SHOPPERS who bought their Christmas presents by mail order and over the internet may not get them in time for Christmas because cost-cutting at Parcelforce has put a strain on Britain’s delivery network.

Restructuring at Consignia’s parcels business, which has 22 per cent of the courier market, forced many businesses to seek alternative postal arrangements earlier this year.

In an effort to increase profitability, the company is halving capacity by closing depots around the country. Standard three to five-day services were cancelled, and Parcelforce’s clients were forced to sign up to the more expensive 24-hour or 48-hour express delivery.

Despite this, Parcelforce found itself overwhelmed by the number of businesses willing to move to its more expensive services and decided to cancel some 350 of its less profitable contracts in August. Some companies were given as little as 14 days’ notice.

Larger players, such as Boden, the clothing catalogue, and Lakeland, the kitchen gadget specialist, have moved to carriers such as Parcelnet, Business Express and GUS’s Reality.

Parcelforce’s loss has been a boon for these carrier companies, which are now turning clients away because they cannot cope with more business in the run-up to Christmas.

This new work has to some extent replaced business lost from the big agency catalogues, which are in a declining market and are estimated by Verdict Research to have lost 5.5 per cent or £200 million of turnover this year.

Parcelforce is said to be running close to capacity ahead of the Christmas rush, and several home shopping companies predicted that it would struggle to deliver on time.

Julian Rayner, marketing director of Lakeland, which switched to Parcelnet after being given 35 days’ notice of the termination of its Parcelforce contract, said: “Parcelforce made the changes so quickly that it didn’t give many companies a chance to put new infrastructure in place to deal with this new volume.”

Consignia says that it was necessary to cut back Parcelforce’s contracts to protect services for its remaining customers. It said: “We are geared up for Christmas and fully expect to deliver service of highest quality.”