According to the Commerce Dept, first quarter retail sales in the US, including food sales, were estimtated to be just over $966bn. (If you want to remove food or other items from the total, go to the source where you can get the detailed breakdown, and even download an Excel spreadsheet if you want.)

Amazon's sales over the same period were $4.89bn, so Amazon had roughly a 0.51% share in that quarter.

Whether this share would be sustained in the long-term, i.e. over the entire economic cycle, is hard to say. At the moment, spending on big-ticket items like furniture is hugely down, but those things don't figure much in Amazon's product range. So when a recovery comes, Amazon's share of overall sales would probably be reduced, even as its sales level continues to rise.

In the long-term, we'll probably see the share of all sales taken by internet retailers increasing, both because people will become more value conscious, and because ever more people become ever more familiar and comfortable with the technology.

http://www.census.gov/marts/www/marts_current.pdf

http://money.cnn.com/2009/04/23/technology/amazon_earnings.reut/index.htm

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