Apparently the first time in Internet history the amount of on-line shopping actually decreased.

So What!  

Back in the day when direct mail catalogs first started showing up in peoples mailboxes the pundits said that traditional retailing as we know it (Physical retail stores) was going the way of the Dodo.

Guess what we still have retail stores coexisting with catalog marketers and Internet retailing.

At the end of the day people still like the experience of shopping in physical stores.  Always have, and for the foreseeable future, always will.

And with retailers like WalMart considering the use of new technologies such as RFID they will continue to close the gap in efficiency with their on-line and catalog brethren.

My crystal ball says that within 10 years Walmart has rfid scanners in their stores which will eliminate the need to scan the items in the carts. You will go through a scanner that resembles an airport scanner and all the items will be scanned this will decrease the time at checkout and virtually eliminate items not being scanned in the cart.