NearSt Retailer Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

NearSt (“we”, “us”, “our”) is a retail technology company with a mission to get people back into local retailers (“you”, “your”, “your business”, “shops”). We understand how important it is for us to safeguard the data you give us. In addition to our Data Ethics policy that sets out the principles by which we protect your data (available at https://near.st/ethics), this Retailer Privacy Policy (the “privacy policy” or “policy”) sets out the specific details about how we use and handle your data.

The policy is written as far possible in plain English, and arranged into 7 sections:

Introduction
Who we are
What we collect
Where we store it
Who we may share it with
Disclosing it
Your rights

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for the policy you can get in touch with us on support@near.st or by writing to us at 51 Hoxton Square, London, N1 6PB.

2. Who we are

NearSt Ltd is a retail technology company registered in England & Wales under company number 09524010.
Our registered office is at 51 Hoxton Square, London N1 6PB.
We are registered with the Information Commissioners Office (the “ICO”) under registration number ZA148327. You can look up the latest details with ICO at https://ico.org.uk/ESDWebPages/Search
Our nominated data controller is Nick Brackenbury, an employee of NearSt Ltd.

3. What we collect

We collect two types of information in order to run our business. The first is “Personal Information” that we use to identify your business and contact you about our service. The second is “Stock Information” that we use to run the service we provide to you.
Personal Information
1. We collect basic information about your business and nominated points of contact within your business in order to communicate with you as well as provide the NearSt service to you.
2. We store the following Personal Information about you:
  1. The name of your business.
  2. The address of your business.
  3. Contact details for the business, such as email and telephone numbers.
  4. The names of nominated contacts provided by you for your business.
  5. Email and telephone numbers for your nominated contacts.
  6. Interactions you have with our customer support team via our email and website chat interface.
  7. Payment details in order to invoice you for use of the NearSt service.
    1. NearSt does not see or store any credit card information. This is handled by our payment provider, Stripe; an internationally recognised payment processing provider.
  8. Information about your usage of the website, for example how often you are logging into your MyShop account.
3. We may collect the information in forms you fill in on our site, information you send to us over email, via our website chat interface, or from publicly available information we can source about your business (for example, address details from your Google MyBusiness listing) to provide the NearSt service.
Stock Information
1. To provide the NearSt service to you we integrate with your Point of Sale (“POS”) system to understand what products you stock, in order to list them on other websites that will drive traffic to your store, as well as show you information about how your customers are searching for these products.
2. We store the following Stock Information about your business to deliver this service:
  1. Barcodes, stock levels, and prices provided by your POS
  2. Product information about those products, such as titles, descriptions, images, and categorisation
  3. Search information provided by our Partners, showing how customers are searching for your products
  4. Search information provided by our Partners, showing which products customers are viewing and clicking on
3. We take the commercial sensitivity of this information very seriously, and will never share it with our Partners without your knowledge. Who we share your information with and under what conditions is described in more detail in Section 6.

4. Where we store it

The information that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored, outside of the European Economic Area (“EEA”). It may also be processed by providers and staff operating outside of the EEA. We will only transfer information outside of the EEA were allowed to do so by law.
We take robust security measures to keep your data secure, and require the same of all Partners and suppliers we work with.
Where you login to the NearSt service with a password, it is your responsibility to keep it confidential and secure.

