Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how HairPlush (“HairPlush”, “we”, “us” or “our”) collects, uses, stores, protects and otherwise processes personal information when you visit or use our website, place an order, communicate with us, or otherwise interact with HairPlush.

HairPlush respects your privacy and is committed to processing personal information responsibly and in accordance with applicable South African data protection laws, including the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA), where applicable.

Nothing in this Privacy Policy is intended to remove or restrict any right that you may have under applicable law.

1. Who is responsible for your personal information?

HairPlush is responsible for the processing of personal information collected through our website and related business activities, to the extent that HairPlush determines the purposes and means of processing that information.

For privacy-related questions, requests or complaints, you can contact us at:

Email: admin@hairplush.co.za

You may also use our Contact page to contact us.

2. What personal information do we collect?

Depending on how you interact with HairPlush, we may collect information such as:

  • Your name and surname;

  • Email address;

  • Telephone or mobile number;

  • Delivery and shipping address;

  • Billing information;

  • Order details and purchase history;

  • Information provided when you contact customer support;

  • Information contained in messages, enquiries, complaints or return requests;

  • Information necessary to process refunds, replacements or other customer-service requests;

  • Device and technical information;

  • Website usage information;

  • Marketing preferences and communication preferences; and

  • Other information that you voluntarily provide to us.

We only seek to collect information that is reasonably necessary for legitimate business purposes.

Payment information

Payments may be processed through third-party payment service providers.

Where payment information such as card details is entered through a third-party payment processor, that information may be processed directly by the relevant payment provider in accordance with its own privacy and security practices.

HairPlush does not intentionally require you to send your full card number, CVV, banking password, PIN or other confidential payment credentials to us by email, WhatsApp or other customer-support channels.

Never send your card PIN, online banking password or similar confidential payment credentials to HairPlush.

3. Information collected automatically

When you visit our website, certain technical and usage information may be collected automatically.

This may include:

  • IP address;

  • Browser type and version;

  • Device type;

  • Operating system;

  • Approximate location derived from technical information;

  • Pages or products viewed;

  • Referring website or source;

  • Date and time of visits;

  • Website interactions;

  • Shopping-cart activity;

  • General browsing behaviour; and

  • Other technical information generated through your use of the website.

This information may be collected through cookies, pixels, tags, analytics tools and similar technologies.

4. How we use your personal information

We may use personal information for purposes including:

Processing and fulfilling orders

  • Processing purchases;

  • Confirming orders;

  • Processing payments;

  • Arranging delivery;

  • Providing order and shipping updates;

  • Processing returns, refunds and replacements; and

  • Maintaining records of transactions.

Customer service

We may use your information to:

  • Respond to enquiries;

  • Provide customer support;

  • Investigate complaints;

  • Assist with returns and warranty-related matters;

  • Resolve disputes; and

  • Communicate with you regarding your order or account.

Business administration

We may process information to:

  • Maintain business and transaction records;

  • Comply with applicable legal, accounting and tax obligations;

  • Protect our business and customers;

  • Detect and investigate fraud, abuse or suspicious activity;

  • Enforce our terms, policies and agreements; and

  • Establish, exercise or defend legal claims where necessary.

Website improvement

We may use technical and usage information to:

  • Understand how visitors use our website;

  • Improve website functionality;

  • Improve products and services;

  • Identify technical problems;

  • Measure website performance; and

  • Improve the customer experience.

Marketing

Where permitted by applicable law, we may use your contact information to communicate information about HairPlush products, promotions, offers, launches and other marketing communications.

Where applicable, you will be provided with an appropriate opportunity to opt out of direct marketing communications.

You can also contact us to request that we stop sending marketing communications to you.

5. Why are we allowed to process your information?

HairPlush processes personal information only where there is a lawful reason to do so.

Depending on the circumstances, this may include where processing is:

  • Necessary to process and fulfil an order or provide a service you have requested;

  • Necessary to comply with a legal obligation;

  • Necessary to protect HairPlush's legitimate business interests, including fraud prevention, security and the enforcement of agreements;

  • Necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal rights;

  • Based on your consent where consent is required; or

  • Otherwise permitted by applicable law.

Where processing relies on consent, you may withdraw that consent where applicable. Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing that took place before withdrawal.

6. Information you provide voluntarily

Some information is necessary for us to provide particular services.

For example, we generally need certain information such as your name, contact details and delivery address to process and deliver an order.

If you choose not to provide information that is reasonably necessary for a particular purpose, we may not be able to provide the relevant service, process an order, deliver a product, respond to a request or perform another requested function.

