Cookies
Use of cookies
New technologies are emerging on the internet that help us to deliver customised user experiences. In particular, there is a technology called "cookies" which may be used by us to provide you with, for example, customised information from our Website. In most cases we will need your consent in order to use cookies on the Website. The exception is where the cookie is essential in order for us to provide you with Products you have requested.
A cookie is an element of data that a website can send to your computer (or other electronic device), which may then store it on your system. Cookies allow us to understand who has seen which pages and advertisements on our Website, to determine how frequently particular pages are visited and to determine the most popular areas of our Website. Non-personal information such as browser type, operating system and domain names, may be collected during visitors' use of the Website and this information may be used by us to measure the number of visitors to the Website. Unless you have indicated your objection when disclosing your details to us, our system will issue cookies to your computer when you log on to the Website.
Consent to cookies
There is a notice on our Website home page which describes how we use cookies. If you use this Website after this notification has been displayed to you, we will assume that you consent to our use of cookies for the purposes described in this Policy.
What types of cookies do we use?
We may use cookies and similar tools across our Website to improve its performance and enhance your user experience.
First party cookies: We set these cookies and they can only be read by us.
Persistent cookies: We may use persistent cookies which will be saved on your computer for a fixed period (usually 1 year or longer). They won’t be deleted when the browser is closed. We may use persistent cookies to recognise your device for more than one browsing session.
Session cookies: We may use session cookies which are only stored temporarily during a browsing session and will be deleted from your device when the browser is closed.
Third party cookies: We may use a number of third party suppliers who also set cookies on our Website in order to deliver the services that they are providing. These cookies are known as third party cookies.
Depending on the type of cookies we use, cookies also allow us to make our Website more user-friendly. For example, persistent cookies allow us to save your password so that you do not have to re-enter it every time you visit our Website. Our Website may also use cookies to monitor website traffic and/or to make sure you don't see the same content repeatedly and/or to deliver content specific to your interests.
The cookies that we use can be roughly divided into four categories based on the function that they carry out on the Website.
Essential Cookies:Essential cookies enable a website to function at its best. For our Website this means making your shopping experience as straightforward as possible. The Website requires essential cookies to be present to:
- remember what is in a shopper's basket;
- allow the contents of a shopper's basket to be transferred to the checkout and purchased; and
- determine whether a customer is signed into a secure area of the Website such as the checkout area.
Essential cookies are not harmful to your computer and they do not store personal data such as your credit card details.
Functionality Cookies:
Functionality cookies are designed to save personal data, such as names and addresses, which on return to the Website will not need to be filled out again. Functionality cookies also remember important information such as your response if asked to fill out a survey which will be remembered to prevent unnecessary repetition. To summarise, functionality cookies do the following:
- tell us if you have already logged in to your account;
- tell us if this is your first visit to the Website; and
- enable live chat services to function correctly.
Third Party Cookies:
Third party cookies determine which adverts are most likely to be preferable to a customer based on their interest. These cookies will also assess how effective an advertising campaign is towards customers and limit how often adverts are shown accordingly. The bulk of third party cookies are placed onto a shopper's computer by the selected advertising organisations that we have granted permission to do so. These cookies work to remember when customers visit our Website and will then inform our advertising organisations so that they can provide adverts of probable interest. To summarise, third party cookies do the following:
- gather information about a customer's typical browsing habits; and
- display adverts of most relevance to you.
The information stored in third party cookies in order to display adverts is completely anonymous and therefore contains none of your personal details.
We sometimes embed content from websites. As a result, when you visit a page containing such content, you may be presented with cookies from these websites. We do not control the dissemination of these cookies and you should check the relevant third party's website for more information.
