Since one data point does not make a trend, the financial markets largely ignored the retail sales figures, however, the markets have overlooked the fact that watching Paula Abdul hawk jewelery on TV is becoming a bigger part of our economy. Nonstore retail sales increased and continued its trend of becoming a larger part of total retail sales. Nonstore retail sales are the tally of all sales that do not involve going to a mall or stores, it measure sales from mail order catalogs, the internet, door to door vendors, an telephone sales (i.e. watching Paula Abdul on HSN and dialing in your order.)

This category has held up better than general retail sales and better than it did during the 2001 recession. From peak to trough nonstore retail sales fell 12.27% during 2000-2001, while during this recession they have fallen only 7.5%. Total retail sales have fallen 11.20% from the June 2008 peak to the December 2008 low. Interestingly, in December of 2000, nonstore retail sales were 5.98% of total retail sales and by November 2001 they had fallen to 5.18%. However, during the current recession nonstore retail sales have increased as a percentage of total sales. In December 2007 (the NBER official start of the recession) nonstore sales were 6.87% of total sales, while in January 2009 nonstore sales increased to 7.49% of the total, an all time high.