Privacy Policy

Last Updated: January 18, 2024
This Privacy Policy outlines how Birchs, Inc., and our subsidiaries (collectively, "Birchs," "we," or "us") collect, use, and share your personal information. It also details the choices available to you regarding our handling of your information. This Privacy Policy applies to personal information collected when you interact with us online (e.g., through our website or other online services) or offline (e.g., when you shop in our stores or contact customer support), or in other interactions as described below. Together, these interactions are referred to as "Services" in this Privacy Policy.

COLLECTION OF INFORMATION

PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT FROM YOU

We collect the following categories of personal information:

  • Contact Information: Your first and last name, shipping address, email address, and phone number.
  • Other Identifying Information: Social media usernames, IP address, commerce ID, order ID, passwords, and other security information for authentication and access.
  • Payment Information: Name, card issuer and card type, credit or debit card number, expiration date, CVV code, and billing address.
  • Information About Third Parties: Name, surname, address, and contact details of recipients for delivery of goods or services (such as gifts or virtual gift cards), if different from yours.
  • Employment Information: Employment status or history, or professional information.
  • Demographic Information: Age, gender, and date of birth.
  • Location Data: Geographic location via technologies like IP address or device information, depending on your device's settings for location services.
  • Internet or Other Electronic Activity: Browsing history, including information on navigation within our services and usage patterns.
  • Audio and Visual Information: Videos and photos you choose to upload to our websites or share with us.
  • Commercial Information: Products purchased or viewed on our websites, and records of communications with us, such as customer service interactions or website chat features.
  • Preference Information: Preferences related to events and products, and physical characteristics such as size, height, weight, or other apparel-related information you voluntarily provide.
  • Sensitive Personal Information: In certain circumstances, we collect sensitive information, including precise geolocation data from your mobile device or computer.
  • Inferences: Inferences drawn from the above categories to create a profile reflecting your preferences, characteristics, behavior, and attitudes.
  • Video Data: Video data collected via security cameras in some of our retail stores.
    • SOURCES OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

    Directly From You

    We collect contact, demographic, personal preference, and payment information directly from you. You may provide this information through our websites, in our stores, via customer service representatives, at events, through mobile applications, during marketing activities (including contests, sweepstakes, and events), through third parties, or any other way you interact with us.

    From Third Parties

    We also obtain your personal information from third parties, such as social media sites, data co-ops, and other third-party data sources. For example, we may collect identifying information from platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter, including your name, email address, age, gender, and location, in accordance with their terms of use and privacy policies. Additionally, we may receive demographic information about you from third-party data sources to enhance our services and tailor our marketing efforts to your preferences. We may also receive legal information from third parties, such as fraud checks, payment card refusals, and information about suspected crimes, complaints, or claims.

    From Cookies and Similar Tracking Technologies

    We, along with our service providers, use cookies, web beacons (also known as "tracking pixels"), and similar tracking technologies to automatically gather information about you when you interact with our online Services or emails. This includes data about your browsing and purchasing behaviours. For instance, we may collect details such as your browser type, operating system, mobile device model, viewed web pages, clicked links, IP address, mobile device identifier, or other unique identifiers, websites visited prior to ours, time spent on our website, the number of visits, click-stream data, and interactions with our emails, such as opens, forwards, or clicks. We also capture your journey through our website, including pages visited, mouse movements, and keystrokes, creating a "session replay" of your visit. We may combine this information with other data we collect about you and use it for various purposes, such as enhancing our websites and your online experience, identifying popular areas and features of our sites, tracking visit counts, assessing campaign effectiveness, tailoring our communications, and determining email engagement (e.g., whether an email has been opened and links clicked).
    Personal Information We Derive

    We may derive personal information or make inferences about you based on other types of personal information we collect. For instance, we might infer your location from your IP address or determine that you are interested in purchasing a particular type of clothing based on your browsing behavior on our Services.
    USE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

    We may use your personal information for various purposes, including to:

