Last week I had the opportunity to moderate a panel on technology innovation at the RILA Supply Chain Conference in Dallas, TX. I couldn’t attend the whole show, but I learned a lot just from the panel, which was really well produced and very well attended.

My fellow panelists were Jon Nordmark, Chairman of eBags and Founder of Iterate Studios, Anu Penmetcha, Chief of Staff for Digital at Hudson’s Bay Corp, and Pano Anthos, Managing Director at XRC Labs. We didn’t agree on everything, but we engaged in some great conversation, mostly driven by the audience.

The good folks at RILA devised a clever way for the audience to ask questions through an app. An audience member would toss a question into a queue, and other members could click on it to indicate their interest, or ask a new question of their own (or both). The eliminated the awkward running around with a mic, deciding who, out of an audience of 1400 to call on, and kept the quieter folks in the group engaged.

The questions were shown to the panel on a set of large monitors, sorted by the number of people who wanted to know the answer. Given the quality of the questions, we quickly abandoned our pre-planned discussions and dove right into the questions.

The first question was around the risk of too many robots. It was asked in an ironic way: “Should we fear Skynet? “ The panel had mixed emotions on this one. I expressed concern that outsourcing jobs to robots was even worse than outsourcing them overseas. Others were less concerned.

There was a lot of talk about 3D printing, and customized services in store. Pano’s company, XRC, is an incubator lab. One of the company’s properties is a 3D knitting machine (somehow that feels redundant, but that’s what it is), providing the ability to custom make scarves and other accessories to a customer’s personal specs right in store.

Pano went so far as to suggest that stores will ultimately become showrooms, where people will pick out what they want, after which the product will be shipped to their homes.

On the other side, Anu saw significant upside opportunity for the fitting room. As we’ve discussed in our post-NRF debriefs, we agree. The fitting room is an underutilized asset that definitively and clearly drives conversion. Yet retailers tend to leave it back in the mid-20^th century.

We got some questions on RFID finally meeting the promise of the early 21^st century, and ended with what might have been the question of the day “Can Amazon.com ever be stopped? With continued 40% CAGR and seeming shareholder support, billions in R&D spend the company appears to be on an endless trajectory. “

That’s a seriously provocative question. Most of the panelists felt the company definitely still has a lot of upside: there are categories it has barely penetrated. I was the only one to throw in a serious caveat. I mentioned that in the early years of my career as an analyst, 2002-2005 the question on everyone’s lips was “Can Walmart ever be stopped? “ Here we are, a decade later, and Walmart appears to have tapped out its addressable market. And now we ask the same about Amazon.

The plain truth is that as much as Wall Street would like to pretend growth can go on forever, no market is infinite. While I am a certified Amazon Prime junkie, I recognize that not everyone is going to feel that way, and there are certain categories I just can’t see buying from the company. Fashion apparel is one. As Anu pointed out, people go to Amazon knowing what they want to buy. Fashion doesn’t generally work that way.

I will also say that Jon’s company, Iterate Studios, is a fascinating technology. It maintains a database of start-ups that seeks to match companies with a need together with these who can fill that need. It’s a fascinating concept, really.

The most notable thing to me is that Supply Chain guys are very tech-hungry. They’re educated, and looking to learn more. They recognize that in an omni-channel world, they need a seat at the table when decisions on product distribution strategy.

I’m really appreciative for RILA inviting me to their event. It was a great way to start off the spring conference season, and energized me for the long three months ahead.

Great job, guys!