Is online shopping becoming boring to you? While the convenience of internet shopping is extra-handy to those of us with busy lives, the benefits go beyond that: little to no sales taxes for many, free shipping promotions and ever-cheaper prices. The sheer selection of things you can buy online generally outweighs what you can buy in a physical store, too. While there is a social component in many product categories these days -- like teenage clothes and athletic shoes -- that will preclude most from shopping for certain items online, for normal product purchases, you can't beat online shopping.

But at what point does the thrill of saving money, shipping costs and possible sales taxes lose its luster? The 25% growth rate from 2004 slowed down to an estimated 16% growth rate this year. Does this slowdown mean online shoppers are moving back to buying things in person, or they're just not buying as much online?

Will sales at online retailing behemoths like Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) continue to increase for the foreseeable future? Hard to tell, but like in the case of Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT), can sales continue at a nice pace (as in, double digit) with annual sales at such a high right now? Just because sales crest using a newer medium (like the decade-old online sales channel), this does not mean folks are becoming bored with online shopping -- it's just the top of the "product cycle" known to economists, but taken to the retail medium. In addition, brick-n-mortar stores and companies have fought hard to lure customers back from online venues and into stores again.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.'s (NYSE:WMT) December same-store sales grew 1.6%, and Wal-Mart shares rose above $47.20 today as investors once again fell in love (for the minute) with the world's largest retailer on the heels of December sales results. These, of course, were driven nicely and predictably by holiday sales and so forth. What else is new? Wal-Mart not having a rising December sales month would spell doom for the entire U.S. economy most likely.

Also, Wal-Mart this week unveils that it will re-structure its worker scheduling system to treat employees like inventory, Just In Time employees, as Peter Cohan writes here. This makes sense, as I am sure Wal-Mart wants to maintain a consistent employee-to-customer ratio as possible -- but theories and real practice sometimes don't mix. I'll wait to see how this works before going further with an analysis.

So, it seems like standard Wal-Mart: there is sometimes, scratch that, always a mix of good news and semi-good or bad news streaming in from Wal-Mart these days. So this week's sales numbers and then employees-as-inventory stories follow that tradition. 2007 should be an interesting Wal-Mart year, that is for sure.