An Post said it has just delivered its busiest Christmas season with parcel volumes hitting record levels.
According to An Post, overall parcel volumes are up 50% on last year's Christmas period.
At the peak of the season, An Post staff were delivering more than 100,000 parcels a day nationwide.
Meanwhile, sales of Christmas stamp booklets also rose this year following a number of years of double digit decline.
An Post also said that international stamp sales increased on the back of new products and a new Christmas campaign.
About 13 million Christmas stamps were bought by customers in post offices and online.
An Post's Mails and Parcels Managing Director Garrett Bridgeman said that Christmas business exceeded the expectations of many of its retail customers.
"One major customer said they have never seen anything like the peak business generated by Irish shoppers. One large retailer alone sent in 22 parcels trucks in one day. We were expecting four," Mr Bridgeman said.
An Post said its national parcels network has now swung straight into dealing with the next phase of the ever growing e-commerce trade with its AddressPal and ReturnsPal services dealing with post-Christmas and New Year sales and returns.
