Privacy Policy

Who we are

Cloud Shoppes is an online marketplace for independent sellers based in the US. We are a US based company which allows for registered shops on our website the opportunity to sell their items directly to interested buyers. These shops are independent sellers and are not employed by Cloud Shoppes. Cloud Shoppes is a non facilitating online platform which provides registered shops an online marketplace to sell their products by getting fees from sales directly from buyers, set up their own terms of conditions (as long as it meets US consumer laws) and set up their own shipping methods. For this reason, we also ask for and store data for registered users for account registration, payment and shipping purposes.

Cloud Shoppes Privacy Policy

We process your personal data to run our website and provide the services to our users. By accepting our terms of use , you confirm that you have read and understood this policy, which includes how and why we use your information. If you do not want us to use your personal information in the manner described in this policy, you should not use the services. We are not responsible for the content or privacy policies or practices of our shops, users, or third party websites or apps.

Cloud Shoppes’ terms of use requires that all shops and users must be at least 18 years of age. Users under the age of 18 who are at least 16 years old may use Cloud Shoppes’ services only with the appropriate permission of the account holder and only under their direct supervision. Children under the age of 16 are not allowed to use Cloud Shoppes or the services. Users are solely responsible for all account activity that a minor does under their account.

By using our Services, you acknowledge that Cloud Shoppes may use your information in any country in which Cloud Shoppes operates. Please note that data protection laws and standards in certain countries, including the right of certain authorities to have access to your personal data, may differ from your country of residence.

Information Collected and Received

As part of our services, we collect or receive your personal data in various ways. A user often decides what information they want to provide, but occasionally we need certain information so that we can provide users with the services.

Registration, user account setup, shop account setup, service use: To use the services, you must provide us with a valid email address and, for services that require registration, a name associated with your account that you can choose and that corresponds to your identity on Cloud Shoppes. This information is required so that we can provide you with the services. Depending on which services you want to use, it may be that further information, such as a shop name, billing and payment information (including contact name, address, telephone number and credit card data for billing), a telephone number and / or a valid postal address, are needed so that we can provide you with a specific service. You are not obligated to provide us with this information in order to register. However, we need them to be able to provide you with certain services. For example, we need a postal mailing address if you buy something on the website that is to be delivered to you. 

Cloud Shoppes may also need this information from you, to be able to provide our services to you as a user (for example, to verify yourself as an account holder, to combat fraud and abuse on the platform or to complete a transaction as a seller or buyer). 

Cloud Shoppes does not collect or store credit card numbers as payment via credit card is done via Stripe.

You may be asked to authenticate your payment when you place your order. To authenticate a payment, you must respond to a request from your card issuer and provide additional information. Depending on your card issuer, this additional information may be the correct answer to a question, password, or passcode. Cloud Shoppes can confidently contact individual shop owners to request more information about their shops or the items posted on the services, or to ensure compliance with our regulations and applicable laws. To use certain products or services on Cloud Shoppes, you may need to complete an application. Information you provide about the application process will not be published and will only be used internally by Cloud Shoppes, unless otherwise specified.

All user and shop accounts require a first name, last name, username & display name. The first name, last name, & display name associated with your account, can be viewed and changed in your account settings. The username associated with any account cannot be changed. Your display name is displayed publicly and is linked to your activity on Cloud Shoppes.  

Registered users on cloudshoppes.com may access, change or modify their own personal information on cloudshoppes.com. Our site provides you the opportunity to review, correct, or update your account information in your user account and shop account page (except for account’s “username”). For security reasons, Cloud Shoppes cannot change or modify user’s accounts.

Other people may see how long you have been a member of Cloud Shoppes, star ratings, reviews and related photos for items you buy or sell, your profile information, items you have put up for sale in your shop, your shop pages and shop policies, your favorites, followers and who you follow, items sold and the number of items sold, comments that you post in, and information that you share through social networks.

