To compete in today’s retail market, brands and suppliers must stay on top of constantly changing regulations and compliance requirements related to product safety, environmental impact, labor practices and other aspects.
Consumer expectations regarding quality are also evolving. In the past, quality was defined as meeting product specifications and standards, but today’s consumers often consider additional factors when making purchasing decisions. They want to buy products from brands and retailers that share their values and prioritize issues such as sustainability, social responsibility and ethical practices. This means that companies must adopt a more holistic approach to quality to remain successful.
These new consumer demands have prompted a parallel shift among retailers to evaluate suppliers using a more comprehensive set of considerations. Retailers evaluate multiple factors, including:
- Results of third-party testing, inspections and audits
- Risk factors
- Sustainability scores
- Packaging
- E-commerce ease of purchasing
- Product ratings
- Customer experience
Suppliers with a better composite quality score considering all these factors will likely be subject to less testing, auditing and inspections. Relying more heavily on higher-scoring suppliers can help reduce overall testing costs and improve speed to market.
Navigating the shifting retail compliance and quality landscape
Retailers, brands and suppliers can take action to address regulatory requirements and consumer demands for compliance and quality.
Stay informed on regulatory updates
Understand the latest developments and standards impacting retail and consumer goods so you can demonstrate compliance.
Proactively build quality assurance processes into design
Upstream quality assurance processes can help you save time and costs downstream by minimizing extra testing, delayed shipments and other issues.
Expand your scope of testing
Add other types of programs into your testing mix that align with the aspects that factor into the evolved composite quality score.
Seek outside resources to help develop your in-house capacity
Leverage training and advisory services to help you expand your internal capacity, global footprint and overall business growth.
Take a holistic approach
Demonstrate your commitment to compliance and quality, as well as to broader environmental and sustainability considerations, can help you build stronger relationships with end consumers and stand out in the competitive market.
Simplify compliance efforts
Working with a single dedicated quality and compliance services provider that supports the requirements of multiple retailers can help you streamline testing and accelerate time to market.
UL Solutions retail compliance and quality services
As a global safety science leader and trusted partner to brands and retailers around the world, UL Solutions can support your holistic compliance and quality efforts. Our comprehensive services — including testing, certification, audits, inspections, technical assistance and support, and industry-leading software — help address the retail industry’s unique compliance and quality challenges.
As a trusted compliance and quality service provider for retailers and brands, we leverage our industry expertise, global network of testing laboratories and experts, and deep knowledge of regulatory and compliance requirements to help our customers:
- Mitigate noncompliance risks
- Address supply chain issues
- Better manage overall cost of product quality testing
- Protect brand integrity
- Differentiate from competitors
- Efficiently bring compliant and high-quality products to market while optimizing costs
Explore our robust services and software designed to help brands and retailers navigate evolving compliance and quality needs.
Compliance
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Why choose UL Solutions for retail compliance and quality services
UL Solutions applies more than a century of expertise in compliance and quality testing to help retailers and brands meet regulatory demands, secure supply chains and accelerate global market access. Most of the Fortune 100 companies rely on us as their primary partner to help them solve complex regulatory, compliance and quality challenges. Our technical experts cover more than 150 countries and sit on international committees that develop industry standards and updates.
With our global network of state-of-the-art testing laboratories and technical experts, comprehensive services and compliance data management software, we can help you:
- Navigate the complexities of the global marketplace, from compliance issues to trade challenges
- Understand and demonstrate compliance with a variety of regulations and standards in destination markets
- Improve efficiency by working with one dedicated partner that can test to multiple retailers’ specifications and support your needs throughout the product lifecycle
- Strengthen your competitive advantage through partnerships with the world’s largest retailers
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