Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

PRIVACY STATEMENT

Updated 3/28/23

SECTION 1 - WHAT WE DO WITH YOUR INFORMATION
When you purchase something from our store, as part of the buying and selling process, we collect the personal information you give us such as your name, address, and contact information. Abandoned shopping carts may be followed-up with a one-time return email, offering 1-on-1 support in the event you have questions. We don't send marketing emails or add emails to any type of newsletter/marketing list unless you specifically sign up as a NEHERP Insider. Your order history may be accessed by members of our customer service team, in order to better assist you.

SECTION 2A - CONSENT
By using our website, you consent to the use of the cookies & third party services listed below. If you provide us with personal information to complete a transaction, verify your credit card, arrange for a delivery, or return a purchase, we imply that you consent to our collecting your data and using it for that specific reason only. Users who voluntarily opt-in to our Insider Program & Email Newsletter consent to our company sending the occasional email, and may unsubscribe at any time. (Note: We do not automatically enroll anyone in our newsletter / email marketing list for any reason!)

SECTION 3 - DISCLOSURE
Our company does not voluntarily disclose personal information and/or order history to any third party for any reason unless we are required by law to do so, or if a user violates our Terms of Service.

SECTION 4 - EXTERNAL LINKS
Certain links on our website may may direct you away from our site. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites and encourage you to read their privacy statements. Once you leave our store’s website or are redirected to a third-party website or application, you are no longer governed by this Privacy Policy or our website's Terms of Service. We try to mark external links with "^{ext. link}" notifications whenever possible.

SECTION 5 - COOKIES & THIRD-PARTY SERVICES
Our company does not serve our own "neherp-coded" cookies, but we work with companies which do serve cookies to ensure their product(s) function correctly. We are very careful when it comes to selecting these services, and we've listed each below with their purpose explained for your reference. With the exception of Google and Amazon, our website only serves basic cookies which our user interface depends on.

Checkout-Related Services:

• PayPal: View Terms / Explain Cookie

PayPal processes some of our secure payment transactions. By checking out on our website, you may be subject to the terms linked to above.

• Stripe: View Terms / Explain Cookie

Stripe processes some of our secure payment transactions. By checking out on our website, you may be subject to the terms linked to above.

• Snipcart: View Terms / Explain Cookie

Our shopping cart software is provided by Snipcart. By using our shopping cart, you may be subject to the terms linked to above.

• TaxCloud: View Terms / Explain Cookie

TaxCloud is a service which calculates and remits sales taxes for transactions completed on our website. By using our shopping cart, you may be subject to the terms linked to above.

Website Services:

• EmailMeForm: View Terms / Explain Cookie

EmailMeForm is a company which helps us create & receive basic forms. If you use a form on our website (Insider Sign-Up, Manual Order, or similar), you may be subject to the terms linked to above.

• AddSearch: View Terms / Explain Cookie

AddSearch is the tool we use to power our search page(s). If you use our search function(s), you'll be subject to AddSearch's terms. We can also see non-personally-identifiable data regarding which terms are trending, which is used to help us better serve you.

Marketing-Related Services:

• Google Analytics: View Terms / Explain Cookie

Google Analytics helps us monitor our website's performance. When you browse our website, we use Google's Analytics to collect some non-identifiable information that is used to help us improve our website. Out of respect for your privacy, Google's "Demographics & Interest Reports" and "Remarketing / Retargeting" programs are disabled on our end. We do not voluntarily/knowingly take part in services which track age, gender, personal interests, political affiliations, or social media habits.

• Amazon: View Terms / Explain Cookie

For a few products we don't sell in-house, we'll link to Amazon's website using an Affiliate Link. When that type of link is clicked, our small business has the opportunity to earn from qualifying purchases. This was introduced during the Covid-19 Pandemic, as a stop-gap solution for when items were unavailable to us. These days we've continued the affiliate program to help us reference products which would be unprofitable for us to carry in-house.

• Moosend: View Terms / Explain Cookie

Our NEHERP Insider Newsletter is written in-house, and Moosend is the company that helps us send our emails to thousands of happy subscribers. If you subscribe to our NEHERP Insider Program, you'll be subject to Moosend's terms linked to above. We know email marketing can be a sore subject, so before we decided on a partner to help us send emails, we explicitly asked multiple companies about their privacy policies. The Chief Commercial Officer of Moosend Daniel Meck responded to us directly by stating, "I can proudly say that we share in your customer-centric, never share-data with any 3rd party policy.". With that answer in mind, Moosend was chosen to run our email marketing specifically because their privacy-minded policies match our own.

SECTION 6 - DO NOT TRACK
Our website does not respond to DNT requests at this time because the third party companies we work with do not (yet) offer that feature. New England Herpetoculture does not serve our own "neherp-coded" tracking cookies, and we cannot control how our independent partners handle cookies & DNT requests. See Section 5's info for complete details.

SECTION 7 - SECURITY: GENERAL
To protect your personal information, we take reasonable precautions and follow industry standard practices to make sure it is not inappropriately lost, misused, accessed, disclosed, altered or destroyed.

SECTION 7.1 - SECURITY: WEBSITE ORDERS
Our website's front-end is hand-coded in-house, and is hosted on a secure (https) server. We subscribe to a service which scans our server automatically to help ensure it's "clean" and safe for our clients. Our checkout system is provided by Snipcart, and all payments are securely handled by either PayPal or Stripe on their respective servers. No sensitive payment data is ever shared with our small business. We leave all payment handling to the professionals.

SECTION 7.2 - SECURITY: PHONE/CUSTOM ORDERS
If an order is placed over the phone, we destroy the sensitive info once the order has been processed. Phone orders are most often processed via the website on our end. No payment information is ever stored unless you set up a recurring payment plan or are one of our wholesale/commercial customers on a billing plan. If you request to be billed via email, section 7.1 (above) may apply since we'd be using either PayPal or Stripe's secure invoicing service.

SECTION 8 - AGE OF CONSENT
By using this site, you represent that you are at least the age of majority in your state or province of residence, and/or you have given us your consent to allow any of your minor dependents to use this site.

SECTION 9 - WHOLESALE APPLICANTS
Users who have filled out our Wholesale Application Form may have their basic contact info shared with company(s) which may be selected as wholesale distributor(s) or partners of quality vivarium related products. This process will not involve the exchange of funds (we won't sell data on principal), and will only be done with the intention of completing our obligation to inform the applicant of wholesale product availability.

SECTION 10 - CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY
We reserve the right to modify this privacy policy at any time, so please review it frequently. Changes and clarifications will take effect immediately upon their posting on the website. If our store is acquired or merged with another company, your information may be transferred to the new owners so that we may continue to sell & market products to you.