LANCASHIRE'S online shoppers whose Christmas gifts failed to arrive on time have been warned to order earlier in future.

Consumer Direct reported they had received calls about gifts that had failed to arrive or were delayed.

Nationally, 3,000 complaints were received over the last six weeks - although figures were not available for Lancashire.

A Consumer Direct North West spokesperson said: "We have taken 3,000 calls on the run-up to Christmas but we take 1.7million calls annually.

"Some orders have gone in too late because people are used to receiving things within a week during the rest of the year - but this is a busy period.

"We get the impression the industry is making an effort to try to deliver as much stock as they can, but if people are having problems with late deliveries they can contact us."

With UK shoppers now spending an average 6hours and 38minutes to complete their Christmas shopping online, sales in high street shops took a tumble and stores were staying open late,offering half-price deals to try to beat the credit crunch.

Popular auction website eBay said the best seller of the week was the Nintendo Wii as 36,641 had been sold, followed by11,054 sales of the Xbox 360.

The Nintendo DS, iPods, and Ugg boots were also in big demand.

Online retailer Amazon said it dispatched 750,000 parcels per day in the run-up to Christmas with a delivery success rate of 99 per cent.

Consumer Direct can be contacted on 0845 404 0506.