Automated decision-making: Cloud Shoppes automatically receives information from your browser or mobile device when you visit the website or certain services (e.g. your IP address, cookies, last login and data about the pages you have visited and your interactions with these pages) and records them to enable us to operate and provide the services. Some of this data is stored in log files and it is recorded automatically. Cloud Shoppes may also receive similar information (such as IP address and actions performed on the device) provided by a networked device in the Internet of Things, such as a voice-activated assistant or Smart TV. We may combine this information received from your browser or mobile device with other information that we or our 3rd party apps collect about you, including data collected on other devices. This information is used to prevent fraud and to make the services secure, to analyze and understand how the services work for users and visitors, as well as to place advertisements on your various devices and a user experience that is better tailored to registered and non registered.

We may also automatically collect device-specific information when you register, access, or use our services. This may include information such as hardware model, information about the operating system, troubleshooting information, browser information, anonymized IP address and device IDs. 

You can choose not to be profiled in this way by opting out of marketing and by updating your cookies preferences.

Location information: 

We may receive location information that you provide in your profile or that can be seen from your IP address. We may use and store information about your location to provide functionality of our website, e.g. For example, shipping, taxes & payment services.

Certain location-based services, such as security and localized policies based on your IP address or address information, are critical to the functionality of the website. We only share information about your location with external providers (for purposes like payment, estimating taxes & shipping so that we can provide you with the services.

Analysis data: We use data analysis (ie web analytics via Google Analytics and Google Ads) to ensure the functionality of the website and to improve the services.

Third Party Data: Some users or visitors may choose to use an external third party application, ie. Facebook or an app that connects to Cloud Shoppes or to register to a Cloud Shoppes account. Cloud Shoppes can receive information from these connected third-party applications. Connecting your Cloud Shoppes account to third-party applications or services is optional (ie. sharing an item from cloudshoppes.com to social media using buttons on the product’s page).

Information from non-registered users: Cloud Shoppes may obtain information (such as a name & email) related to certain Cloud Shoppes features about a non-registered user on Cloud Shoppes. Information from non-registered users will only be used for the purposes stated.

Purposes

We respect your privacy. Cloud Shoppes will not share your name, email address, or other personal information with third parties without your consent, except as stated in this policy.

Cloud Shoppes or shops on Cloud Shoppes can advertise our services or our shops’s products through a variety of different media. If this happens outside of the website, we rely on your consent.

When you access or use the Services, we collect, use, share and otherwise process your personal data as described in this policy. When using your data in this way, we rely on a number of legal basis. These legal basis include situations in which:

• it is necessary to fulfill the contractual obligations in our terms of use and to provide you with the services;
• you have given your consent for the processing;
• it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation or judicial summons or orders or to exercise or assert legal claims that have been asserted or confirmed;
• it is necessary to take into account our legitimate interests or those of a third party, such as those of visitors, members or partners;
• you have expressly made the information public;
• it is necessary in the public interest; and
• it is occasionally required to protect your essential interests or those of others.

Please note that we generally (i) rely on consent for sending marketing messages, (ii) for sharing data with third parties in connection with advertising and, where applicable, (iii) for using location data for advertising purposes.

We process your data on the basis of legitimate interests, including but not limited to those that follow:

Provision and improvement of our services: We may use your information to improve and customize our services, including sharing your information for these purposes. This is done to the extent necessary to pursue our legitimate interests in improving our services for our users. This is also necessary so that we can pursue our legitimate interests in understanding how our services are used and to explore and open up opportunities for expanding our business. It is also necessary so that we can pursue our legitimate interests in improving our services, the efficiency and interest in services for users and in order to obtain insights into usage patterns for our services. Since this is a central aspect of our services, we have a legitimate interest in customizing your user experience on the website in order to help you to search for and find relevant products and purchase recommendations. It also means that we use this information to help shops find the best ways to market and sell their products on Cloud Shoppes.

Ensuring the security of services: We may also use your information for security purposes, including sharing your information for these purposes. This is due to the need to pursue our legitimate interests in ensuring the security of our services, including improving the protection of cloudshoppes.com from spam, harassment, copyright infringement, criminal offenses and all kinds of security risks.

We use your information to provide and improve the services and our products, for billing and payments, for identification and authentication, as well as for general research purposes and summary reporting. 

