India, Jan. 10 -- Next week, retailers will converge on New York City for the National Retail Federation Big Show. But in spite of years of talk about a "retail apocalypse" in which brick-and-mortar stores were driven out of business by digital native competitors, a lackluster recovery from a major recession in 2008, the impact of mobile phone-wielding customers, and the more recent news about retail icon Sears being on the brink of collapse, there's a lot of positive buzz in the retail industry this year.

"Finally in 2018 we've proven that there wasn't really a retail apocalypse," said Robert Hetu, VP analyst at Gartner. "Sears wasn't the latest victim of the retail apocalypse. Sears was a victim of Sears."

Research firm Gartner said t...