1. What is SFE’ privacy policy?
This policy is intended to explain how SFE collects, stores, and uses certain personal information gathered when you interact with our physical and online stores, as well as our customer service channels. This policy is also intended to explain your options and control in the use of this information. Our use of your personal information is dedicated to enhancing and personalising your shopping experience. We are dedicated to keeping your sensitive information safe as you pursue your passion with SFE, our partners, and the products and services we offer.
2. Why does SFE collect my information?
We collect and store your information in order to personalize your shopping experience. Our goal is to make your shopping experience more efficient and more rewarding. Storing and re-using your personal information allows us to customize your shopping experience based on your past habits and unique personal information.
3. How does SFE use my information?
To meet your shopping expectations, we use collected data to enhance your personalized shopping experience in order to improve our selection of products and services in-store and online.
In order to create an effective and efficient shopping experience for you, we use your information to:
-
Fulfill orders, verify shipping and billing addresses, and process payments internally and through our financial partners, such as banks, PayPal and similar electronic payment applications, and credit/debit card companies such as Visa, Mastercard.
-
Provide products and services in-store and online targeted towards the tastes and demographics, as we have learned from our customers’ provided information and past habits.
-
Provide SFE customer service experts with information directly and indirectly from the customer about order fulfillment and delivery, special orders, customer feedback, and any other information provided by customers regarding the products and services we provide.
-
Store information which was provided by the customer in establishing a customer account, either online or in-store.
-
Continuously streamline and enhance our online stores, with improved content and design. Our internal use of your information allows us to better understand how you shop with us, search our online stores, purchase products, and what devices and platforms you use to interact with SFE.
-
Send physical and electronic catalogs and offers to you.
-
SFE WILL NOT SELL OR RENT YOUR INFORMATION TO THIRD-PARTIES FOR ANY PURPOSE. CERTAIN THIRD-PARTIES MAY HAVE ACCESS TO YOUR INFORMATION FOR THE LIMITED PURPOSES SPECIFIED.
4. What information does SFE collect?
To better serve our customers and improve and streamline your shopping experience, SFE may gather and store certain information.
SFE may gather and store the following information:
-
Contact information such as your name, gender, mailing address, e-mail address, phone number, and usernames or online aliases used to access SFE online stores.
-
Purchase information such as purchase histories, online shopping cart histories, credit/debit card payment histories, and billing and shipping addresses.
-
User account profile information such as account passwords, usernames, birthday, product reviews, product interests, purchase habits, and additional information supplied by you in connection with your accounts and profiles.
-
Device and browsing information such as the type of device used to access SFE online stores, IP addresses, cookie identifies, browser information, internet provider, product search histories, and dates and times of interaction with SFE online stores.
-
Location information provided by an electronic device interacting with SFE online stores.
-
Communications with SFE customer service experts, such as phone, e-mail, and online chat conversations.
-
Device and location information provided by a device connected to SFE in-store Wi-Fi services.Additional third parties, including legal requirements as required or allowed by applicable law to prevent theft, crime and fraud to protect SFE, you, our customers or additional third parties.
-
Videos and photographs obtained by surveillance systems inside and outside of our stores.
-
Social Media Platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, are used on our website through features, such as the Twitter “share this” button. With these features, information may be collected including your IP address, the page you’re visiting, and cookies may be set to enable the features to function properly. Interactions with these social media features is governed by the privacy policy of the social media company providing the feature.
5. How does SFE collect my information?
In addition to the means previously described in this policy, SFE may collect information at the point of purchase, and through any means in which the customer voluntarily provides information to SFE.
With varying frequency, SFE may additionally employ the following technological means used to analyse and process customer data:
-
Cookies. Cookies are strings of information that a website stores on a visitor’s computer, which the visitor’s browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns.
-
Analyze trends in accordance to site performance to determine which features on our site are effective and which features can be improved;
-
Administer the site to ensure features are functioning properly and efficiently for a better customer service experience;
-
Track visits to our site and pages to determine customer interaction;
-
Tailor your visits to our site based of settings and preferences to create a personalized shopping experience; and
-
To help identify and prevent security risks to ensure a safe and secure site.
-
-
Web Beacons and Pixel Tags. Web beacons and pixel tags are virtually transparent images and blocks of code which are typically used in combination with cookies, and which monitor the behavior of a visitor to SFE online stores.
-
Log Files. Log files are files maintained by our servers which contain a history of page requests.
-
Flash Software. Software which may be installed by Adobe Systems, Inc., that is required to access certain online store functions which require the Flash platform to function.
6. Who has access to my information?
Certain entities may have limited access to your information for specific business purposes.
The following entities may have limited access to your information:
-
SFE corporate entities for the purposes of customer service, marketing, advertising, promotions, and enhancement and personalization of your shopping experience, as previously described in this policy.
-
Third-Parties which directly assist SFE by providing business services and verifying customer information, such as:
-
Credit/debit card partners.
-
Mail/package carriers.
-
Partners offering technical and support services for our online stores and operations, including those which may process orders and billing through our physical and online stores.
-
Analytics and marketing partners which may provide targeted advertisements to you based on your searching history and information, and which help us to better focus our websites to meet the ways in which our customers use and interact with our online portals.
-
-
Third-Parties as required by law, and which may be engaged to prevent theft, fraud, and other crimes against SFE and our customers.
7. How does SFE keep my information secure?
We are committed to providing superior security and confidentiality measures to keep your personal information safe. Our online stores and websites employ physical, administrative, and technical protections to safeguard your information. Security and fraud measures taken by SFE to protect your information include:
To protect your information, SFE uses the following security and fraud measures:
-
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption technology, which encrypts your data to maintain its confidentiality in transit across the internet. SSL is represented in your browser by the “https://” prefix in the URL, as well as visually through the use of a closed lock or solid lock icon next to the URL.
-
Case-sensitive passwords to access user accounts and profiles, in our online store. Minimum lengths and character minimums are employed to strengthen passwords, but you are encouraged to use unique passwords and change them often, to strengthen this protection.
-
Your personal information is maintained on servers which are in physically secure locations, and which are accessible only by personnel necessary to ensure the proper function of those servers.
-
Your personal information will be retained by SFE indefinitely, and will be periodically purged as then-effective retention policies may dictate. You may request that your information be deleted at any time, as addressed in Section 8.
8. YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS – What options do I have regarding SFE’ collection and storage of my personal information?
We are committed to providing transparency to our customers regarding the collection of their personal information, and our continued storage of that information. The bulk of the information we collect is provided voluntarily by the customer, through such methods as online purchases and creation of user profiles. You are encouraged to make deliberate choices about the personal information you share, and review your browser and mobile device settings to make sure they fit your privacy desires.
If you have questions about what personal information we have collected, or wish to make specific requests regarding our use of that information, we encourage you to take advantage of the following options:
-
Cookie settings, for most browsers, are set to enable cookies by default. If you would like to disable cookies change the settings of your web browser to remove or reject cookies automatically. For further cookie browser details, click here for PC settings and click here for Apple settings.
-
If you are receiving promotional materials from us via e-mail, you may unsubscribe from our e-mail list at any time. Please click the “UNSUBSCRIBE” link at the bottom of an e-mail, or contact our customer service experts at the address below.
-
If you are receiving promotional materials from us via standard mail, you may unsubscribe from such mailings at any time by contacting our customer service experts at the address below.
-
Manage your user profile settings to control what information may be made public, such as “wish list” items.
-
If you have any questions about what personal information we have collected and/or shared, who your information has been shared with, the nature of any third-party recipient’s business, or have any concerns about how your information is being used, please contact our customer service experts