Privacy and Cookies Policy

1.1 Imperial Trends LTD (we, us, our) is the controller of the personal data described in this policy, except where section 3 says we act for a seller. We are a company registered in England and Wales under company number 15873319, with our registered office at 28 Frederick Road, Leicester, England, LE5 3HE.

1.2 For anything about your personal data, email support@imperialtrends.uk or write to us at our registered office. We haven't appointed a data protection officer, because the law doesn't require one for a business like ours; the same email address reaches the person responsible.

1.3 This policy covers imperialtrends.co.uk and the services described in it. Our online tools and client system at app.imperialtrends.co.uk have their own privacy policy (opens in a new tab), which explains the sign-in details and settings they keep.

2.1 Our hosting provider, Hostinger, keeps standard server logs of requests to the site: your IP address, the page requested, the date and time, and your browser and device type. They are used to run the site securely and to fix problems. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interests in running a secure, working website. Hostinger keeps these logs for a limited period under its own retention rules, and we don't use them to track or profile visitors.

2.2 The site uses fonts from Google Fonts, so when a page loads, your browser asks Google's servers for them. Google receives your IP address and browser details as part of that request; it doesn't set cookies for it. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interests in showing the site as it was designed.

2.3 The enquiry forms on the site don't send anything to us by themselves. When you press Send, the site opens your own email app with your answers filled in, and you choose whether to send the email. It then reaches us through our email provider, Google Workspace.

2.4 We use what you send, usually your name, email address or phone number, your business and shop details and what you need, to reply, give you a quote and follow up. Our lawful bases are taking steps at your request before entering into a contract, and our legitimate interests in answering enquiries about our business.

2.5 We keep enquiries for as long as we need them to deal with your enquiry and any follow-up. If you don't become a client, we delete them within 2 years of our last contact with you.

2.6 When you use our store management, full management or fulfilment services, we collect the details we need to provide them: the names, email addresses and phone numbers of you and your team, your business details, details of your marketplace and other accounts, the access details you give us, your orders, stock, costs and fees, your monthly statements and invoices, payments, and our messages with you.

2.7 We use them to provide our services, prepare statements and invoices, take payment, manage our relationship with you, and meet our legal and tax obligations. Our lawful bases are performing our contract with you (or our legitimate interests, where you're a contact at a client company) and our legal obligations to keep accounting and tax records.

2.8 We keep client records for 6 years after the end of the financial year they relate to, because UK tax and company law requires it. We delete account access details when our services end.

2.9 How we handle your customers' personal data on your behalf is set out in clause 19 of our Client Service Terms.

2.10 We sometimes contact businesses that sell online to tell them about our services. To do this we use business contact details that are publicly available, for example on marketplace shop pages, business websites, social media profiles and business directories.

2.11 Our lawful basis is our legitimate interests in telling businesses about services that may help them. We tell you where we got your details when we first contact you. If you ask us to stop, we will, and we keep only what we need to make sure we don't contact you again.

2.12 We only send marketing by email or text message to sole traders and partnerships if they've agreed to it, or where the law otherwise allows it.

2.13 If you don't reply, we delete your details within 12 months of our last contact.

2.14 We keep the business contact details of our suppliers, couriers and partners so that we can work with them, under our contract with them or our legitimate interests, for 6 years after our last dealings.

2.15 We may use and keep personal data where we need to comply with the law, establish, exercise or defend legal claims, or prevent fraud. Our lawful basis is our legal obligations or our legitimate interests.

3.1 We run online shops and send orders for our clients, who are the sellers. If you bought from one of those shops, we handle your name, delivery address, phone number and order details on the seller's behalf, only to send your order and to deal with your messages, returns and refunds.

3.2 For this data the seller is the controller and we are their processor: we act only on the seller's instructions, under a written contract (our Client Service Terms). The seller's own privacy notice, on the marketplace where you bought, explains how they use your data.

3.3 We share your details only with the people who need them to get your order to you: the supplier or warehouse that sends it, and the delivery company.