Where information is optional, you may choose whether to provide it.

7. Where do we obtain personal information from?

We may obtain personal information:

  • Directly from you;

  • When you place an order;

  • When you create or use an account;

  • When you submit a contact or support request;

  • When you communicate with us;

  • Through your interaction with our website;

  • Through cookies, pixels and analytics technologies;

  • From payment, shipping or technology providers where necessary to provide services; and

  • From other lawful sources where permitted by applicable law.

8. Who may receive your personal information?

We may share personal information with third parties where reasonably necessary to operate HairPlush, provide services to you, fulfil an order, comply with the law or protect our legitimate interests.

These parties may include categories such as:

  • E-commerce and website hosting providers;

  • Payment processors;

  • Courier and delivery companies;

  • Customer-support providers;

  • Analytics providers;

  • Marketing and advertising platforms;

  • Fraud-prevention and security providers;

  • IT and technology service providers;

  • Professional advisers, where necessary;

  • Legal or regulatory authorities where legally required; and

  • Other service providers that process information on our behalf.

We do not sell your personal information as a standalone product to third parties.

Where third parties process personal information on our behalf, we take reasonable steps to require appropriate confidentiality and security protections, where applicable.

9. Advertising, analytics and tracking technologies

HairPlush may use analytics, advertising and tracking technologies to understand website activity, measure advertising performance and improve our marketing.

Depending on the tools currently installed on our website, these technologies may include cookies, pixels, tags, conversion tracking and similar technologies.

These technologies may allow us or relevant service providers to understand activities such as:

  • Whether you visited our website after viewing an advertisement;

  • Which pages or products you viewed;

  • Whether you added products to your cart;

  • Whether you completed a purchase;

  • General website usage patterns; and

  • The effectiveness of advertising campaigns.

Advertising and analytics providers may process information in accordance with their own privacy policies and applicable law.

You can manage or restrict certain cookies through your browser settings. Disabling certain cookies may affect website functionality.

10. Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies for purposes including:

  • Essential website functionality;

  • Shopping-cart and checkout functionality;

  • Remembering preferences;

  • Website analytics;

  • Security;

  • Performance monitoring;

  • Advertising measurement; and

  • Improving the user experience.

Some cookies are necessary for the website to function correctly, while others may be used for analytics or marketing purposes.

You may control certain cookies through your browser or device settings.

11. Direct marketing

HairPlush may send marketing communications by permitted channels where we are legally entitled to do so.

Marketing communications may include:

  • Product information;

  • Promotions;

  • Special offers;

  • New product announcements;

  • Educational or informational content; and

  • Other HairPlush-related marketing communications.

Where applicable, you may object to or opt out of direct marketing.

If you no longer wish to receive marketing communications, you may use the unsubscribe option provided in the communication or contact us at:

admin@hairplush.co.za

Opting out of marketing does not prevent us from sending important non-marketing communications relating to transactions, orders, payments, deliveries, returns, security or other necessary customer-service matters.

The Information Regulator confirms that unsolicited electronic direct marketing is regulated under POPIA, including section 69.

12. International processing and transfers

Some of the service providers used to operate an online business may process personal information outside South Africa.

This may include technology, payment, hosting, analytics, advertising, customer-support or other service providers whose infrastructure or personnel are located in another country.

Where personal information is transferred across borders, HairPlush will take reasonable steps to ensure that the transfer is handled in accordance with applicable South African data-protection requirements.

Depending on the circumstances, lawful safeguards may include an appropriate level of protection in the receiving country, contractual protections, consent, necessity for the performance of a contract, or another lawful basis recognised under applicable law.

The Information Regulator's guidance recognises various lawful circumstances for transborder information flows, including adequate protection, consent and transfers necessary for contractual performance.

13. How we protect your information

HairPlush takes reasonable technical and organisational measures designed to protect personal information against risks such as:

  • Unauthorised access;

  • Loss;

  • Misuse;

  • Unauthorised disclosure;

  • Alteration; and

  • Destruction.

Security measures may include appropriate access controls, account protections, service-provider safeguards and other reasonable measures appropriate to the nature of the information and the risks involved.

However, no website, electronic transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure.

14. Security compromises and data breaches

If HairPlush becomes aware of a security compromise involving personal information and applicable law requires notification, we will take the steps required by law, which may include notifying affected data subjects and/or the Information Regulator.

We may also take reasonable steps to investigate, contain and remediate the incident.

