Privacy Policy

1 What We Collect

When you create a Vezstora account we collect:

• •Account information: your email address and encrypted password.
• •Store data: your store name, slug, description, logo, product listings, customisation settings, and any store policies (shipping, returns, cancellations) you publish.
• •Transaction data: order details including customer email addresses, delivery addresses, items purchased, payment amounts, any reason a customer provides when requesting a cancellation, and, for returns, the items, reason, note and any photos the customer gives, the store's reply, the return and collection addresses, and any refund amount. Return photos are stored privately and shown only to the store. Payment card data is never stored by us; it is handled exclusively by your chosen payment gateway (Paystack, Flutterwave, Monnify, or Stripe).
• •Usage analytics: anonymised information about how you use the dashboard, such as pages visited and features used, to help us improve the platform.
• •Storefront visit data: for visitors to stores hosted on Vezstora, the pages viewed, the referring website, campaign tags in the link, and searches that returned no results. This is shown to the store owner as traffic statistics and is not linked to a visitor's identity. See Cookies below.
• •Affiliate data: if you join our affiliate program, we collect your bank account number, bank name, and the account name returned by that bank, used solely to verify the account and pay out commissions. We also track which signups came through your referral link and whether they converted to a paying merchant.
• •Phone and browser alerts: if you or a team member turn on alerts in the dashboard, we store an address for that device issued by the browser maker, so we can send it notifications. We also note the browser and device type so you can tell your devices apart. Turning alerts off, or being removed from a store's team, stops them.
• •WhatsApp orders: when a customer sends an order to a store on WhatsApp, we save the order (items, amounts, the name they enter and, if they give it, their WhatsApp number) so the store can see and manage it in their dashboard. The conversation itself happens on WhatsApp, and we never see it.
• •In-store sales: if a store uses the POS, each sale records the items, amount, payment type (cash, transfer or card machine) and which owner or team member made it. A customer's name and phone number are recorded only if the store enters them, for example to send a receipt on WhatsApp. When items from an in-store sale are returned, we record what came back, the refund amount, how it was given (cash, transfer, card or none) and which owner or team member gave it.

We do not collect information beyond what is necessary to operate the platform.

2 How We Use It

• •To create and maintain your merchant account and storefront.
• •To process payments and route transactions through your chosen payment gateway (Paystack, Flutterwave, Monnify, or Stripe), including automatic refunds when you cancel a paid order or complete a return.
• •To send transactional emails, such as order confirmations, payment reminders for an unpaid bank-transfer order (at most two, stopping once it's paid, cancelled or the customer tells the store they've paid), shipping updates, cancellation notices, and return updates, via our email delivery providers.
• •To send merchants service emails about their account and store, such as a welcome message, a one-off check-in a few days after opening a store, plan and renewal reminders, and performance summaries. Some of these are sent from our support address, and replying to one reaches our support team.
• •To provide customer support and respond to your enquiries.
• •To improve the platform through anonymised usage analytics.
• •To comply with legal obligations and enforce our Terms of Service.
• •To verify your bank account and pay out affiliate commissions, if you participate in our affiliate program.
• •To show live courier delivery prices at checkout and book deliveries, if the store has connected a courier account, and to keep the order's tracking status up to date.
• •To send alerts to the devices where you or your team turned them on, such as a new order, a bank transfer to confirm, or a product running low.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties or use it for advertising purposes.

3 Who We Share It With

We share your data with the following trusted third-party service providers, strictly to operate the platform:

