The following is an article “How Consumer Protection Helps Modern Day Businesses” by Marc Primo.
Consumer laws in the 21st century have evolved with the needs, protection, and gains of both businesses and consumers in mind. But it still remains that the economic factors that dictate the development of processes involved in buying and selling, begins with the consumer.
The importance of consumer protection is quite evident in how companies can avoid legal accountabilities by being aware of the provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and all international laws that proliferated from it.
As the laws on consumer protection developed from the past century, so did modern-day businesses and customer behavior. These changes shifted the focus on facilitating research to ensure the safety, profitability, and benefits of products for consumer use. Today, it is quite evident that the more a business relies on research and development, the more they are inclined to avoid violations of consumer protection laws and gain more trust from the market.
However, the safety of consumers is not only focused on product quality but in affordability as well. Retailers such as Walmart and ALDI concentrated on price to leverage economic margins against their competitors. Telecommunication industries fiercely compete using price to expand their subscribers. Today’s laws have worked wonders for consumers in terms of quality and affordability.
In reviewing the proliferation of consumer protection laws from the past century, we have discovered that it is a process that perpetually concerns various law enforcement agencies, legislative and scientific bodies, as well as how it can be dictated by trends and the economic climate. According to the United States Food and Drug Administration, 20th century health laws were primarily enforced through the inception of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the Public Health Service. Then, the FDA was the sole agency tasked by legislators to regulate market products—a function later transferred to the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 1973. From then on, consumer protection laws have required the involvement of more government and private entities marking breakthrough research and developmental milestones.
Another thing consumer protection can do for today’s businesses aside from refining their research for improved product quality are better strategies for marketing and advertising. It is important to note that the rights of the consumer always comes first and that businesses should not resort to fraudulent acts to sell and gain profit. The Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) identification of the four types of false advertising namely hidden fees, bait and switch, misleading claims, and ambiguous or ‘best scenario’ photography, continue to happen in the 21st century, but the legalities concerning a company’s violation of consumer rights have vastly lessened the cases.
The bottom line is that the law will not excuse businesses upon violations of consumer rights whether in terms of product quality, affordability, and marketing. Consumers will always be awarded justifiable compensation for violation of their consumer rights as dictated by the courts. Perhaps what could be more interesting for businesses to tackle these days is how to come up with more best practices that will benefit the consumer. With today’s prevalence of digital marketing, a good initiative can reach a number of a company’s target market quickly and earn more of the public’s trust.