The NRF Big Show tends to lead vendors to make two types of approaches to the technology and experiences they bring to their booths: they tend to either bring over-the-top future-leaning innovation (which is often shelfware only), or they tend to bring bread and butter solutions that tackle the problems retailers face right here, right now.

I used to look at the Big Show to see which way the pendulum swings – are vendors betting that retailers are feeling eminently practical? Or do they bet that retailers want to see bleeding edge visions of what’s possible? The bet comes down to a bet on how well the holiday season went: if it went really well, then retailers will be free-spending and optimistic and looking ahead to the future. If it went really badly, then retailers will be depressingly tactical and practical – looking only for the bare minimum to fix whatever they think was at fault for their bad season. Unfortunately, given the timing of the show, vendors have to place bets well before the holiday season even begins in order to have the right demos and presentations ready to go for mid-January.

Even if they could wait until the season was over, I feel like this year’s holiday results pose a real conundrum for vendors. The results weren’t great, especially if you are a store-based retailer. But the answer is not to retreat and get tactical, it is to get bold. Because the fundamental problem with retail results in 2017 and beyond is that they are becoming more and more divorced from the strategies that used to work. You can’t rely on stores to deliver results like they used to because consumers don’t use stores like that any longer – and retailers have not made nearly enough moves to adjust.

So the move for vendors is to hedge and do both: bring over-the-top innovation, AND bring the eminently practical stuff they can deliver today. Ultimately the flashy innovative stuff should do the work of luring in people to talk about their “real ” problems that need solving today.

In that context, what I hope to see from vendors are some over-the-top innovations. I really hope to see innovative consumer interactions and experiences designed to energize stores. Sometimes these can be hard to pull off, because they rely on things like personalization that can be subtle to show off. Or they are integrated experiences that on the surface look ridiculously simple, but where the devil lives in the details and the underlying technologies that support that ridiculously simple outcome.

Like my colleagues, I expect to see solution providers leverage IoT, AI, and augmented or virtual reality in spades. What will stand out to me, though, will be when they show how these technologies change the game – lead to different or much faster decisions and actions, or result in experiences that surprise and delight consumers. Based on what I’ve seen in the past, I have to be honest, my expectations are not high. But I am fundamentally an optimist. So I’ll keep on hoping.

Now more than ever, vendors need to deliver on the innovation front. The retail industry is depending on it.