The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that it is still too early to know whether the slowdown we have seen in the Canadian economy will show up in lower retail sales. The Globe's Jason Kirby writes that when Deloitte surveyed consumers this fall, it found shoppers planned to cut their spending by 11 per cent this year for an average holiday bill of $1,347. Yet after the crucial Black Friday weekend, e-commerce company Shopify said sales by merchants that use its technology grew 19 per cent compared with last year. December is a critical month for retailers. When Statistics Canada reports monthly retail sales, the focus is typically on the seasonally adjusted results, in which regular seasonal swings in shopping patterns are smoothed out so month-to-month trends can be seen. Even without the seasonal adjustment, the supercharged December is starkly visible. That said, December has been slowly losing some of its dominance. This trend has also been seen in the United States and has been attributed to the shift to on-line shopping throughout the year as consumers take advantage of on-line discount events such as Amazon's Prime Days during the summer, when other retailers also slash their prices to compete.