Buy and sell: As part of the buying and selling process, Cloud Shoppes enables the exchange of information between the two members involved in the transaction, such as the shipping address and payment status of the other Cloud Shoppes user. It may also be the case that we pass on your data to certain third-party partners (e.g. shipping and payment processing partners) who enable us to provide you with the service in question. These partners process your personal data in accordance with their own data protection guidelines. These partners, not Cloud Shoppes, are responsible for protecting personal information that is under their control. By making a sale or purchase on Cloud Shoppes, you are instructing us to share your information in this way. As this is an important aspect of the services we provide, it is necessary to fulfill our obligations under our terms of use. We expect you to respect the privacy of the other user whose information you are receiving.

Based on your browsing and buying behavior on (and outside) the website, we can find out what type of products you are interested in and give you purchase recommendations on this basis. As this is a central aspect of our services, we have a legitimate interest in customizing your user experience on the website in order to help you to search for and find relevant products and purchase recommendations. This includes using this information to help shops find the best ways to market and sell their products on Cloud Shoppes. 

Cloud Shoppes may share your personal information with third parties in the following specific circumstances: in response to legitimate requests from public authorities, including to comply with legitimate needs for national security or law enforcement purposes; to protect, enforce or exercise our legal rights, or to defend us against alleged or confirmed legal claims, including the collection of claims, or material breaches of our policies (including our intellectual property policy); in response to a subpoena or injunction, or as part of a judicial process or due to other legal requirements; or if we have a good faith belief that disclosure is reasonably necessary, terms of use to investigate, prevent and take action in this regard. In these cases, we may have to use your information to pursue our legitimate interest or that of a third party in ensuring the security of our services, preventing mischief or crime, enforcing or defending our legal rights, and preventing harm. Such use may also be necessary to comply with a legal obligation or a court order, or to exercise or defend legal claims. It may also be in the public interest (e.g. to prevent crime) or to protect vital interests (in rare cases where we need to share information).

In such cases, if Cloud Shoppes receives a legitimate, verified request regarding a user’s records or information, under the specific circumstances described in the previous section, Cloud Shoppes may disclose personal information, including but not limited to, name, address, telephone number, user’s & shop’s email address and company name.

Affiliates: We rely on consent for the sending of marketing messages and the transfer of data in connection with advertising. We can work with advertising partners such as Facebook, Instagram or Google and use analytics that have been aggregated from usage data such as keywords used in the search, favorites, browser history and previous purchases.

Service Provider: Cloud Shoppes must also engage third-party companies and third parties (such as feature plugins, analytics and security providers) to help us operate, provide and market our services.  These third parties have limited access to your data, may only use your data to perform these tasks on our behalf, and are obliged to Cloud Shoppes not to disclose or use your data for any other purpose. In order to provide you with the services, it is often necessary for us to commission service providers, especially in cases where these companies perform important functions, for example by helping us to keep our services functional and secure. In some other cases, these service providers are not essential, However, in order to provide the services, they help us to improve them, for example by helping us to explore ways in which we can better serve our users. In the latter case, we have a legitimate interest in working with service providers to improve our services.

Restructuring of the company: Cloud Shoppes may choose to buy or sell assets. Such transactions may be necessary and in our legitimate interest, particularly our interest in making decisions that will enable our business to grow in the long term. In these types of transactions (such as a sale, merger, liquidation, administration, or transfer of all or substantially all of the Cloud Shoppes assets), member information is typically part of the business assets that are transferred. If Cloud Shoppes intends to transmit information about you, Cloud Shoppes will notify you by email or in a clearly visible message on the website and you will have the opportunity to change your mind.

Third party: Third-party plugins can also collect information about your website usage. For example, if you load a page on Cloud Shoppes that contains a plug-in from a social media website or a third-party service, such as a “Like” or “Share” button, you are also loading content from this third party website. This website can access cookies directly from your browser. These interactions are subject to the privacy policy of the respective third-party website. In addition, certain cookies and similar technologies on the website of third parties are used for targeted online marketing and other purposes. These technologies allow a partner to recognize your computer or mobile device every time you use the services. If you use third party websites or services, your use of these websites and services is subject to the conditions and data protection guidelines applicable there. Cloud Shoppes decides and manages which of these third-party technologies are placed on its website. However, since these are third-party technologies, they are subject to the respective data protection guidelines of the relevant third-party provider. We rely on your consent to store and read these cookies if they are not technically necessary or if they are not used for any other reason, e.g. legitimate interest.