    • Enhance Our Services: Provide, maintain, and improve our Services, enhancing your in-store and online shopping experiences.
    • Deliver Products and Services: Fulfill product and service requests, complete transactions, perform contractual obligations, and send related information such as confirmations and receipts.
    • Order and Payment Processing: Process orders, payments, and account adjustments, and manage billing and collections for our products and Services.
    • Research and Development: Conduct internal research and make business decisions regarding current and future product and service offerings.
    • Customer Support: Respond to comments, questions, and requests, providing customer service.
    • Communications: Inform you about products, services, offers, promotions, rewards, and events, and share news and information of potential interest (see "Your Choices" below for managing these communications).
    • Account Management: Manage your online accounts and send technical notices, updates, security alerts, and support and administrative messages.
    • Personalization: Personalize your online experience with advertisements, content, or features that match your profile and interests.
    • Trend Analysis: Monitor and analyze trends, usage, and activities.
    • Contests and Promotions: Process and deliver entries and rewards for contests, promotions, and sweepstakes.
    • Security: Detect, protect against, and prevent security incidents and unauthorized activities, investigate complaints and claims, and provide other security measures such as identity verification.
    • Fraud Protection: Protect users from fraudulent, malicious, deceptive, abusive, or unlawful activities.
    • Maintenance: Debug and repair errors in our products and Services, maintaining and improving their quality and safety.
    • Legal Compliance: Cooperate with law enforcement, protect the rights, interests, safety, or property of Birchs, our customers, service providers, and other third parties, and comply with legal and regulatory obligations.
    • Policy Enforcement: Enforce our policies, terms, conditions, or other agreements.
    • Claims and Disputes: Defend against or pursue claims, disputes, or litigation, whether in court or elsewhere.
    • Other Purposes: Carry out any other purpose directly related to the reason your personal information was originally collected or described to you at the time of collection.
    Sharing of Personal Information

    When disclosing personal information is necessary to fulfill the purpose for which it was collected, or for a directly related purpose, we may share your personal information as follows:

    • With Service Providers: We share information with vendors, consultants, contractors, and other service providers who access personal information to perform work on our behalf and enhance the products and services they provide (e.g., companies that assist with web hosting, shipping, delivery, payment processing, fraud prevention, customer service, analytics, marketing, and advertising).
    • For Legal Compliance: We may disclose personal information in response to a request if we believe it is in accordance with applicable law, regulation, legal process, or as otherwise required by any applicable law, rule, or regulation.
    • To Protect Rights and Safety: If we believe your actions are inconsistent with our user agreements or policies, or to protect the rights, property, and safety of Birchs or any third party, we may disclose your personal information.
    • During Business Transactions: In connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or transfer of all or a portion of our business to another company, provided that the recipient has a legitimate right to such information, is under a duty of confidentiality to us, and has undertaken to keep such information confidential.
    • Within Our Corporate Family: We may share information with our current and future parents, affiliates, subsidiaries, and other companies under common control and ownership.
    • With Professional Advisors: We may share information with our lawyers and other professional advisors when necessary to obtain advice or otherwise protect and manage our business interests.
    • Public Posting: At our discretion, we may publicly post your product review or other user content if you provide one.
    • With Your Consent: We may share your information with your consent or at your direction.
    • For Advertising and Analytics: We may share information with third parties to serve advertisements on our behalf across the Internet and to provide analytics services. For more information on this type of sharing, see the “Advertising and Analytics” section below.

    We allow our e-commerce partner, Global-E US, Inc. (based in New York, U.S.), to directly collect personal information from you for the purposes of facilitating international ordering and shipping. The information collected by this e-commerce partner will be treated in accordance with their privacy policy. For more information about Global-E’s privacy practices, see the Global-E Privacy Policy.

    We may also share aggregated or de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you.

    ADVERTISING AND ANALYTICS

    We work with third parties to serve advertisements on our behalf across the Internet and to provide analytics services. These entities may use cookies, web beacons, and other technologies to collect personal information about your use of our websites, such as your IP address, web browser, pages viewed, time spent on pages, links clicked, and conversion information. This information may be used by us and others to analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content, deliver advertising and content targeted to your interests on our websites and other websites, and better understand your online activity.

    To learn more about these advertising practices or to opt out of this type of advertising, you can visit www.networkadvertising.org or www.aboutads.info/choices/. You may also opt out of receiving targeted advertising by visiting Your Choices. Please note that you need to renew this choice on each device and browser you use to access our Services.

    We may also collaborate with third parties (such as Facebook and Instagram) to serve ads to you as part of a customized campaign on their platforms. If you prefer not to see customized ads from us, you can usually opt out by changing your account settings or preferences on such platforms.

