Privacy Policy


The Pearl Company is committed to safeguarding the privacy of our customers and users whilst providing the highest possible quality of service. When you place orders or access your account information, we offer the use of a secure server. The secure server software (SSL) encrypts all information you input before it is sent to us. Furthermore, as required by the UK Data Protection Act 1998, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679) and the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (Data Protection Legislation), we follow strict security procedures in the storage and disclosure of information which you have given us, to prevent unauthorised access. Our security procedures mean that we may occasionally request proof of identity before we are able to disclose sensitive information to you. Under the terms of the Data Protection legislation, we are required to explain to you how we will treat any personal data which we collect from you.

Who we are

The Pearl Company is a brand name of The Cashmere Centre Ltd (Registered in the UK company number 4292795), located in Milton Keynes, United Kingdom. We are also known as the data controller. We sell a wide-range of clothing and accessories through catalogues, advertisements and on the internet. The www.pearlcompany.co.uk website, is owned and operated by us. Under the Cashmere Centre Ltd umbrella we also have 4 other brands namely Cashmere Centre (www.cashmerecentre.com), Spirit of the Andes (www.spiritoftheandes.co.uk), James Alexander (www.jamesalexanderclothing.co.uk) and Tesoro by design (www.Tesorobydesign.com) all based in the same location. Any questions relating to data protection should be directed to:

The Data Protection Officer, The Pearl Company, Unit 6 Fernfield Farm, Little Horwood, Milton Keynes, MK17 0PR

 The information we collect and how we use it

In order to fulfil your order (for example - for the purchase of pearl jewellery), we need to know certain personal information collected at time of order. The information we hold will consist of but not be limited to the following: Title; Name; Address; Mailing Preference flags such as ‘Do not mail, or Do not email; Products purchased from us in the past including their cost; Telephone number if offered to us (this will only be used for matters relating to your order); email address if offered; Where we believe you heard about us from. Credit card details are encrypted after data entry and are not stored on our systems once used. We do not collect any Special Category Data (sensitive data) such as race, religion, biometrics or health data. It is our policy that your information is private and confidential. Accordingly, the personal information you provide to us is stored in a secure location, and is accessible only by designated staff.

We also collect data because it is necessary for the pursuit of our legitimate interests. Our legitimate interests are set out below.

Direct Marketing

Understanding our customers wishes and shopping preferences

Improving our service and our products

How we use your information for Direct Marketing & how to manage your marketing preferences

1) Marketing by us – We would like to contact you by post and/or email to let you know of our new collections and any offers we may be running. This will usually be the form of our latest catalogues. If at any time you wish to no longer receive Cashmere Centre Group catalogues and/or emails please call us on 01908 523155, write to us at the address below or go to www.pearlcompany.co.uk/mypreferences and follow the steps to amend your preferences. Via any of these methods you can also specify whether you wish to receive/not receive communications from any combination of our brands.

2) Marketing by other companies – We may share your details with other carefully selected retail companies and charities who we feel may be of interest to you. We also work with Epsilon Abacus (registered as Epsilon International UK Ltd), a company that manages the Abacus Alliance on behalf of UK retailers. The participating retailers are active in the following product categories: clothing, collectables, food & wine, gardening, gadgets & entertainment, health & beauty, household goods, and home interiors. They share information on what their customers buy. Epsilon Abacus analyses this pooled information to help retailers understand consumers’ wider buying patterns. From this information, retailers can tailor their communications, sending people suitable offers that should be of interest to them, based on what they like to buy.

 

If you would like to watch a video illustrating how your data is being used and what the benefits of sharing your data with trusted retailers are, please follow the link below:

 

Please note that Epsilon Abacus may transfer data outside the EEA. The transfer will take place in the presence of appropriate safeguards, including standard data protection clauses adopted by the EU Commission. If you would like more information, please call us on 01908 523155, write to us at our address below or email us at customer-services@pearlcompany.co.uk

Your personal data is shared with Experian Ltd for the purposes of managing a service called Club Canvasse, a home shopping and direct retailer data co-operative of which The Cashmere Centre are members. By sharing information on what customers buy and pooling that with contributions from other members of the co-operative, the service allows The Cashmere Centre to better understand our customers and to communicate with you more effectively. Please note, your personal information is not shared with any of the other members of the co-operative, and only aggregated data on the number and value of purchases is provided to members e.g. we will receive a report which states how many customers who have bought from us in the last 0-12mths, and who have also bought from other members of the co-operative in the last 0-12mths, or the last 24mths, last 36mths etc. To understand more please click through to Experian’s website to understand more about their marketing services.

