Retail compliance now reaches well beyond product safety and consumer protection. Compliance teams at global retailers manage supplier screening, forced labor laws, anti-bribery controls, conflicts of interest, data privacy, and employee training across dozens of jurisdictions, often with a lean team.
Much of that scope has taken shape in recent years. Forced labor import bans, human rights due diligence laws, and a stronger focus on whether compliance programs work in practice have all raised expectations for retailers. Below, we look at the areas where retail compliance teams spend the most effort and the practices that help programs keep pace.
Seasonal buying cycles create obligations that outlast the season
Retail runs on a buying calendar. Hundreds of new suppliers may come on board in the weeks before a peak season, and some of them will work with the retailer for only that one cycle. Commercial teams naturally plan around these windows, but the compliance record they create does not close when the season does.
A supplier onboarded for a single holiday season remains part of the retailer’s history. Goods can be detained at the border months after an order was placed, an allegation about a factory can surface long after the relationship has ended, and a regulator reviewing the program may ask how suppliers were assessed over time, not only how the current roster looks today. The documentation behind each decision needs to stay complete and retrievable well beyond the selling period.
This also gives the quieter parts of the year real weight. Ongoing monitoring of active suppliers, refreshed training for incoming seasonal staff, and reviews of last season’s onboarding decisions are what keep a program ready before the next buying window opens.
Supplier networks extend well beyond the suppliers retailers know directly
Many retailers have direct relationships only with their tier 1 suppliers, the factories and vendors they contract with. Much of the forced labor, sanctions, and ESG exposure in a retail supply chain sits further upstream, with the mills, farms, and component makers that supply those vendors.
TPRM programs that handle this well tend to share a few practices:
- They collect ownership and sub-supplier information at onboarding rather than after a problem appears.
- They screen suppliers and their associated parties against sanctions lists, entity lists, and adverse media on an ongoing basis.
- They also set risk tiers by sourcing region, product category, and spend, so low-risk vendors move through quickly and higher-risk relationships receive closer review.
Forced labor laws have changed the evidence retailers need to produce
The Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) presumes that goods made wholly or in part in China’s Xinjiang region, or by entities on the UFLPA Entity List, were produced with forced labor, and importers must meet a high evidentiary standard to overcome that presumption. U.S. Customs and Border Protection data shows that 42 percent of detained UFLPA shipments were denied entry in the first half of 2025.
In Europe, the EU Forced Labour Regulation will bar products made with forced labor from the EU market once it takes effect, while due diligence laws such as Germany’s LkSG and the EU CSDDD set related expectations, though the scope of both has been revised.
For retail compliance teams, the practical effect is a shift from policy statements to documentation that shows who their suppliers are, who owns them, and what screening was performed.
Anti-bribery risk often sits with intermediaries
Retailers encounter anti-bribery exposure under the FCPA and UK Bribery Act largely through third parties, such as customs brokers, import agents, and consultants who handle store licensing or real estate approvals on the retailer’s behalf.
Commercial bribery is a separate concern in sourcing. Buying teams work closely with suppliers, and gifts, hospitality, and personal relationships can create conflicts of interest that are difficult to spot from headquarters. Clear thresholds, approval workflows, and disclosure records help teams manage this risk. Linking those disclosures to supplier records also makes it easier to see when a gift or relationship involves a vendor already flagged for review.
High turnover and dispersed workforces make training and speak-up programs harder to run
Retail workforces are large, geographically spread out, and subject to frequent turnover, especially in store and seasonal roles. Training has to be simple enough for someone in their first week, while policies need to account for employment rules that differ by state and country.
Local and regional managers deserve particular attention. They make many day-to-day decisions, and when local practices drift from corporate policy, the gap can create legal and ethical exposure. Training that reaches managers directly, along with attestation and completion tracking, helps keep local execution aligned with the program.
Speak-up channels face a similar challenge. Employees in stores, distribution centers, and sourcing offices need a reporting option that works for them, and compliance teams need a consistent way to triage, escalate, and investigate reports from every region.
Customer data adds another layer of third-party exposure
Retailers hold large volumes of customer data, and privacy laws such as GDPR and CCPA give consumers rights over how that information is used. As retailers rely on more technology vendors for payments, marketing, and data processing, more third parties handle customer information.
This makes the security practices of those vendors part of the broader third-party risk picture. Reviewing how technology providers protect data, and keeping a record of that review, helps retailers respond with confidence if a vendor is involved in an incident.
The common thread is being able to show how the program works in practice
The U.S. Department of Justice evaluates whether a compliance program is well designed, adequately resourced, and working in practice. Other regulators increasingly take a similar view, and auditors, boards, and customers ask comparable questions.
For retailers, this means that when a question arises about a supplier, the compliance team should be able to show the standards that supplier agreed to, the screening and due diligence performed, any certifications provided, and the monitoring in place since onboarding. That kind of response is far easier when supplier records, disclosures, and incident reports live in one place rather than across separate spreadsheets and tools.
GAN Integrity helps retail compliance teams connect their program in one platform
GAN Integrity brings third-party risk management, conflicts of interest, gifts and entertainment, incident management, and policy management together on one platform for retail compliance teams. A supplier record connects to related disclosures, screening results, and reports, so a concern raised in one part of the program is visible wherever it matters.
Retail teams can configure risk tiers by sourcing region, product category, or spend, and automate approvals for low-risk vendors while routing higher-risk suppliers to additional review. GAN Integrity also partners directly with data providers including Sayari, Dow Jones, and Control Risks, so supplier screening and verification can happen inside the same program.
If you want to see how your third-party risk program compares, the TPRM Maturity Assessment takes about five minutes and shows where your program stands today.
Hannah Tichansky is the Senior Product Marketing Manager at GAN Integrity. Hannah holds over 14 years of writing and marketing experience, with 9 years of specialization in Governance, Risk, and Compliance. Hannah holds an MA from Monmouth University and a Certificate in Product Marketing from Cornell University.