    DATA RETENTION

    Our data retention policies are based on business needs and legal requirements. We retain personal information for the duration necessary for the purpose(s) it was collected for, along with any related permissible purposes, and as required or allowed by applicable laws. For instance, we may retain specific transaction details and correspondence until the expiration of the claim period associated with the transaction.

    CHILDREN

    We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16 years old without prior consent from a parent or guardian while providing our Services. We do not possess actual knowledge of selling or sharing personal information of individuals under 16 years old. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us. We will make efforts to delete this information from our databases unless consent from the parent or guardian has been obtained.

    YOUR CHOICES

    YOUR ONLINE BIRCHS ACCOUNT:

    You can update, correct, or delete certain information stored in your online BirchClothing account at any time by logging in and visiting the "My Account" page. To delete your online account, please email us at support@birchs.store. Note that upon account deletion, we may retain specific personal information (such as transaction details) for purposes necessary for its original collection or use, including legal or legitimate business purposes. This retention may include your account, order history, personalized web experiences, loyalty points, certificates, recently obtained coupons, and promotional emails.

    OPTING OUT OF PROMOTIONAL COMMUNICATIONS:

    We aim to send communications you wish to receive. By opting in or not opting out of promotional materials during personal information collection, we regularly contact you via post and/or email. We may use your name, contact details, demographic, and marketing information for events offered by us or third parties only with your consent. You can opt out of receiving promotional communications at any time:

    • To opt out of direct mail (e.g., catalogs, postcards): Contact us at support@birchs.store.
    • To opt out of promotional emails and text messages: Follow the instructions in those communications or contact us at support@birchs.store.

    Please note that opting out of promotional emails won't stop marketing or advertising content generated or queued for transmission before processing your request. Non-promotional emails related to your account or ongoing business relations may still be sent.

    COOKIES:

    Most web browsers accept cookies by default, but you can usually adjust settings to remove or reject them. Note that removing or rejecting cookies may affect website availability and functionality. By continuing to browse our websites, you consent to our use of cookies and agree to store and access cookies, IP addresses, and other methods for website usage data collection and improvement. For more details, see our Cookies Policy.

    U.S. PRIVACY

    Depending on your location and applicable law, you may have additional rights regarding personal information collected about you. If you're a resident of a state offering these rights, you may exercise them as outlined here. This section covers:

    • Accessing, obtaining, and deleting your personal information.
    • Correcting inaccuracies.
    • Opting out of profiling or targeted advertising.
    • Opting out of personal information sale or sharing.
    • Non-discriminatory treatment for exercising privacy rights.
    • Appealing decisions on rights requests.
    • Submitting requests and verification procedures.

    CATEGORIES OF PERSONAL DATA DISCLOSED FOR A BUSINESS PURPOSE

    We disclose personal information to service providers and third parties for operational and service-related purposes. Refer to "Use of Personal Information" and "Collection of Information" for details on shared information types.

    CATEGORIES OF PERSONAL DATA SOLD OR SHARED

    We do not sell personal information for monetary exchange. However, we may share personal information for personalized services or offers to enhance your shopping experiences. For more information, see "Use of Personal Information" and refer to applicable laws for your rights to request sharing cessation.

    NOTICE OF FINANCIAL INCENTIVE

    We may offer price discounts, rewards, or services for participating in loyalty and rewards programs or promotions. Participation may be considered a financial incentive under privacy law, and consumers may opt out. Each program's terms apply.

    DATA TRANSFERS

    We process and store collected information in the U.S. regardless of your location. By using our services, you consent to this transfer. Information may also be transferred to third-party locations. Such transfers are necessary for service provision.

    DATA SECURITY MEASURES

    We prioritize protecting personal information and regularly review security arrangements. Access is restricted to staff involved in service provision, and measures are in place to prevent unauthorized access, use, disclosure, modification, or erasure.

    THIRD PARTY WEBSITES

    We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party websites linked on our site. Review their privacy policies to understand their use of personal information.

    YOUR CONSENT

    By using our internet service, you consent to the outlined use of personal information. You further consent to its use for stated and ancillary purposes. By submitting your email address, you agree to receive communications, allowing us to process your personal data for marketing purposes as per our Privacy Policy.