We’ve known for quite a while now that the store is in trouble, but it seems that Holiday 2011 drove the point home for quite a few people who maybe hadn’t been paying close enough attention to the plight of the store. Retail sales overall are predicted to be up 3.8% (I have to shake my head at the people who persist in comparing this to 2010′s 4.5% sales rise — that was on some very soft numbers against 2009) — but the real story is that online sales were up 15% year-over-year. And while online sales were chugging along, the two weeks after Black Friday apparently saw some of the lowest traffic numbers in stores in a decade.

So now we have some interesting predictions rolling out — from digital marketers and online retailers who are dragging back out all the stuff they said in 2000 — “The store is dead! ” “eCommerce will kill brick and mortar retailing! ” to even tech luminaries that I wouldn’t exactly call retail experts jumping in the fray — like Marc Andreessen, for example. I still humbly disagree with all of them: the store has some distinct advantages that the online shopping experience will never have, and it continues to be the one differentiator that multi-channel retailers have over online pure-plays — if they can figure out how to use it.

That said, even if you don’t believe the extremists, the store is still in big trouble. With that as my backdrop, here’s my quick take on Retail Trends for 2012 — I’ll probably update and refine when I get back from NRF, and my partners certainly have their own opinions as well, so stay tuned.

1: Store Closings

The store is in trouble, and one way that retailers will undoubtedly respond is by shuffling around their asset investments. Stores are an enormous asset, and no matter what happens to them ultimately, at least in the US there are too many of them. So I firmly believe the Sears announcement is a herald of things to come — retailers will be shuttering unproductive stores in the US in 2012, and either investing more heavily in eCommerce and cross-channel, or opening new stores in new geographies. In fact, this entire decade will probably see the heaviest movement in retail globalization, in part driven by eCommerce revealing exactly how over-saturated the home market really is.

In the same theme, we’ll also see more efforts around store reduction — in formats that are too large, sub-dividing and sub-leasing store space to complementary retailers or service providers. Last year we saw a couple cases of big box retailers carving off a portion of certain stores to restaurants. Some of the holes in malls — strip or otherwise — are also getting filled by strange neighbors, like schools and daycares, churches, and urgent care centers. It will make for a retail landscape that will look relatively unfamiliar — almost back to Main Street, mom and pop retailer days.

2: Big Box on the Rocks

Another place where eCommerce is taking a big bite out of traditional retail is in the big box or category killer vertical. Shoppers used to go to these stores because the selection and expertise were unmatched. Well, you can now find both online. Borders in 2011 was the canary in the coalmine — a retailer whose product was especially well-suited to online distribution. Barnes & Noble escaped this fate — for now — because of their success with the Nook. But that makes them a technology company as much as a retailer, a very interesting development.

Best Buy has already started sounding its own distress calls, with warnings on margin and earnings, which they lay at the feet of mobile price comparison and having to compete with online pureplays like Amazon. You could maybe ignore what happened to CompUSA and Circuit City as victims of the Great Recession, but Best Buy? Hmmm. Electronics has long been a heavily online-driven category in retail, so I suspect the only thing slowing down this category’s transformation a la Borders is the fact that much of the product still has to physically be delivered, giving a slight edge to stores in the I must have instant gratification segment.

So why aren’t category killers like REI or Petsmart on this list? Well, they could be, but these two retailers in particular have hedged — they have diversified into services. REI provides travel services, and works very hard in their stores to provide the education and inspiration that makes their products desirable. Petsmart has added all kinds of services over the years, from Banfield Veterinary services that drive trips to stores, to pet training, grooming, hoteling, even play dates and doggie day care in some areas. Petco has grooming, but they haven’t moved nearly as aggressively into the services area as Petsmart has. I think that’s a risky play. Will Guitar Center get into the music lesson business? Will Cost Plus World Market or Pier 1 start offering interior decorating services?

And there’s one more kind of category killer that has so far avoided all of these troubles — grocery. I’m still waiting for someone to reinvent the grocery store in a cross-channel world. I think there are too many This is how we’ve always done it executives in the industry who can’t see a way out of the big box they’ve firmly placed themselves in. Will 2012 be the year someone figures it out and adds the grocery category to these trouble cross-channel waters? I kind of hope so.

3: Mobile Customer Service

So that’s enough Negative Nikki. Let’s take a look at a positive development, and that’s retailers’ rush to embrace mobile, both for shoppers and for employees. The jury is still out on how Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom, Lowes and others did with their initial deployments of iPods/iPhones over the holiday season. From what I saw, it was definitely rough around the edges. But the challenge driving retailers to turn to mobile isn’t going to go away — back to online again, where the online experience is rapidly becoming a richer experience for shoppers than a store one.

All of this is good news for retail employees and for customers. Last year was the rush to have something — anything in mobile. This year will see more thoughtful approaches, more integration — which means more capabilities in the hands of shoppers and employees. I long to see the day when, having asked a store employee a question, I don’t get the puzzled, helpless look, but instead get a few flicks and clicks on a mobile phone and a ready answer to my question. I’m sure store employees long for that day too.

These are just my initial thoughts. I’m sure I’ll come up with more, especially once I get to see the innovation (or lack thereof) on the NRF show floor. Hopefully more of the former than the latter — there is certainly opportunity all over the place in retail in 2012.