Statistics Canada said retail e-commerce sales were $4.4 billion on an unadjusted basis, down 2.4 per cent from December 2021. They accounted for 6.5 per cent of total retail trade that month, down 0.6 percentage points year over year. (The Logic)

Talking point: Retail e-commerce sales jumped 67.9 per cent from February 2020 to July 2022, during a pandemic boom, the agency said. The share of e-commerce sales as a proportion of total retail sales has fallen from pandemic peaks—6.6 per cent in 2020 and 6.9 per cent in 2021—but remains above pre-pandemic levels. In the U.S., that metric flatlined in 2022, according to U.S. Census Bureau data released last week. E-commerce made up 14.6 per cent of the total market in 2022—the same as in 2021. The slowed growth after two years of the COVID-19 pandemic supercharging online sales has hit companies that banked on a continued rise, including Amazon, which has since scaled back its U.S. expansion plans.