15. How long do we keep your information?

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, unless a longer period is required or permitted by law.

Different categories of information may be retained for different periods.

For example, transaction and financial records may need to be retained to comply with accounting, tax, legal and regulatory requirements.

We may also retain certain information for longer where reasonably necessary to:

  • Resolve disputes;

  • Investigate fraud or abuse;

  • Establish, exercise or defend legal claims;

  • Enforce agreements;

  • Maintain required business records; or

  • Comply with legal obligations.

When information is no longer reasonably required, we may securely delete, destroy or anonymise it, subject to applicable legal requirements.

16. Your privacy rights

Subject to applicable law and any lawful limitations, you may have rights including the right to:

  • Request access to personal information we hold about you;

  • Request correction of inaccurate or outdated information;

  • Request deletion or destruction of information where legally applicable;

  • Object to certain processing;

  • Object to direct marketing;

  • Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent;

  • Request information about how your personal information is being processed; and

  • Lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator where you believe your privacy rights have been infringed.

Requests may be subject to reasonable verification requirements to protect against unauthorised access to personal information.

17. How to make a privacy request

To make a privacy-related request, email:

admin@hairplush.co.za

Please provide enough information for us to understand and process your request.

For security purposes, we may need to verify your identity before releasing, correcting or deleting personal information.

We will process requests in accordance with applicable law.

18. Complaints

If you have a concern about how HairPlush has handled your personal information, we encourage you to contact us first so that we can investigate and attempt to resolve the matter.

You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa.

The Information Regulator is the statutory regulator responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance with POPIA and related privacy obligations.

Information about the Regulator, its complaint processes and available forms can be obtained from its official website.

19. Children's privacy

HairPlush is not intended to knowingly collect personal information from children where such processing is prohibited by applicable law.

Where applicable law requires parental or guardian consent for the processing of a child's personal information, HairPlush will seek to comply with those requirements.

If you believe that a child has provided personal information to HairPlush in circumstances where this was not permitted, please contact us at:

admin@hairplush.co.za

20. Third-party websites and services

Our website may contain links to third-party websites, platforms or services.

This Privacy Policy applies to HairPlush's processing of personal information and does not automatically apply to third-party websites or services.

We encourage you to review the privacy policies of third-party services before providing them with personal information.

21. Customer reviews, testimonials and user-submitted content

If you voluntarily submit a review, testimonial, photograph, video or other content to HairPlush, we may process the information contained in that submission for the purposes for which it was provided and as otherwise permitted by applicable law.

Where we intend to use personally identifiable customer content for promotional purposes in a manner requiring permission, we will seek appropriate permission where necessary.

Do not submit another person's personal information, photograph or other identifying information without having the necessary authority or permission to do so.

22. Fraud prevention and protection of our business

We may process personal information to detect, investigate and prevent:

  • Fraudulent transactions;

  • Payment abuse;

  • Chargeback abuse;

  • False or abusive claims;

  • Account misuse;

  • Unauthorised access;

  • Website abuse; and

  • Other unlawful or harmful activity.

This may involve sharing relevant information with payment providers, fraud-prevention providers, professional advisers or law-enforcement authorities where reasonably necessary and legally permitted.

23. No sale of personal information

HairPlush does not sell your personal information as a standalone commercial product.

We may, however, use third-party service providers, advertising platforms, analytics providers and other technology services as necessary to operate and market the business.

Such providers may process information on our behalf or independently in accordance with their own applicable terms and privacy practices.

24. Accuracy of information

We take reasonable steps to keep personal information accurate and up to date where appropriate.

You should notify us if information you have provided to us changes and you would like us to update our records.

You may request correction of inaccurate or outdated personal information in accordance with applicable law.

25. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect:

  • Changes to our business;

  • Changes to our website or technology;

  • New service providers;

  • Changes to how personal information is processed;

  • Changes in applicable law or regulatory requirements; or

  • Other operational or security developments.

When we make material changes, we may update this page and change the Last Updated date.

You should periodically review this page for the latest version.

26. Contact HairPlush

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, wish to exercise a privacy right, or have a privacy-related complaint, please contact:

HairPlush

Email: admin@hairplush.co.za

You may also use our Contact page on the HairPlush website.

Important notice

This Privacy Policy is intended to explain HairPlush's general privacy practices in a clear and practical manner.

It does not remove or restrict any rights or protections that apply to you under POPIA or other applicable South African law.

Where a legal requirement provides you with a right that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, that legal requirement will prevail over any inconsistent provision of this Privacy Policy.