Canberra, Dec 4 (IANS): Australia has witnessed an unprecedented online shopping boom amid the Covid-19 pandemic, with a record number of parcels to deliver every day this week, the country's postal service company said on Friday.

Over 2 million Australian families had placed orders online during the 2020 Black Friday/Cyber Monday online shopping sales period, up more than 42 per cent for the same period, beating the record set in 2019, Xinhua news agency quoted the Australia Post as saying in a statement.

Gary Starr, Australia Post's Executive General Manager for Business, Government and International, said while the record busy week had made history for the country's e-commerce industry, the results came unexpectedly.

"No-one could have predicted in March the seismic shift the Covid-19 pandemic would create; it's exceeded every expectation, and we're looking forward to seeing how this continues this month," Starr said.

"This week is shaping to be our busiest ever. From Monday (December 7), we'll deliver more than 13 million parcels in total - almost 3 million more than the same week last year."

As a result, the national postal service has been delivering over 2 million parcels every day since this week, over half of them ordered by people living in New South Wales and Victoria, the two most populous states in Australia.

Food and liquor; home and garden; variety store purchases; and health and beauty were among the most popular categories to online shoppers, with sales up 72 per cent compared with the same time last year, Australia Post said.