Privacy
What we process, why, and what we never do with your customers’ data.
Draft for legal review. The statements about how Vendue handles data match how the service works as of 4 October 2026. Items in [brackets] need details or decisions before this is published.
Last updated: [date of publication]
Who we are
Vendue is a Shopify app for running timed auctions on a merchant’s own store. It is provided by Liam Roche, trading as Orion Software, [business address], United Kingdom (“we”, “us”). [ICO data protection fee registration number: ____.] You can contact us at hello@vendueauctions.com.
The short version
- Your customers stay yours. We don’t build a bidder audience of our own, we don’t sell or share bidder data, and we never market to the people who bid on your lots.
- We keep as little as we can. We don’t store bidders’ names or email addresses. When one is needed (to send an email, or to show you who won), we look it up from your Shopify store at that moment and don’t keep it.
- Bidders are pseudonymous to us. Bids are recorded against a random bidder ID, linked to the customer’s Shopify ID only so the auction can work.
- Uninstalling removes your data. 48 hours after you uninstall, we delete your store’s auctions, bids, settings and access, keeping only billing records that contain no personal data.
Our two roles
For information about merchants using Vendue (your store and account), we are the controller.
For information about shoppers who bid on your store, you are the controller and we are your processor: we handle it only to run your auctions, on your instructions, under the data processing terms in our Terms.
What we process, and why
About merchants
- Store details: your store’s domain, name, currency and time zone, and an access token from Shopify so Vendue can run your auctions. Purpose: providing the service (contract).
- Plan and usage: your plan, trials, lot usage and any plan adjustments. Payments are taken by Shopify through your Shopify bill, and Shopify keeps the payment records; we never see card or bank details. Purpose: providing and charging for the service (contract).
- Settings and content: your auction settings, templates, email wording and branding, and your own sending domain if you set one up. Purpose: providing the service (contract).
- Emails we send you: which service emails we sent your store and whether they were delivered. We don’t store your name or email address: when we email you, we look up your store’s contact address from Shopify at that moment. The one exception is uninstalling: Shopify then sends us the store owner’s name and email, which we keep only until we’ve sent you the uninstall email, then delete. Purpose: service messages (contract; legitimate interests).
About shoppers who bid (on the merchant’s behalf)
- Bidding records: a pseudonymous bidder ID and the Shopify customer ID it stands for; each bid (the maximum amount and when it was placed); auction outcomes; “notify me” sign-ups and unsubscribes; and which notification emails were sent.
- Name and email, looked up only when needed: fetched from the merchant’s Shopify store to send a bidding email, or to show the merchant who won, and not stored by us.
- Purpose: running the auction fairly, telling bidders what happened (outbid, ending soon, won, and similar), and creating the winner’s invoice in the merchant’s Shopify store.
When you contact us for support
If you contact support (from Contact support in the Vendue admin, or by emailing hello@vendueauctions.com), we keep the conversation: your messages and our replies, any screenshots or files you send, and our own notes. If you’re a store owner, we don’t store your email address: we look it up from Shopify when we reply. If you aren’t a store owner (for example, you’re asking about Vendue before installing it), we keep your name and email address so we can reply. Please don’t send card details or passwords. Purpose: answering your request (contract; or legitimate interests if you’re not yet a customer).
If you ask for early access
If you ask to join early access on this website, we receive your email address, your store’s address, what you sell, how you run auctions today, roughly how many lots you list a month, and anything else you choose to tell us. We keep it as a support conversation, so we can reply and keep track of it, and we don’t add it to any mailing list. Purpose: choosing the first merchants and getting back to you about joining (legitimate interests, and steps you’ve asked us to take before signing up).
Technical logs
Service logs (for example store domains, auction IDs, pseudonymous bidder IDs and error details), kept for 30 days to keep the service secure and fix faults (legitimate interests).
Visitors to this website
This site uses no analytics or advertising cookies, and it loads nothing from other companies (even its fonts are served from our own site). It remembers your light or dark theme choice in your own browser.
Emails to bidders
Outbid, ending-soon, winning and similar emails are sent on the merchant’s behalf, in the merchant’s branding and, where set up, from the merchant’s own domain. They are transactional messages about an auction the person took part in, not marketing. Reminder emails can be unsubscribed from; essential emails about a sale (such as winning) are always sent.
Cookies and storage
Inside the Shopify admin, Vendue uses Shopify’s session tokens, not cookies. The auction blocks on a merchant’s storefront set no cookies and store nothing in the shopper’s browser.
Who we share it with
We use these service providers (sub-processors). We don’t sell personal data to anyone.
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft (Azure) | Hosting (the service and this website), database, file storage (files sent to support), stored secrets and service logs; a live standby copy of the database and backups in a second UK region | UK (London, UK South; Cardiff, UK West); this website is delivered from Microsoft’s worldwide network |
| Postmark (ActiveCampaign) | Sending emails to merchants and bidders, and receiving support emails | USA |
| Fastmail | Our support mailbox (hello@vendueauctions.com) | USA |
| Shopify | The platform Vendue runs on; billing; source of store and customer data | Canada and worldwide |
Where data goes outside the UK, we rely on the UK extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework and the standard contractual clauses in the provider’s data processing agreement to protect it. We’ll tell merchants before adding or changing a sub-processor that handles bidder data.
How we keep it safe
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest, including backups. Access keys are kept in a secure vault, not in code. Only the owner can access production systems, using multi-factor authentication, and that access is logged. Bidders are recorded under pseudonymous IDs. Files sent to support are checked, re-saved and stored privately, and emails are only ever shown to us as plain text. We check the service continuously and are alerted when something goes wrong.
How long we keep it
- Auction records (lots, bids, outcomes): while Vendue is installed, so you keep your history.
- After you uninstall: Shopify sends us an erasure request 48 hours later. We then delete your store’s auction records, bidder links, settings, access token, email records and support conversations. We keep a small record of your store’s plans, trials and usage dates, which contains no personal data, for up to two years after you uninstall, so plan and trial rules apply fairly if you reinstall. Payment records are kept by Shopify.
- When a shopper asks to be erased (through the merchant and Shopify): we delete the link between their bidder ID and their customer account, so their past bids become anonymous.
- Support conversations: 12 months after the conversation is closed (spam after 7 days), including the name and email address of anyone who isn’t a store owner. Copies of emails sent to hello@ are kept in our mailbox for up to 12 months.
- Early-access requests: like support conversations, 12 months after the conversation is closed, or sooner if you ask us to delete yours.
- Service logs: 30 days. Email delivery records at Postmark: 45 days. Database backups (encrypted, kept in the UK): 35 days, so anything deleted from Vendue is gone from the backups within 35 days. We also keep a live standby copy of the database in a second UK data centre, so a data centre failure doesn’t lose recent activity; it holds exactly the same data as the main database, and anything deleted there is deleted from the copy at the same moment.
Your rights
Under UK and EU data protection law you can ask for access to, correction of, or erasure of your personal data, ask us to restrict or stop using it, or ask for a copy to take elsewhere.
If you bid on a store that uses Vendue, please contact that store first: it controls your data. When a store receives your request through Shopify, we give the store owner everything we hold about you, or erase it.
If you’re a merchant, email hello@vendueauctions.com and we’ll respond within one month.
You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk), or to your local data protection authority.
Changes to this policy
If we make a significant change, we’ll tell merchants by email or in the app before it takes effect, and update the date at the top.
Contact
Questions about this policy: hello@vendueauctions.com.