This Policy does not apply to third party practices (ie, certain third party providers we use to provide certain services, or API users) that are not Cloud Shoppes-owned and not controlled by us, or for individuals who are not employed or managed by Cloud Shoppes, unless otherwise provided in the terms or required by law. If you share your information with such third parties in connection with the use of our services, other practices may apply to the use or disclosure of the information you provide them with. While Cloud Shoppes requires these third parties to comply with Cloud Shoppes’ privacy and security regulations, however, has no control over the privacy and security policies of these third parties. 

To the extent permitted by law in your state, Cloud Shoppes is not responsible for the privacy or security practices of 3rd party services, API users, or other websites on the Internet, including those linked or not linked to the services. We recommend that you read the data protection guidelines of third parties before you provide them with your personal data. For the purposes of law, these sellers, third-party providers and API users are considered to be independent data controllers. This means that they are responsible for providing and complying with their own policies regarding personal information that they collect in connection with the Services. 

We have certain integrations with third parties who help us provide seamless services with orders and other store services for you. For example – payment gateways to process and complete your orders or web analytics to make your store and shopping experience better.

When visiting cloudshoppes.com, we use third party plugins that collects the following information:

• Shops you followed: we’ll use this to, for example, to email you updates from shops you are following. 
• Products you’ve viewed: we’ll use this to, for example, show you products you’ve recently viewed.
• Location, IP address and browser type: we’ll use this for purposes like estimating taxes and shipping.
• Shipping address: we’ll ask you to enter this so we can, for instance, estimate shipping before you place an order, and send you the order!

We’ll also use cookies to keep track of cart contents while you’re browsing our site.

When you purchase from Cloud Shoppes, we’ll ask you to provide information including your name, billing address, shipping address, email address, phone number, credit card/payment details and optional account information like username and password. We’ll use this information for purposes, such as, to:

• Send you information about your account and order
• Respond to your requests, including refunds and complaints
• Process payments and prevent fraud
• Set up your account for our store
• Comply with any legal obligations we have, such as calculating taxes
• Improve our store offerings
• Send you marketing messages, if you choose to receive them
• If you create an account, we will store your name, address, email and phone number, which will be used to populate the checkout for future orders.

We generally store information about you for as long as we need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it, and we are not legally required to continue to keep it. For example, we will store order information for tax and accounting purposes. This includes your name, email address and billing and shipping addresses.

We will also store comments or reviews, if you choose to leave them.

When placing orders on cloudshoppes.com, we use third party payment gateways that collects the following information: 

• Name
• Address
• E-mail address
• Phone number (optional)
• PayPal/credit card or bank information (via PayPal)

Please see the Woocommerce Privacy Policy for more details.

Please see the Stripe Privacy Policy for more details.

When subscribing to our newsletter on cloudshoppes.com, we use an email marketing service that collects the following information: 

• E-mail address

Please see the MXroute Privacy Policy for more details.

Cookies

Cookies are small encrypted text files that are stored on your device by a website. cloudshoppes.com uses cookies to enable you to shop, enhance your shopping experience and to analyse our traffic.

We use the following cookies:

• Strictly necessary Cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our sites and may be set automatically. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our sites and complete purchases for Services. The legal basis for using such cookies is the provision of the service you have requested.

With your consent where required by law, we also use the following cookies for the purposes described below:

• Analytical/Statistic Cookies. These cookies allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors to our site, where they are coming from and to see how visitors move around our sites. We use Google Analytics cookies. This helps us to improve the ways our sites work, for example, by improving site user interface, optimizing sales and marketing content.
• Functionality Cookies are cookies that ensure the proper functioning of the Website. These cookies allow our website to remember choices you have made in the past. This enables us to personalize our content for you and remember your preferences (for example, your login details, favorite items, items that you might be interested in, items you have previously viewed).
• Advertising Cookies. These cookies provide us with information about your visit to our sites, including the pages you have visited and the links you have followed and information about your browser, device, and your IP address. We use this information to make our sites and any advertising displayed on them more relevant to you.