We work with Epsilon Abacus (registered as Epsilon International UK Ltd), a company that manages the Abacus Alliance on behalf of UK retailers and charities. The participating retailers are active in the clothing, collectables, food & wine, gardening, gadgets & entertainment, health & beauty, household goods, home interiors and travel categories. These retailers and charities share information about their customers and supporters and what they buy or donate. Epsilon Abacus processes this information as a processor on behalf of these companies to help them understand individuals' behaviour and preferences. Epsilon combines information provided by participating retailers and charities with third party data. From this combined information, these companies can tailor their communications, sending individuals suitable offers and appeals that should be of interest to them. You can learn more about how Epsilon Abacus processes your personal information in their Privacy Policy, which is available here: https://www.epsilon.com/abacus/services-privacy-policy

We may also share data (Name & Address only) directly with other trusted retailers in the clothing, collectables, food & wine, gardening, gadgets & entertainment, health & beauty, household goods, home interiors sectors and UK charities. If data is shared it is done so on a one time only basis and the company or organisation are not entitled to store your data for further use unless you engage with them.

If you do not wish us to share this information please tick the appropriate box when ordering or to update this preference at any time call us on 01908 523155, write to us at the address below or go to www.pearlcompany.co.uk/mypreferences and follow the steps to amend your preferences.

If you would like to stop all unsolicited postal communications, we suggest that you register with the Mailing Preference Service (MPS). MPS is a free service set up in 1983 and funded by the direct mail industry to enable consumers to have their names and home addresses in the UK removed from lists used by the industry. It is actively supported by the Royal Mail and all directly involved trade associations and fully supported by The Information Commissioners Office (ICO). For more information or if you wish to register with the MPS please visit their website www.mpsonline.org.uk

 

How we use your information to understand our customers wishes and shopping preferences

Our communications are designed to tell you about the benefits we can offer so that you have access to our best deals. We use the information we have about you to tailor the content and try to ensure that the offers are as relevant to you as possible. Under the Data Protection Legislation, this might qualify as profiling. If you do not wish us to use your data for this purpose, please call on 01908 523155, write to us at the address below or email us at customer-services@pearlcompany.co.uk

How we use your information to improve our service and our products

We may hold any feedback from individuals relating to customer service or product analysis to help us to improve in these areas. Customer feedback may be used within our catalogue designs and/or on our websites. If at any time you wish this information to be removed, erased or not used in any such way please make this clear on the feedback you provide us with or call us on 01908 523155, write to us at the address below or email us at customer-services@pearlcompany.co.uk

Data Processors

We work with the following data processors in order to carry out our direct marketing activities.

The Mailing Room (MK) Ltd, The Delivery Group and GB Mail Ltd : They process name, address and mailing preference details only to enable them to mail out our postal communications (catalogues) on our behalf through Royal Mail and any other recognised mail carrier.

Epsilon Abacus (registered as Epsilon International UK Ltd): They process name, address, mailing preferences and purchase history for the purpose of sharing in the Abacus Alliance. For more information on how Epsilon Abacus use the data see above.

 

The Mailing Room (MK) Limited
2 Horwood Court,
Milton Keynes, 
Buckinghamshire, 
MK1 1RD

Epsilon Abacus
67 Broad Street
Teddington
Middlesex
TW11 8QZ

Experian Ltd

Customer Support Centre
Experian Ltd
PO BOX 9000
Nottingham
NG80 7WF

The Delivery Group
Unit 2, Catalina Approach
Omega South
Warrington
WA5 3UY

GB Mail Ltd

Griffin House
Griffin Lane
Aylesbury
Buckinghamshire
HP19 8BE

How long we keep your data for

As a retailer, we are fortunate to have loyal customers who purchase our products over many years. To serve our customers in the best possible manner and to continue to inform them about new products and services we have decided to retain customer data for 30 years after the last purchase date/contact.