Details and functions of the categories of cookies currently used on our Website are set out in the following table:
INTERNAL COOKIES | Cookie | DESCRIPTION |
CART | The association with the customer's shopping cart. | |
CATEGORY_INFO | Stores the category info on the page to load pages faster. | |
COMPARE | The items in the customer's Compare Products list. | |
CUSTOMER | An encrypted version of the shopper's customer ID. | |
CUSTOMER_AUTH | Indicates if the customer are currently logged in to the store. | |
CUSTOMER_INFO | An encrypted version of the shopper's customer group. | |
EXTERNAL_NO_CACHE | Indicates if caching is disabled or enabled. | |
FRONTEND | The customer's session ID. | |
GUEST-VIEW | Determines if guests can edit their orders. | |
LAST_CATEGORY | The last category visited by the shopper. | |
LAST_PRODUCT | The most recent product viewed by the shopper. | |
NEWMESSAGE | Indicates whether a new message has been received. | |
NO_CACHE | Indicates if the cache can be used to store information. | |
PERSISTENT_SHOPPING_CART | A link to information about the shopper's cart and viewing history. | |
RECENTLYCOMPARED | Items recently compared b the shopper. | |
STF | Information on products the shopper has emailed to friends. | |
STORE | The store view or language chosen by the shopper. | |
USER_ALLOWED_SAVE_COOKIE | Indicates if the shopper allows cookies to be saved. | |
VIEWED_PRODUCT_IDS | The products recently viewed by the shopper. | |
WISHLIST | An encrypted list of products added to the shopper's wishlist. | |
WISHLIST_CNT | The number of items in the shopper's wishlist. | |
MAGE-TRANSLATION-FILE-VERSION | Facilitates translation of content to other languages. | |
MAGE-TRANSLATION-STORAGE | Facilitates translation of content to other languages. | |
MAGE-CACHE-STORAGE | Facilitates caching of content on the browser to make pages load faster. | |
MAGE-CACHE-SESSID | Facilitates caching of content on the browser to make pages load faster. | |
FORM_KEY | Stores randomly generated key used to prevent forged requests. | |
3RD PARTY COOKES | ||
BidSwitch | ||
c | This cookie contains an anonymous numerical identifier. It is used to to identify the user. | |
Bing | Bing Ads uses the Microsoft user identifier (MUID) to count valid clicks. | |
MUID | Bing Ads uses the Microsoft User Identifier (MUID) to help count valid clicks | |
MUIDB | Identifies a specific browser/machine | |
Doubleclick | It is used to present advertisements and other marketing tools on Third Party Sites. | |
IDE | To select advertising based on what’s relevant to a user; to improve reporting on campaign performance; and to avoid showing ads the user has already seen. | |
NID | These cookies are used by Google to store user preferences and information while viewing the pages with Google maps on them. | |
Google Analytics | They use to collect information about how users use our Site. We use the information to improve the experience on our Site. | |
_ga | Stores analytics session | |
_gid | Stores the session id | |
_utma | Identifies shoppers and sessions. | |
_utmb | Determines new sessions/visits. | |
_utmc | Determines if the shopper is in a new session/visit. | |
_utmz | Saves the traffic source or campaign that explains how the shopper reached your site. | |
Google Visual Web Optimizer | It is used to test different variations of the design of our Site in order to improve the experience of our users. | |
_vwo_uuid | Generates a unique ID for every visitor and is used for the report segmentation feature in Visual Web Optimizer. | |
_vis_opt_s | This cookie detects if the user is new or returning. |
Disabling cookies
The essential cookies that we use are needed to allow you to transact on the Website and without these cookies the Website will not function properly. They allow the shopping basket and check out features on the Website to function. Essential cookies are not harmful to your computer and they do not store personal data such as your credit card details.
If you would like to ensure that no further non-essential cookies are placed on your computer, please follow the steps outlined in paragraph 9.7. This will not remove the current cookies placed but will ensure that no further non-essential cookies are placed on your browser during your visit to the Website. Please be aware that this will mean that you lose key functionality on the Website and may mean it is not possible to buy certain Products.
You can usually adjust your browser so that your computer does not accept cookies:
- Go to the heading "Manage Cookies" and click onto the option you prefer, either stopping cookies being installed, or notifying you of them.
- From the list provided, click onto the programme which your computer uses; if this is not shown on the list, click on the "help" heading on the bar at the top of this page, search for information on "cookies" − an explanation of how to delete cookies will appear, then follow the instructions.
Alternatively, you can adjust your browser to tell you when a website tries to put a cookie on your computer (or other electronic device).
How you adjust your browser to stop it accepting cookies or to notify you of them, will depend on the type of internet browser programme your computer uses. You can follow the appropriate instructions for your specific browser type by clicking onto this link http://www.aboutcookies.org/Default.aspx?page=2 (please note that this link will open a new window and will lead to an external website and that we are not responsible for the content of external websites).
Please remember, cookies do not contain confidential information such as your home address, telephone number or credit card details. We do not exchange cookies with any third party websites or external data suppliers. If you do choose to disable cookies, you may find that certain sections of our Website do not work properly.
How to disable third party cookies
Users based in the European Union, can visit http://www.youronlinechoices.eu/ to opt out of these third party cookies. The above website is not connected to our Website and we are not responsible for its content. We only keep cookies for the duration of your visit to our Website, except in the case of cookies which remember you for future visits or where you save your login name as referred to above.