Effective May 20th 2018

This privacy policy sets out how Otter Garden Centres uses and protects any personal information that you provide.

Data may be collected from various sources:

  • When you visit our website or social media pages, or sign up for e-newsletters & competitions
  • When you purchase products from Otter Garden Centres that require ordering or delivery
  • When you make an enquiry to one of our Garden Centres, this may be in person, by telephone or by email
  • Information provided through job applications

This document has been published to help you understand how and why Otter Garden Centres collect and hold information from you. Otter Garden Centres may update this policy, you should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

What Information do we collect and how it is used?

Otter Garden Centres Website & Social Media

Website

Whilst using our website or social media sites, we may collect and process personal information about you, this may include:

  • name and title
  • contact information including email address
  • your nearest Otter Garden Centre branch
  • IP address
  • demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests
  • other information relevant to customer surveys and/or offers

We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:

  • Internal record keeping.
  • We may use the information to improve our products and services.
  • From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for market research purposes. We may contact you by email, phone or mail. We may use the information to customise the website according to your interests.

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. 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 statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Website Cookies

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

You can change your cookie preferences any time by clicking the below button. This will let you revisit the cookie consent banner and change your preferences or withdraw your consent right away. This should also provide a full updated list of cookies used on the site. We have tried to ensure this is complete and up to date, but if you think that we have missed a cookie or there is any discrepancy, please let us know.

Cookie Settings

Types of Cookies we use

Strictly necessary cookies

These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services.

Analytical/performance cookies

They allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

Functionality cookies

These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).

E-newsletters

When you sign up for any of our e-newsletters through our website, you are providing consent to receive e-newsletters, marketing emails and market research by email.  You can stop receiving marketing email communication from us in a number of ways;

  • Click the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any marketing email you receive
  • By emailing: otter@ottergardencentres.com quoting “Marketing Unsubscribe” in the subject
  • By post to: Marketing Department, Otter Garden Centres, Gosford Road, Ottery St Mary, EX11 1LZ.

The unsubscribing of your information may take up to 14 days to be actioned.

Otter Garden Centres e-newsletter is processed by dotmailer, their privacy notice can be accessed via this link  https://www.dotmailer.com/about-us/trust/gdpr-resources/

Competition & give-aways

When you enter a competition or give-away on our website or social media sites, we may collect personal data including your name, social media handle, email address, and name of the nearest Otter Garden Centre to you.  We will use this personal data to contact you, should you win a prize.

On-line purchases 

When you process an online order for an Otter Garden Centres Gift Card or other products, we will ask for personal data required to process the order, including name, contact details, delivery address, payment details, payment card holder address. Data is only collected for the purpose of the unique transaction.  Payments are taken via secure payment providers, and records of payment transactions are held for seven years following the end of our financial year in which you place your order, in accordance with HMRC obligations.

Ottery St Mary Christmas Grotto

When you process an online order for Otter Garden Centre grotto tickets personal data is requested to process the order, payments are processed by Digitickets,

Additional personal data may also be provided for the purpose of visiting the Otter Garden Centre grotto including child/children names, age and messages for santa.  This information is only used to deliver the Otter Garden Centre grotto experience.

Ordering Products

If you order products, for collection in store or arrange a home delivery, we may ask for personal information necessary to process your order or delivery. Payments are taken via secure payment providers, and records of payment transactions are held for seven years following the end of our financial year in which you place your order, in accordance with HMRC obligations.

Enquiries

When you contact us with an enquiry or complaint, whether this is by email, post, in one of our stores, through our website, or social media; we will hold the details provided in order to respond to or manage your enquiry.

Job Applications

Personal data supplied for recruitment purposes will only be used to process your application. Unsuccessful applicants’ information will be retained for up to 1 year, in case we decide to contact you at a later date.

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we hold.

Occasionally it may be necessary to share your personal information with third party suppliers to store and process your information, for example; for processing online payments, for processing orders with suppliers to enable the provision of orders or services related to product orders, or for processing e-newsletters.  We take every effort to ensure all third-party suppliers comply with current data protection laws.

Controlling your personal information

We do not sell or rent your personal information to any third parties.

You may choose to restrict the collection or use of your personal information.

If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, or for any other information on this policy please contact us by email or post as below.

If you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for Marketing e-newsletters, you may change your mind at any time by

  • Clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any marketing email you receive
  • By email otter@ottergardencentres.com
  • By post: Marketing Department, Otter Garden Centres, Gosford Road, Ottery St Mary, EX11 1LZ.

You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the General Data Protection Regulation 2018. We reserve the right to charge for the provision of this information to cover reasonable administration costs.

For further information and full details of your rights under GDPR please see https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/