• •Supabase: our database and storage provider. Your store data, product images, order records, and photos customers add to return requests are stored on Supabase infrastructure, subject to their data processing agreement.
• •Paystack, Flutterwave, Monnify, and/or Stripe: payment processors. Depending on which payment gateway you connect, relevant business and banking information is shared with that gateway to enable payment processing and refunds. Subject to that gateway's own privacy policy. Stripe is only offered to stores priced in USD. If you participate in our affiliate program, your bank account details are also shared with Paystack specifically to verify that account and to pay out your commissions.
• •Brevo and Resend: our email delivery providers. Your email address and order-related data is passed to them solely to deliver transactional emails on your behalf.
• •Browser alert services (such as Google, Apple and Mozilla): only if you turn on alerts. Each alert, which can include an order amount, a customer's email address or a product name, is passed through the alert service of the browser you use so it can reach your device. Subject to those companies' own privacy policies.
• •Courier services (Terminal Africa or Shipbubble, and the delivery companies they work with, such as GIG Logistics, DHL, Kwik, FedEx and UPS): only for stores that connect a courier account. To show delivery prices at checkout, the customer's city and state and the items' weight and value are sent to the store's courier service; Shipbubble also checks the full delivery address before pricing it, so for stores using Shipbubble the customer's name, email, phone number and street address are sent at that point too. When the store books a delivery, the customer's name, phone number, delivery address, and the items being shipped are shared with that service and the chosen delivery company so they can collect and deliver the parcel. When the store books a courier to collect a return, the customer's name, phone number, collection address and the items being returned are shared the same way, along with the store's return address. The merchant's pickup address and contact details are shared the same way. Subject to those companies' own privacy policies.

We do not share your data with any other third parties unless required to do so by law or legal process.

4 Data Retention

We retain your account data and store records for as long as your account is active. We may also retain certain data as required by law or for legitimate business purposes such as dispute resolution.

When you close your account, your storefront goes offline immediately. Your data is retained for 30 days to allow you to request an export. After that period, all personal data associated with your account is permanently deleted from our systems, subject to legal retention requirements.

5 Your Rights

Under Nigeria's Data Protection Act 2023 (NDPA) you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• •Access: you may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• •Correction: you may update or correct inaccurate data directly in your dashboard settings, or contact us for data we hold that you cannot update yourself.
• •Deletion: you may request deletion of your account and personal data by closing your account from the dashboard or emailing us.
• •Portability: you may request an export of your store data in a machine-readable format before closing your account.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at support@vezstora.com. We will respond within 2 business days.

6 Cookies

Vezstora only stores information in your browser when it is needed for the platform to work or to remember a choice you made. We use:

• •Merchant login cookies: secure cookies that keep you signed in to your dashboard. They are removed when you sign out or your session expires.
• •Shopper account cookies: if a customer creates an account on a store, a secure cookie keeps them signed in to that store for up to 30 days. Each store has its own separate cookie, and it is removed when the customer signs out.
• •Cart and saved items: the contents of a shopper's cart and saved-for-later list are kept in the browser's local storage so they are not lost when the page is closed.
• •Recently viewed: the last products a shopper opened on a store are kept in the browser's local storage to show a “Recently viewed” row. The list stays on the shopper's device; we use it only to load those products and do not store it.
• •Visitor count: a random code kept in the browser's local storage lets a store count each visitor once, however many pages they open. It contains nothing about the person and is not used to identify them.
• •Preferences: small settings such as light or dark mode, scroll position when returning to a product list, and notices you have dismissed.
• •Referral links: if you arrive at Vezstora through an affiliate's link, a cookie remembers that affiliate's code for 30 days, so they're credited if you create a store in that time. It holds only the code, nothing about you.
• •Installed dashboard app: if you install the Vezstora dashboard on your phone or computer, a small background script is saved in the browser so alerts can be shown when the dashboard is closed. Uninstalling the app or clearing site data removes it.
• •Offline POS: so the POS can open and sell without internet, the browser keeps a copy of the POS page and the store's product list (names, prices, stock and images). Signing out removes them. If the internet drops during a sale, the sale (items, amounts, payment type, and any customer name or phone entered) is kept in that browser until it uploads, then removed. Clearing site data before then deletes those sales.
• •Storefront visit statistics: when someone browses a store, we record which pages were viewed and how the visitor arrived (the referring website and any campaign tags in the link), and keep this for the browser session so it is only captured once. This powers the store's own analytics page. It is first-party only, is not linked to a name or email address, and does not include IP addresses or device fingerprints.

We do not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels, or third-party analytics services, and we do not share browsing behaviour with advertising networks. You can clear cookies and site data at any time in your browser settings; doing so will sign you out and empty your cart.

7 Contact

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or wish to exercise your data rights, please contact us:

Email: support@vezstora.com
We aim to respond within 2 business days.