According to GfK, the good news is that retail business is getting better this decade. The bad news is that the market is changing (again) and retailers will have to jump a new "Valley of Death" to prosper.
GfK's Dr. Rudi Aunkofer told delegates at RetailVision the global financial crisis created cautious retail behaviour, lower stock levels and much more retail/vendor driven price competition. 
But besides the "crisis" (and we use quotation marks as the crisis really affected many other areas of business far deeper than consumer IT), there were underlying cycles that typically drive our IT business.
A study by GfK asked consumers across Europe in what ways were they saving day-to-day to cope with the financial crisis. Consumers named buying food and drink for less as their Number one strategy. Spending less on clothes and shoes came next. Going out to eat was number 3 and postponing larger purchases of furniture or car ranked the 4th most important way they were saving money in the recession. What is remarkable is that cutting back on high tech products did NOT make the Top 10 Ways We'll Cut Costs. Not at all.
Sure, sales of high tech dropped as economies dropped but we, as an industry, were not a direct target as consumers consider us a necessity (or at the very least a sacrosanct luxury).
More important to the state of our business are the underlying cycles that typically drive our IT business.
Nobody doubts the biggest buzz coming from CES was about 3D TV. Everyone was impressed with the new-found commitment that major manufacturers made to adopting 3D. Few will dispute the "inevitability" of 3D TV. 