Privacy & Cookie Policy

1. General

This privacy policy sets out how Silken Route Ltd (“we” “us” or “our”), who operate the website located at www. silkenroute.com (the “website”), store and use the personal information you provide us, or that we collect from you whilst you visit our website.

We are committed to respecting your privacy. Once you choose to provide us with any information by which you can be identified, you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy policy. By using this website you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this privacy policy and the terms and conditions.

We may change this privacy policy at any time by posting such changes on the website so please do review this policy regularly. Your continued use of the website after notice of changes shall mean you have agreed to the new privacy policy.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998, the data controller is Silken Route Ltd.

2. Information we collect from you and why

Our primary purpose in collecting personal information is to provide you with a safe, smooth, efficient and customised experience. We only collect information about you that we consider necessary for achieving this purpose. SILKEN ROUTE collects personal information in several ways, when you place an order, buy a gift voucher for a friend or register for a services offered by SILKEN ROUTE. By registering with us, you are consenting to the collection of your personal data.

When you place an order with us (including orders placed over the phone), we collect personal information including your name, email address, phone number, home address, shipping address and credit/debit card billing address so we can process and fulfill your order. Saved card details will never be shared with third parties and will only be used to process your order using our payment partner systems. Additionally we may also obtain information as a result of authentication or identity checks.

On occasion we may ask you to provide us with information regarding your shopping preferences, demographics, experiences with our products and feedback about the usage of services our website provides to help us develop and improve further. We may also ask you to provide contact preferences in order to provide you with further correspondence about our products and services. Providing us with this sort of information is entirely voluntary.

3. What we do with your information

We use the information that we collect from you to process orders, payments and to provide you with a personalised shopping experience. We will also use your details to fulfill and deliver your orders and manage your account. Personal information that you provide may be disclosed to a credit reference or fraud prevention agency, which may keep a record of that information. Where there is a legal obligation to do so, we may disclose your information to any relevant body.

In order to process your order and deliver your purchases to you we may have to pass your information to some of our service providers. This includes companies who handle our order dispatch services and our delivery company. Your contact number will be passed on to our courier company who may contact you by phone or text message in order to update you on the delivery date or time of your order. We will only provide these companies with the information which they need to carry out their jobs. They will only be allowed to use your information in the way in which we tell them, and they will not be entitled to use it in their own right.

We may also use your personal information to send you marketing updates but only ever in accordance with your preferences. We do not sell your details to third party marketing companies.

We do collate statistical information about website traffic, sales and other commercial information which we may pass on to trusted third parties but these statistics do not include any information that identify you personally. We see this as a value-added service helping you to find useful products and services. From time to time we may employ third party business partners to collect personal information on our behalf. In such cases, these third parties will be subject to confidentiality agreements and instructed by us to comply with the SILKEN ROUTE Privacy Policy.

Finally, we may use your personal information for our internal marketing and demographic studies, together with non-personal data to monitor customer patterns so we can consistently improve our site design to better meet our visitors’ needs.

4. Marketing Opt-Out Provisions

If you choose to register with us or sign up for our newsletter, we will occasionally send you information on products, special offers and sale promotions. By registering you consent to receive marketing communication from us using any contact method which you have provided us with, including post, email, SMS, MMS and telephone. We will only send you marketing messages that we feel would be of interest to you. If you no longer wish to receive our newsletter and promotional communications you may opt-out of receiving these communications by clicking the “unsubscribe” link in any email communication which we might send you or emailing customercare@silkenroute.com with unsubscribe in the subject line of the email. Alternatively you can change your email preferences or opt out of all emails by logging into My Account.

5. Use of Cookies

Our website uses cookies in order for us to continually improve our website and provide a better online shopping experience for you.

Cookies are small data files that are placed on your computer or mobile phone when you browse websites, which track your movement within websites. They also help recognise you when you visit our website again. A cookie does not give us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. They are used to keep track of how often you visit our site, the contents of your shopping cart, previous purchases and to deliver content specific to your interests. Such information will not identify you personally; it is statistical data about our visitors and the use of our website. Cookies can be divided into four types outlined below:

• Functionality cookies
Theses cookies enable you to browse the website and use our features such as shopping basket.

• Analytics cookies
These cookies are used to measure and analyse how our customers use the website. This allows us to continuously improve our website and your shopping experience. The data stored by these cookies never shows personal details from which your individual identity can be established.

• Customer preferences cookies
These cookies remember preferences you make when browsing or shopping online. This makes your browsing experience simpler, easier and more personal to you.

• Targeting cookies or Advertising cookies
These cookies collect information about your browsing habits in order to make advertising relevant to you and your interests and help us measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns.

So you can easily ‘like’ or ‘share’ our content on the likes of Facebook and Twitter we have included sharing buttons on our site. Please be aware that these social network sites might send you cookies. We don’t control the setting of these cookies, so we suggest you check the third party websites for more information about their cookies and how to manage them.

If you’d prefer to restrict or delete cookies from SILKENROUTE.com, you can do so by adjusting your website browser settings, although please note that if you do this it may impair the functionality of this website. Information on deleting or controlling cookies is available at www.aboutcookies.org

SILKENROUTE.com may also utilise Web Logs to track aggregate information about how our website is being used. Web Logs track anonymous user information, including the number of visitors to the website, operating systems, Internet Provider addresses (if publically available), and browser type. Unlike cookies, Web Logs are maintained only on our servers and do not store or place anything on the user’s computer.

6. Third Party Links

Our website may contain links to other sites operated by third parties. Once you have used these links to leave our website you should note that we do not have any control over that other site. Therefore we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this Privacy Policy. You should always read the privacy policy of each website you visit carefully.

7. Safeguarding your Personal Information

We will take reasonable care to maintain appropriate safeguards to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of the information you have provided us with. When you place an order or access your account information, we use a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption which encrypts your information before it is sent to us to protect it from unauthorised use. In addition, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that third party business partners’ to whom we transfer any data will provide sufficient protection of that personal information.

8. Updating your information

We want to make sure that the information we hold about you is correct and up to date at all times. You can at any time amend or update your information by visiting the website and logging into the “My Account” area and amending your details as appropriate. Only you or, upon your request the Customer Care Team, may access and amend your personal information on the website.

9. Access to your information

In accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 you are entitled to ask for a copy of the information we hold relating to you. Please note that we reserve the right to charge a small fee to cover the costs incurred by us in providing you with the information.

10. Contact us

If you have any queries, concerns or questions regarding our Privacy Policy, please do not hesitate to contact us at enquiries@silkenroute.com