The 98th Annual National Retail Federation Convention & Expo had a pretty conspicuous elephant in the room, and not a single keynoter over four days at New York's Jacob K. Javits Convention Center failed to acknowledge it and point out that rough economic waters are flooding the retail industry's boat at every turn.

There was plenty of toughness, as well as the sense that merely "staying the course" isn't a survival strategy. But no matter what retail stripe attendees were -- and consumer electronics retailers from Best Buy on down were healthily represented -- all came away with a few lessons about surviving the next year and beyond. Here are 20.