our neighbour with minding a package. However for others, it’s more personal with 14 per cent saying they either don’t get on with or don’t trust their neighbour. A further five per cent explicitly ask delivery drivers not to leave their packages with a certain neighbour.

Drop-off and collection points are becoming more widespread. In June, Royal Mail extended its ‘pick-up and drop-off’ network to more than 11,700 access points, while services like Doddle are also growing in popularity.