Your Rights

You have the right to ask us what personal data we hold about you. If at any time you wish to exercise this right you can contact us by telephone on 01908 523155, write to us at our address below or email us at customer-services@pearlcompany.co.uk . To protect your privacy and security we may need to verify your identity before sharing this information.

You have the right to ask us to update or amend any out of date or incorrect data. If at any time you wish to amend your data you can contact us by telephone on 01908 523155, write to us at our address below or email us at customer-services@pearlcompany.co.uk . To protect your privacy and security we may need to verify your identity before making amendments. If you wish to change your mailing preferences you can also visit www.pearlcompany.co.uk/mypreferences

You have the right to ask us to delete the data we hold about you. If at any time you wish to exercise this right you can contact us by telephone on 01908 523155, write to us at our address below or email us at customer-services@pearlcompany.co.uk . To protect your privacy and security we may need to verify your identity before deleting your data.

Disclosures

We will seek to act in the best interest of our customers and will not abuse our position of data controller. We wish to be as clear and transparent as possible and uphold any requests for data disclosure or amendment as soon as possible. Due to the nature of data and catalogue printing, when an amend is made to data it may take up to 6 weeks for it to become effective, although we will do everything possible to ensure this time delay is kept to a minimum.


Credit Card Security

We take security of our customer’s data very seriously and this includes credit card information. On our website at checkout you are taken to a secure page and should always see a closed padlock beside the url address or at the top/bottom of your browser window. We hold a SSL certificate which is visible next to the site URL.

Our payment page is hosted by BigCommerce, a leading payment provider and ecommerce platform.

 

Computer Tracking and 'Cookies'

Our cookies fall into 2 categories

1) Essential Cookies

1.1) Function:

Some cookies are essential for the operation of our website. For example, they allow us to identify subscribers and ensure they can access the subscription only pages. If a subscriber opts to disable these cookies, the user will not be able to access all of the content that a subscription entitles them to.

1.2) Performance:

We utilise other cookies to analyse how our visitors use our websites and to monitor website performance. This allows us to provide a high quality experience by customising our offering and quickly identifying and fixing any issues that arise. For example, we might use performance cookies to keep track of which pages are most popular, which method of linking between pages is most effective, and to determine why some pages are receiving error messages. We might also use these cookies to highlight articles or site services that we think will be of interest to you based on your usage of the website.

2) Third Party Cookies

Where third-party cookies are present on our sites, we attempt to be as upfront and clear as possible about their intended purpose. We also use or allow third parties to serve cookies that fall into the two categories below.

2.1)Website Function Cookies

We use functionality cookies to allow us to remember your preferences. For example, cookies save you the trouble of typing in a username every time you access the site, and recall your customisation preferences, such as which regional edition of the website you want to see when you log in. We also use functionality cookies to provide you with enhanced services such as allowing you to watch a video online or comment on a blog.

2.2) Other third party cookies

We may also use third party cookies to help us with market research, revenue tracking, improving site functionality and monitoring compliance with our terms and conditions.We may use third party companies to provide advertising services and/or to collect certain information when you visit and interact with our website. These third-party companies may collect and use non-personally identifiable information (e.g., click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over) during your visit to this website [and/or other websites] in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of greater interest to you. These third-party companies may use cookies and other technologies to recognise your browser to collect and record information about your web surfing activity including your activities on this website.

Third-party cookies we use include those from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, HotJar, Feefo, BigCommerce, Klaviyo, Salesfire and Adalyser.

You may visit the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance at http://youronlinechoices.eu/  to learn more about interest-based advertising, or to opt out of receiving advertisements tailored to your interests on your browser, from their respective members and participants.

As we’ve explained above, cookies help you to get the most out of our websites. Please remember that if you do choose to disable cookies, you may find that certain sections of our website do not work properly.

How to contact us

We wish to be as clear and transparent as possible regarding our data collection, security and how we use it. If at any time you have any questions or comments regarding this we would be happy to speak to you in person. If you wish to do this please call 01908 523155. Alternatively you can write to us at:

The Pearl Company, Unit 6 Fernfield Farm, Little Horwood, Buckinghamshire. MK17 0PR

You can also email us at customer-services@pearlcompany.co.uk

 

It’s likely that we’ll need to update this Privacy Notice from time to time. We’ll notify you of any significant changes via email, but you’re welcome to come back and check it whenever you wish.