Privacy Policy

“Personal information” means any information or opinion, whether true or not, and whether recorded in a material form or not, about an identified individual or an individual who is reasonably identifiable. In general terms, this includes information or an opinion that personally identifies you either directly (e.g., your name) or indirectly.

The personal information we collect about you depends on the nature of your dealings with us or what you choose to share with us.

When you create an account with us or make a purchase or attempt to make a purchase through our website, we collect certain information from you, including your name, billing address, shipping address, payment information, email address and phone number.

We collect your personal information directly from you when you:

• Interact with us online (through our website, email, social media)
• Interact with us over the phone
• Interact with us in person
• Send us correspondence
• Participate in interviews, surveys, promotions, competitions or questionnaires
• Attend an event where we are present
• Subscribe to our mailing list
• Apply for a position with us as an employee, contractor or volunteer

We may also collect your personal information from cookies, third parties or through publicly available sources.

Where reasonable and practicable to do so, we will collect your Personal Information only from you. However, in some circumstances we may collect your personal information from third parties. In such a case we will take reasonable steps to ensure that you are made aware of the information provided to us by the third party.

We use personal information for purposes in connection with our services and activities, including the following:

• Fulfil any orders placed through our website (including processing your payment information, arranging for shipping, and providing you with invoices and/or order confirmations);
• Provide you with information or other services that you request from us;
• Deliver to you a more personalised experience and service offering;
• Improve the quality of the services we offer;
• Internal administrative purposes;
• Targeted or online behavioural advertising;
• Marketing and research purposes; and
• Screen our orders for potential risk or fraud.

Your Personal Information may be disclosed in connection with the above purposes to:

• Our employees and contractors;
• Our related companies and brands;
• Our service providers including third parties where you consent to the use or disclosure;
• Our marketing providers;
• Our business advisors, including lawyers, accountants or other professional service providers, to the extent reasonably required; and
• Where required or authorised by law.

Disclosure of personal information to third parties will occur in accordance with this Policy in circumstances where you would reasonably expect us to disclose your information. For instance, we use the secure Australian payment gateway eWay for processing transactions and WooCommerce to power our online store. For more information about eWay, visit: https://www.eway.com.au/. For more information about Woocommerce, visit https://woocommerce.com/.

We also use Google Analytics to help us understand how you use our website. You can read more about how Google uses your Personal Information here: https://policies.google.com/privacy. You can also opt-out of Google Analytics here:  https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

We may disclose personal information to third party suppliers and service providers located overseas for some of the purposes listed above. We take reasonable steps to ensure that the overseas recipients of your personal information do not breach the privacy obligations relating to your personal information. We may disclose your personal information to entities located outside of Australia such as data hosting providers, IT administrators, cloud based information technology service providers and other information technology service providers. Alternatively, we will disclose information overseas if required or authorised by an Australian law or court / tribunal order.

When you enter sensitive payment information (such as credit card numbers) on our website, we encrypt that information using secure socket layer technology (SSL). When credit card details are collected, we pass this on to the secure Australian payment gateway eWay in order to be processed as required. We never permanently store complete credit card details.

Other Personal Information is stored in a manner that reasonably protects it from misuse and loss and from unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. When your Personal Information is no longer needed for the purpose for which it was obtained, we will take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify your Personal Information. However, most of the Personal Information is or will be stored in client files which will be kept by us for a minimum of 7 years.

Cookies and Log Files

Our website uses cookies. A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers the website puts on your device if you allow it. These cookies recognise when your device has visited our website(s) before, so we can distinguish you from other users of the website. This improves your experience and our website(s). If you do not wish to use the cookies, you can amend the settings on your internet browser so it will not automatically download cookies. However, if you remove or block cookies on your computer, please be aware that your browsing experience and our website’s functionality may be affected.

We also collect information from our website using server logs and data analytics service providers. When you visit our website to read, browse or download information, our system will record/log your IP address, date and time of your visit to our website, the pages viewed and any information downloaded. This information will only be used for the purpose of site analysis and to help us offer you improved online services. We may automatically collect non-personal information about you such as the type of internet browsers you use or the websites or search terms from which you linked to our website. You cannot be identified from this information and it is only used to assist us in providing an effective service on our website.

Direct Marketing

We may send you direct marketing communications and information about our services, opportunities, or events that we consider may be of interest to you if you have requested or consented to receive such communications. These communications may be sent in various forms, including mail, SMS and email, in accordance with applicable marketing laws. You consent to us sending you those direct marketing communications by any of those methods. If you indicate a preference for a method of communication, we will endeavour to use that method whenever practical to do so. You may opt-out of receiving marketing communications from us at any time by following the instructions to “Unsubscribe” set out in the relevant communication or contacting us using the details set out in the “How to Contact Us” section below.

Our website may contain links to websites operated by third parties. If you access a third party website through our website, personal information may be collected by that third party website. We make no representations or warranties in relation to the privacy practices of any third party provider or website and we are not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of any third party provider or website. Our Privacy Policy does not apply to third parties and third party providers / websites are responsible for informing you about their own privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies.

You may access the Personal Information we hold about you and to update and/or correct it, subject to certain exceptions. If you wish to access your Personal Information, please contact us in writing. We will not charge any fee for your access request but may charge an administrative fee for providing a copy of your Personal Information. In order to protect your Personal Information we may require identification from you before releasing the requested information.

It is important to us that your Personal Information is up to date. We  will  take reasonable steps to make sure that your Personal Information is accurate, complete and up-to-date. If you find that the information we have is not up to date or is inaccurate, please advise us as soon as practicable so we can update our records and ensure we can continue to provide quality services to you.

This Policy may change from time to time and is available on our website.

For complaints about how we handle, process or manage your personal information, please contact us using the details in the “How to Contact Us” section below. Note we may require proof of your identity and full details of your request before we can process your complaint.

If you have a question or concern in relation to our handling of your personal information or this Policy, please contact us using the details below:

Sam’s Garden Centre Pty Ltd

sales@samsgardencentre.com.au