Privacy Concerns a Challenge for Retailers

DAVOS, Switzerland - As technology rapidly increases the amount of personal data that is readily available, companies are trying to strike a balance between better tailoring their message to consumers and protecting an individual’s privacy, said Doug McMillon, the incoming chief executive of Wal-Mart Stores said Thursday.

Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum, Mr. McMillon said that the retailing giant routinely discusses internally how to better reach customers through technology, but is well aware of how quickly a consumer’s trust can evaporate if a retailer goes about it in the wrong way.

“We are people and we are families,” Mr. McMillon said. “We have to do it in a way that makes people comfortable and builds trust as we go,”

Mr. McMillon said Wal-Mart is “becoming more of a tech company,” using innovations to streamline its supply chain and to create a better experience for customers.

In Britain, customers of its Asda unit shop using their mobile phones and then pick up their items at a drive-through, Mr. McMillon said.

Paul E. Jacobs, the chairman and C.E.O. of the wireless company Qualcomm, said that his company is working on technology in which consumers will soon be able to receive information and offers for products tailored to their buying habits on their mobile phone or other devices when they approach a store display.

It will be built in a way so that people have to agree to receive such offers, in the name of privacy, he said.

“In the future you’ll get notifications all around you, for breaking news, for health,” Mr. Jacobs said. “It’s not on the phone. It will come to your wrist, your ear, your glasses.”

Maurice Lévy, the chairman and C.E.O. of the advertising company Publicis, said technology can be “extremely useful” in tailoring advertising to “the right person at the right time.” That said, a person’s interest in a product doesn’t always result in sales.

“We should never forget about that: they are human beings, they have the right to think different, they have the right to think with their emotions,” Mr. Lévy said. “At the end, there is a kind of alchemy delivering this message to the right person.”