There are moments when I want to pinch myself. I recently attended a presentation at Google (did you get that part — AT GOOGLE), and spent my time quickly typing notes into my iPhone (at least as fast as spell check could then replace those intended words with gibberish) and wondering if I really should just be pinching myself instead.

Here I am, a lowly e-commerce grunt, sitting AT GOOGLE. Rather than take a moment, I kept typing, and with each set of stats my eyes opened larger:

  • 65 percent of consumers start their shopping journey on mobile;
  • 45 percent of consumers make purchases via mobile; and
  • omnichannel customers are 30 percent more valuable to retailers (i.e., have a higher lifetime value).

I mean this isn’t really news from a content perspective. The figures themselves are news, so I’ll take that. I continued to take notes, went back to the office and resumed my day.

Then last week the National Retail Federation (NRF) forecast a 3.1 percent growth in retail sales this year. Well, the retail trade association was very wrong all throughout 2015, and call me a skeptic, but the NRF does have a vested interest in a slightly rose-colored view of our industry.

Then I was curious, if holiday 2015 ended nearly 20 percent below forecasts, just how tough was the full year? A few searches later, and I see that Bloomberg reported that retailers had their weakest year since 2009.

Whoa.

Then I start to connect the dots.

… Whoa.

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I boiled this down to three realities that tie all these distinct data points into a cohesive picture, each with a piece of advice about what we should do about these realities as retailers. It sure beats crying in my cereal (which was the next most obvious choice).

1. Smartphones are our world. Think about it: they’re the only thing that when not with us makes our skin crawl and we start to sweat. We’re on them 24/7. We even sleep with our phones, and they’re our new clocks and alarms.

Takeaway No. 1: This is a change from a few years ago. Therefore, you can’t be stuck in one way of measurement, with just a mobile slice here or knowing what percentage of your traffic is coming from mobile. Cross-device measurement is the new view. We should know each device’s key performance indicators so that we can play to our strengths by device (or reinvent those successes for other devices).

2. Retail is still going to be tough. Income growth is stagnant, and healthcare and technology costs squeeze what few dollars remain after expenses. People aren’t shopping and acquiring physical goods as much as experiences that make them feel cool or more in the know (myself included).

Takeaway No. 2: Consumers are less impulsive about their purchases than in years past. The customer journey might be getting longer with more hops. This makes viewing multiple attribution models to make proper media mix decisions all the more important.

3. It’s entirely possible that U.S. retail is currently overbuilt for demand. Yikes. If so, there will be several painful casualties and significant exits. It could explain why some digital marketing channels are seeing very high competition.

Takeaway No. 3: Expect to pay more for a visit, more for a conversion than you had in years past. Don’t be caught by surprise by baking these higher costs into budgets for the foreseeable future.

It’s easy for me to say all this, much harder to do. And it’s hard to keep things positive in the face of these circumstances. But nothing beats good preparation and a realistic perspective. I guess I believe in Randy Pausch. Here’s a quote from The Last Lecture:

“Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I’m a great optimist. But when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst-case scenario. I call it ‘the eaten by wolves factor.’ If I do something, what’s the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don’t worry about because I have a plan in place if they do.”

I look at it like this: sometimes the weather gets really cloudy. I’d just rather bring an umbrella and pop my collar than get caught in the rain.

Amy Madonia is the vice president of e-commerce and marketing at Donna Morgan. Prior to Donna Morgan, Amy held e-commerce positions for leading brands such as Nautica, New York & Company, Michael C. Fina, Wrangler, Hanes and Temptu.