You can manage/delete cookies as you wish

You can set your browser not to accept cookies and remove cookies from your browser. However in a few cases some of our Website features may not function as a result.

Removing cookies from your device

You can delete all cookies that are already on your device by clearing the browsing history of your browser. This will remove all cookies from all websites you have visited. Be aware though that you may also lose some saved information (e.g. saved login details, site preferences).

Managing site-specific cookies

For more detailed control over site-specific cookies, check the privacy and cookie settings in your preferred browser

Blocking cookies

You can set most modern browsers to prevent any cookies being placed on your device, but you may then have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site/page. And some services and functionalities may not work properly at all (e.g. profile logging-in).

For more information about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage or delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org. To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Messages from Cloud Shoppes

Occasionally, Cloud Shoppes may need to contact you. These messages are primarily sent via newsletters or emails as well as in “Latest Announcements” (for Cloud Shoppes sellers) for a variety of reasons, including marketing, transactional, and policy update purposes.

Some Cloud Shoppes emails & messages are related to our services and are necessary for registered users and shops. You agree that Cloud Shoppes may send you emails, or important service-related messages that do not contain marketing content, such as those related to registration, transactions, your account, security or product changes. Examples of service-related messages include emails confirming your email address / welcome notifications when you register your account, order notifications, service availability, changes to key features and functions, and correspondence with the Cloud Shoppes support team.

Please note that if you follow a shop on Cloud Shoppes, you will receive email updates about new product additions and get the latest updates of your shop such as discounts and other offers. To stop receiving these updates, simply go to the shop profile page and click on the “unfollow” button.

Messages between Shops and Customers

Cloud Shoppes allows for logged in users to contact a seller from a product page or a shop’s profile page. Messages exchanged between sellers and users are only visible between these 2 parties and Cloud Shoppes. Messages between the user and seller are to be made only for product inquiries and support. Users who use this feature for other purposes (ie. spam, harassment, making a sale outside cloudshoppes.com) will have their accounts revoked right away.

Cloud Shoppes cannot guarantee that spam will be 100% prevented when users email each other and Cloud Shoppes will not be held responsible for any messages between users.

Please note that messages between users on cloudshoppes.com can be seen by the Cloud Shoppes admins.

Order processing & payments 

Information collected and received

When a buyer has made an order, the seller & Cloud Shoppes will receive an email with the buyer’s name, address, phone number (if included by user) and email. This information is needed to process and complete the sale. Sellers and buyers can also communicate via “order notes” feature in the seller’s dashboard for an order which will also be sent out as an email.

This information is to be made strictly only for the purpose of the sale.

“Contact Seller” feature

Users must be logged in to their account on cloudshoppes.com to use the “Contact Seller” feature on a product page. To use this feature, a user must provide a name and their email address to where they want to get a response to.  Therefore, this information will be seen by the seller you are sending the message to.

“Contact Me” feature

Users must be logged in to their account on cloudshoppes.com to use the “Contact Me” feature on a shop’s profile page. 

Messages via “Contact Me” on a shop’s page can be viewed directly on cloudshoppes.com in the user’s account via “Seller support tickets” or in the shop dashboard under “Support”. Email addresses will not be visible here by default.

User Content

User generated content which is visible to all users on cloudshoppes.com are in the comment & rating section.

Comments show a user’s display name, profile photo, comment/review and star rating. You will never be asked to provide credit card info or other payment info, account info, email address. Cloud Shoppes generally does not remove content from comments and your posts can remain public after your account is closed, although your name will no longer appear next to the post. You are responsible for the personal data that you post through the services in comments. For security reasons to make sure none of the above is listed in the comment section, all comments must be approved by Cloud Shoppes before they get posted.

Cloud Shoppes will not be held responsible for any reviews left from users.

Embedded content from other websites

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Effective Date

These Terms and Policies are effective as of May 15, 2022.