The Census Bureau of the Department of Commerce announced that the estimate of U.S. retail e-commerce sales for the first quarter of 2008 (adjusted for seasonal variation, but not for price changes) was $33.8 billion, an increase of 0.8 percent (±1.0%) from the fourth quarter of 2007. Has e-commerce reached critical mass? The ± 1.0% margin of error may indicate that the good times have come to a screeching halt. That or the recession has reached the retail Web. 

Total retail sales for the first quarter of 2008 were estimated at $1,024.2 billion, an increase of 0.1 percent (±0.2%) from the fourth quarter of 2007. The first quarter 2008 e-commerce estimate increased 13.6 percent (±1.2%) from the first quarter of 2007 while total retail sales increased 2.8 percent (±0.2%) in the same period. E-commerce sales in the first quarter of 2008 accounted for 3.3 percent of total sales.