Enhancing the Customer Experience

Customer Data, Privacy, and Loyalty Programs

Retailers use data and technology to better understand customer needs, provide personalized experiences, and strengthen relationships with shoppers. Policymakers are increasingly examining how consumer data is collected and used, and retailers are committed to ensuring transparency and protecting consumer trust while continuing to deliver the benefits customers expect.

Leading retailers strive to provide shoppers with the best possible customer experience. As the industry evolves and technology changes, challenges arise that impact the experience. Given the industry-wide nature of these issues, RILA pursues coordinated legislative, regulatory, and operational strategies to address these obstacles.

Protecting Privacy and Rewards Programs

Issue:

Despite the rapid transformation of the retail ecosystem over the past two decades, our members’ core business remains straightforward: selling products and services to customers. To do so, retailers have always sought to know their customers well in order to better serve them. Retailers are deeply invested in these long-term relationships, often offering loyalty programs that reward longtime, loyal customers. Retailers utilize customer data to administer loyalty programs and provide other consumer benefits that should be considered in the national conversation on privacy. Maintaining strong customer relationships is why we care so deeply about the conversation we are having today. Retailers support Congress’s leadership in finding a sensible path to set clear privacy expectations for all Americans through federal data privacy legislation.  

Action:

RILA supports federal privacy legislation and believes there is a bipartisan opportunity to create a uniquely American privacy framework that protects consumers, sets customer expectations, and provides clear rules of the road for individuals, businesses, and the government. Retailers are prepared to assume responsibility for new privacy requirements to create a national framework that applies to all parts of the data ecosystem and inspires consumer confidence.

Improving the In-Store Experience

Issue:

Since the passage of comprehensive tax reform, retailers have followed through on their promise to invest a good portion of the financial benefit in their workforce and their stores. Today, retail stores are the most frictionless and innovative they have ever been, using technologies like VR and personalization tools, as well as logistical and design improvements, to improve customer satisfaction. It is imperative that retailers remain empowered to invest in their stores and employees. 

Action:

RILA is actively engaged with policy leaders to ensure investment is able to continue following 2018’s landmark tax reform, this includes retaining the newly established 21 percent corporate tax rate as well as implementing important technical corrections that will allow retailers to invest in their stores and enhance the overall shopping experience. 

Combating Organized Retail Crime

Issue:

Organized Retail Crime (ORC) is a multifaceted problem that requires a comprehensive solution. There is an undeniable connection between the growth of ORC and the ease with which criminals can sell stolen goods through online marketplaces. In a growing number of cases, these organized criminal syndicates are also involved in narcotics and human trafficking. While RILA supports a cooperative dialogue with online marketplaces that encourages system enhancements to prevent, identify, and investigate the sale of stolen goods on their platforms, leading retailers also back new statutes and additional resources for law enforcement to fight the growing epidemic of organized retail crime.   

Action:

RILA is engaging with law enforcement and prosecutorial communities to leverage existing laws to disrupt criminal activity and develop additional statutory tools for state and federal authorities to tackle the growing ORC problem. This includes updating existing laws to reflect the rise of online marketplaces and the anonymity some platforms allow, which makes it less risky—and more profitable—to quickly sell stolen merchandise. Additionally, leading retailers are urging states to fund new law enforcement task forces dedicated to investigating and prosecuting the organized criminal rings that fund their activities by selling stolen goods.