Want to see how a retailer develops and uses its database once a credit-card purchase is made? If yes, then read on.

Here’s an illustration, as described by Kate Kaye for Advertising Age: “When Maya buys a pair of running shoes at a sporting-goods retailer using her store loyalty credit card, that information is almost immediately diffused across a spectrum of consumer-data companies and databases, or as one data consultancy exec put it, ‘from your wallet to the world.’ This is what Maya’s data journey from purchase to targeted marketing message might look like.”

Click on the image below to see an infographic that shows “stops in Maya’s purchase data trail to learn more about each type of company that might obtain her information, and to reveal where her data could travel next.”