3.4 We clear your name, address and phone number 90 days after the order is closed (delivered, cancelled or refunded), or 120 days after it was sent if it's never marked as delivered, and in any case no later than 12 months after the sale. We keep the order record itself, without those details, for the seller's accounts. Screenshots we keep as proof of refunds are stored with those accounts, and our team is asked to crop out any address before saving them.

3.5 To use your data protection rights, contact the seller through the marketplace, or email us and we'll pass your request to the seller and help them answer it.

4.1 We don't sell personal data, and we don't share it for advertising. We share it only with the service providers we need (our processors) and the other recipients below. Our processors act only on our instructions, under contracts that require them to protect it.

4.2 We also share personal data with our professional advisers (such as accountants and lawyers), our bank and our insurers where needed, and with the police, HMRC, courts or regulators when the law requires it or to protect our rights.

4.3 If our business, or part of it, is sold or restructured, personal data may pass to the new owner, who must use it in line with this policy.

5.1 Some of the recipients in section 4 are outside the UK, or use systems outside the UK.

5.2 Some of our team members and contractors may work outside the UK. When they handle personal data for us, they do so under the UK's international data transfer terms.

5.3 When personal data leaves the UK, we make sure it is protected by one of these safeguards: UK adequacy regulations (for example for the European Economic Area, or for US companies certified under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework), or the UK's International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses, with the checks the law requires.

5.4 You can ask us for more information about the safeguard for a particular transfer.

6.1 When we no longer need personal data, we delete it or make it anonymous.

7.1 Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• access: ask for a copy of your personal data;
• rectification: ask us to correct data that's wrong or incomplete;
• erasure: ask us to delete your data;
• restriction: ask us to limit how we use your data;
• objection: object to our using your data for our legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time (we will always stop direct marketing when you ask);
• portability: ask for data you gave us in a common electronic format, or for it to be sent to someone else, where we use it under a contract or with your consent and by automated means.

7.2 Some rights have conditions or exceptions. For example, we may need to keep client records for tax purposes even if you ask us to delete them. We'll tell you if an exception applies.

7.3 Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. This doesn't affect what we did before.

7.4 To use your rights, email support@imperialtrends.uk. It's free. We may ask you to confirm who you are. We'll reply within one month; if a request is complex, or you've made several, we may take up to two more months, and we'll tell you why.

7.5 For data we handle for a seller (section 3), we'll pass your request to the seller and help them answer it.

8.1 If you're unhappy with how we've handled your personal data, please tell us first: email support@imperialtrends.uk with "Data protection complaint" in the subject. We'll acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it, keep you updated and tell you the outcome without undue delay.

8.2 You can also complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commission (still known as the ICO): online at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint (opens in a new tab), by phone on 0303 123 1113, or by post to Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

9.1 This site doesn't set any cookies, and we don't use analytics, advertising or tracking tools.

9.2 Your browser does keep one small item for a feature you use. It's needed for that feature to work, so the law (the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) doesn't require your consent for it, and it isn't used to track you:

9.3 We're testing a chat assistant that isn't open to visitors yet. Anyone using our team's private test link also gets two items in their browser: it-mira (local storage, kept until it's cleared) and it-mira-chat (session storage, deleted when the tab closes). We'll update this policy before the chat is switched on for everyone.

9.4 You can clear any of these at any time in your browser's settings for site data. The site keeps working.

9.5 The other sites we link to, such as our online tools at app.imperialtrends.co.uk and the marketplaces, set their own cookies under their own policies.

10.1 We protect personal data with appropriate technical and organisational measures. For example, the site and our systems use encrypted (HTTPS) connections, access to client and buyer data is limited to the people who need it, our team works under confidentiality obligations, and our systems clear old data automatically.

10.2 No system is completely secure. If a breach affects your personal data and is likely to put you at high risk, we'll tell you without undue delay.

11.1 Our site and services are for businesses. They're not meant for anyone under 18, and we don't knowingly collect children's personal data.

12.1 We don't make decisions about you based only on automated processing that have legal or similarly significant effects.

13.1 We may update this policy. The date at the top shows when it last changed. If a change significantly affects how we use clients' personal data, we'll tell our clients by email.