5. Who we may share it with

To run our business we outsource the processing of your information to carefully selected third party providers, as well as Partners that are needed to deliver the NearSt service and drive footfall to your store. We vet these third party providers and Partners to ensure they have suitable security and data protection practices in place in order to protect your data. We only share data necessary for the provider or Partner to deliver their service to us, in order for NearSt to deliver our service to you.
1. We do not share commercially sensitive information about your business with any provider.
2. We do not share information about your business so that others may advertise to you.
3. We do not share information with Partners without your express consent.
We share your data with third parties for the following reasons:
Communicating with you:
1. We work with third party software providers to make it simpler for us to communicate with you. These businesses include:
  1. Email service providers.
  2. Customer support service and web chat providers.
  3. Customer relationship management software providers.
  4. VOIP telephone service providers.
Running our business:
1. We work with operational third party providers who provide software to support the daily running of our business. These include:
  1. Accounting software providers.
  2. Payment processing providers.
  3. Code management software providers.
Providing our services:
1. To deliver the NearSt service and the technology it runs on we work with a range of technology and cloud computing companies. These include:
  1. Cloud computing providers to process your Stock Information.
  2. Error logging and management providers.
  3. Project management software providers.
  4. Shipping and postage providers.
  5. Document printing providers.
  6. Analytics providers.
Working with our Partners:
1. To provide the NearSt service we work with different Partners. Each Partner only receives the minimum information required in order to provide their part of the service, in line with our Data Ethics policy and as described in your Shopkeeper Agreement with NearSt.
2. Where a Partner is an optional part of the NearS service, you will always be clearly notified before your data is shared with them and will have the ability to opt-out of sharing your data with that Partner. For example, you may like your Stock Information to appear in one search engine but not want it to appear in another search engine.
3. The types of Partners we share your data with include:
4. Your POS provider:
  1. We only share information about your shop, so that your POS provider can correctly send your Stock Information to us.
  2. Your POS does not have access to sensitive commercial information about your business, such as the performance of your products or your spend with NearSt.
  3. We may share aggregated and anonymised information about all the shops connected through a POS to help them and us improve our service, for example the total number of clicks across all the shops using their POS that are connected to NearSt.
    1. This does not include any information that could individually identify your business.
    2. This does not include any commercially sensitive information.
5. Search, advertising and service Partners:
  1. Our search and advertising Partners list your stock information so that shoppers can find it, and help to drive additional footfall to your store. For example, Google will show your products on your Google My Business page, and in Local Inventory Ads if you have NearSt PLUS active.
  2. Our service Partners allow you to offer additional services from your shop, for example providing local delivery with a local courier service.
  3. These Partners receive basic business information in order to match your shop to one already held in their database (for example, business name and address details), and basic stock information, such as barcodes, product information, stock levels, and prices. Wherever possible we obfuscate exact stock levels by showing, for example “In stock”, “low stock” and “out of stock” instead of exact stock positions.
  4. You can opt in and out of these Partners through your MyShop dashboard at https://myshop.near.st or by emailing support@near.st .
6. Analytics Partners:
  1. Our analytics Partners see insights at an aggregated, anonymised level about groups of stores. For example, how many clicks bookshops as an industry is getting, or how many clicks all shops in London are receiving.
  2. We do not share any individual performance or commercial information about your shop.
  3. We do not share any contact or business information about your shop.

6. Disclosing it

In a very limited set of circumstances we may be required to disclose your data to the following third parties:
Where legally required to do so:
1. Sometimes we may be legally required to disclose your details, for example to law enforcement or when required to do so by a court. Where legally allowed to, we will always inform you if we have been asked to provide this information.
If we are selling our business:
1. If NearSt is acquired by another company, we may be required to disclose details of the businesses we work with to them.
2. If NearSt is acquired by another company, you will be notified and have the opportunity to delete your data.
To other businesses owned by NearSt or within our group:
1. We may choose to split NearSt into multiple individual companies as part of a group to make it more effective to deliver our service. If we do this, we will share your information within the group to continue delivering the service.
To protect against fraud:
1. We may share your information with fraud prevention agencies to protect against financial crime and other credit risks.

7. Your rights

You can ask at any time to see the data we hold about you. To do so, simply email support@near.st and after verifying the authenticity of the request we will provide you with any information we hold about your business.
We will keep this policy up to date on this page, and notify you of any substantial changes to the policy via the email contact details we hold for you.
If you have any questions, comments, or recommendations about this policy you can contact us by email on support@near.st or in writing at 51 Hoxton Square, London, N1 6PB.

8. Definitions

This policy references a number of terms, which are defined below:
“Nominated contact(s)” means additional people within your business that you have let us know we can communicate with about your shop.
“The NearSt website”, “our site”, “the site”, and “MyShop” means the NearSt website at https://near.st, including subdomains including your MyShop management dashboard at https://myshop.near.st.
“NearSt service” means displaying your Stock Information online on third party Partner websites and services with the intention of driving more footfall to your shop.
“Partners” means third party companies who NearSt works with to list your Stock Information online in order to drive more footfall into your shop.

Last updated: March 26, 2020