Privacy Policy

Last updated: 22/09/2025

This Privacy Policy describes how Louw Wines ("we", "us", or "our") collects, uses, and shares your personal information when you visit or make a purchase from our website www.louwwines.com (the "Site").

Information We Collect

When you visit our Site, we collect certain information about your device, your interaction with the Site, and information necessary to process your purchases. We may also collect additional information if you contact us for customer support. We refer to any information that can uniquely identify an individual as "Personal Information".

Order Information

When you make a purchase, we collect:

• Personal details: Name, email address, and phone number
• Billing and shipping addresses: Address lines, city, postal code, country, and state/province
• Payment information: Processed securely through Stripe (we do not store your payment details)
• Order details: Items purchased, quantities, pricing, and order history

Purpose and Legal Basis: We process this information to fulfil your order, process payments, arrange shipping, provide invoices and order confirmations, communicate with you about your order, and maintain records for customer service purposes. Our legal basis for this processing is performance of contract - this processing is necessary to fulfil our contractual obligations to you when you place an order.

Contact Information

When you contact us through our contact form, we collect:

• Contact details: Name, email address, and optionally your phone number
• Communication content: Subject line and message content
• Submission details: Timestamp and status of your inquiry

Purpose and Legal Basis: We process this information to respond to your inquiry, provide customer support, and improve our services. Our legal basis for this processing is legitimate interests - we have a legitimate business interest in providing customer support and responding to inquiries about our products and services.

Device and Usage Information

We automatically collect:

• Technical information: IP address, browser type and version, time zone, device information
• Usage data: Pages visited, products viewed, search terms, and how you interact with our Site
• Analytics data: Through Google Analytics to understand Site usage patterns and improve our services

Purpose and Legal Basis: We process this information to ensure our Site loads correctly for you, analyse Site performance, understand customer behaviour, and optimise our website experience. Our legal basis for this processing is legitimate interests - we have a legitimate business interest in operating and improving our website and understanding how customers use our services.

Age Verification

We use a cookie to verify that visitors are of legal drinking age:

• Age verification cookie: Stores your age verification status for 1 day

Purpose and Legal Basis: We use this cookie to verify that visitors are of legal drinking age before allowing access to our wine products. Our legal basis for this processing is legal obligation - we are legally required to verify age before selling alcoholic beverages.

How We Use Your Information

We use your Personal Information for the following purposes, based on the legal grounds detailed in each section above:

• Process and fulfil your orders (performance of contract)
• Communicate with you about your orders and account (performance of contract)
• Provide customer support and respond to your inquiries (legitimate interests)
• Send order confirmations and shipping notifications via email (performance of contract)
• Analyse Site usage and improve our services (legitimate interests)
• Comply with legal obligations (legal obligation)
• Prevent fraud and ensure Site security (legitimate interests)

Information Sharing

We share your Personal Information with trusted service providers who assist us in operating our business:

Payment Processing

• Stripe: Processes all payment transactions securely. Stripe's privacy policy is available at https://stripe.com/gb/privacy
• We do not store your payment card details - these are handled entirely by Stripe

Email Communications

• Amazon SES (Simple Email Service): Sends order confirmations, shipping notifications, and responses to inquiries
• Your email address is shared with AWS SES solely for the purpose of delivering emails you've requested or that are necessary for order fulfilment

Website Analytics

• Google Analytics: Helps us understand how visitors use our Site to improve user experience
• You can opt-out of Google Analytics tracking at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
• Google's privacy policy is available at https://policies.google.com/privacy

Data Storage

• Amazon Web Services (AWS): Stores customer and order data securely in the UK (eu-west-2 region)

Legal Compliance

We may share your Personal Information to:

• Comply with applicable laws and regulations
• Respond to legal requests or court orders
• Protect our rights and prevent fraud

Data Retention

We retain your Personal Information for as long as necessary to:

• Fulfil the purposes outlined in this policy
• Comply with legal obligations (including tax and accounting records)
• Resolve disputes and enforce our agreements

• Order data: Retained for 7 years for accounting and legal compliance purposes
• Contact inquiries: Retained for 3 years for customer service purposes
• Analytics data: Processed according to Google Analytics retention settings

Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have certain rights regarding your Personal Information:

• Access: Request a copy of the Personal Information we hold about you
• Correction: Request correction of inaccurate or incomplete information
• Deletion: Request deletion of your Personal Information (subject to legal retention requirements)
• Portability: Request a copy of your data in a portable format
• Object: Object to certain processing activities
• Restrict: Request restriction of processing in certain circumstances

To exercise these rights, please contact us using the details below.

Cookies

Our Site uses cookies to provide functionality and improve your experience:

Essential Cookies

• Age verification: Required to comply with legal requirements for alcohol sales (expires after 1 day)

Analytics Cookies

• Google Analytics: Tracks Site usage to help us improve your experience
• These cookies are only active when Google Analytics is enabled
• You can disable these cookies through your browser settings or by opting out at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Most browsers allow you to control cookies through their settings. However, disabling essential cookies may affect Site functionality.

Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your Personal Information:

• All data is transmitted using SSL/TLS encryption
• Payment processing is handled by PCI DSS compliant service providers
• Data is stored in secure, access-controlled systems
• Regular security monitoring and updates

However, no method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

International Transfers

Your Personal Information is primarily processed and stored in the United Kingdom. Some of our service providers may process data outside the UK:

• Stripe: May process payment data in various countries - see their privacy policy for details
• Google Analytics: May process analytics data internationally - see Google's privacy policy for details

All transfers are conducted with appropriate safeguards in place to protect your data.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. We will notify you of any material changes by posting the new policy on our Site with an updated "Last updated" date.

Minors

Our Site and services are not intended for individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect Personal Information from minors. If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with Personal Information, please contact us so we can delete it.

Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy, wish to exercise your rights, or need to contact us for any other reason, please reach out:

This policy is designed to be transparent about our data practices. If you have any questions about how we handle your personal information, please don't hesitate to contact us.