1. Introduction

VETRA (referred to in this policy as “VETRA”, “we”, “us”, or “our”) is a South African contemporary womenswear label operating an eCommerce store at www.vetra.co.za. We are committed to protecting your personal information and handling it in a lawful, responsible, and transparent manner.

This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, share, and protect your personal information when you visit our website, make a purchase, subscribe to our communications, or interact with us in any way. It is written in plain language to ensure you understand your rights and our obligations under the Protection of Personal Information Act 4 of 2013 (POPIA) and other applicable South African law.

By using our website or providing us with your personal information, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this Privacy Policy.

2. Who We Are and How to Contact Us

The responsible party for your personal information, as defined under POPIA, is VETRA. Our designated Information Officer, who is responsible for ensuring that VETRA complies with POPIA and who has been registered with the Information Regulator of South Africa, can be contacted as follows:

Information Officer: Silindile Shabalala

Business name: Sililanga Pty Ltd trading as VETRA

Company registration number: 2015/173999/07

Registered address: 12 Gordon Quill Close, Centurion, 1692

Email address: info@vetra.co.za

Website: www.vetra.co.za

You may contact our Information Officer directly with any queries, requests, or complaints relating to your personal information or this Privacy Policy.

3. Personal Information We Collect

We collect personal information that is necessary, relevant, and adequate for the purposes described in this policy. We do not collect personal information beyond what is required. The categories of personal information we collect include:

3.1 Information You Provide Directly

  • Full name and surname
  • Email address
  • Delivery and billing address
  • Phone number
  • Order details and purchase history
  • Payment confirmation details (note: we do not store card numbers or banking details — these are processed entirely by our third-party payment gateway providers)
  • Communications you send us, including customer service queries and returns requests

3.2 Information Collected Automatically

  • IP address and approximate geographic location
  • Browser type and version
  • Device type and operating system
  • Pages visited on our website and time spent on each page
  • Referring website or search query that brought you to our site
  • Cookie identifiers and session data

3.3 Information from Third Parties

  • Order and delivery status data from our courier partners
  • Email engagement data from our email marketing platform (Mailchimp), such as whether you opened an email or clicked a link
  • Analytics data from Google Analytics relating to website usage behaviour

4. How We Use Your Personal Information

We process your personal information only for lawful purposes and only to the extent necessary for those purposes. The lawful grounds we rely on under POPIA include the necessity of processing for the performance of a contract with you, your consent where required, compliance with a legal obligation, and our legitimate interests where these do not override your rights.

We use your personal information for the following purposes:

4.1 To Fulfil Your Order

  • Processing and confirming your purchase
  • Arranging delivery through our courier partners
  • Sending you order confirmation and shipping notifications
  • Handling returns, exchanges, and refunds

4.2 To Operate Our Website

  • Maintaining the security and functionality of our website
  • Diagnosing technical issues and improving site performance
  • Analysing how visitors use our site to improve the shopping experience

4.3 To Communicate With You

  • Responding to your customer service enquiries
  • Sending you marketing emails and newsletters where you have subscribed and consented to receive them
  • Sending you transactional communications related to your orders

4.4 To Comply With Legal Obligations

  • Retaining financial and transactional records as required by South African tax and accounting law
  • Responding to lawful requests from regulatory bodies or law enforcement
  • Complying with the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 and other applicable legislation

5. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies. A cookie is a small text file stored on your device when you visit a website. Cookies allow us to recognise your browser, remember your preferences, and understand how you use our site.

We use the following categories of cookies:

5.1 Strictly Necessary Cookies

These are essential for the website to function and cannot be switched off. They include cookies that allow you to add items to your cart, proceed through checkout, and remain logged in to your account. No consent is required for these cookies as they are technically necessary.

5.2 Analytics Cookies

We use Google Analytics to understand how visitors interact with our website. This service collects anonymised data about pages visited, time spent on the site, and general traffic patterns. This data helps us improve the website experience. Google Analytics cookies may transfer data to servers outside South Africa. You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking at any time by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on available at tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

5.3 Marketing Cookies

[To be completed if Meta Pixel, Google Ads remarketing, or other advertising cookies are deployed. If not in use, this section may be removed before publication.]

You can control and manage cookies through your browser settings. Please be aware that disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of our website, including your ability to complete a purchase.

6. Who We Share Your Personal Information With

We do not sell your personal information to third parties. We share your personal information only where necessary and only with parties who are bound by appropriate data protection obligations. The third parties we may share your information with include:

6.1 Payment Gateway Providers

[List your active payment gateways, e.g. PayFast, Yoco, Ozow]. These providers process your payment information directly and are independently responsible for the security of your payment data. VETRA does not receive or store your card or banking details.

6.2 Courier and Delivery Partners

[List your active courier partners, e.g. The Courier Guy, Pargo]. We share your name, delivery address, and contact number with our courier partners solely for the purpose of delivering your order.

6.3 Email Marketing

We use Mailchimp (operated by The Rocket Science Group LLC, based in the United States) to manage our email marketing communications. Your name and email address are shared with Mailchimp where you have subscribed to our mailing list. Mailchimp processes this data on our behalf in accordance with its own privacy policy and data processing agreement. This constitutes a cross-border transfer of personal information as described in Section 8 of this policy.

6.4 Website and Analytics Services

We use Google Analytics (operated by Google LLC, based in the United States) to analyse website usage. Anonymised usage data is shared with Google for this purpose. Our website is hosted on a WordPress hosting platform which may store data on servers outside South Africa. Further detail is provided in Section 8.

6.5 Legal and Regulatory Disclosures

We may disclose your personal information to law enforcement, regulatory authorities, or other third parties where we are required to do so by law, court order, or in the protection of legal rights.

7. How Long We Keep Your Personal Information

We retain your personal information only for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, or as required by law. Our standard retention periods are as follows:

  • Order and transactional records: 5 years from the date of the transaction, in accordance with South African tax legislation and the Companies Act
  • Customer account information: retained for the duration of your relationship with VETRA and deleted upon verified request, subject to any legal retention requirements
  • Email marketing records: retained until you unsubscribe or withdraw your consent, after which your details are removed from active mailing lists within 10 business days
  • Website analytics data: retained in anonymised form in accordance with Google Analytics data retention settings
  • Customer service correspondence: retained for 3 years from the date of the communication

When personal information is no longer required, we take reasonable steps to destroy or permanently de-identify it.

8. Cross-Border Transfers of Personal Information

Some of the third-party service providers we use are based outside South Africa and process personal information on servers located in other countries, including the United States and the European Union. These transfers occur in relation to the following services: Mailchimp (email marketing), Google Analytics (website analytics), and our website hosting infrastructure.

In accordance with Section 72 of POPIA, we only transfer personal information to third parties in foreign countries where we are satisfied that those parties are subject to substantially similar privacy protections as those required under POPIA, or where we have entered into appropriate data processing agreements with those parties. Both Mailchimp and Google maintain EU-US and international data transfer frameworks and standard contractual clauses that provide equivalent protections.

By using our website and providing your personal information, you acknowledge that your information may be transferred to and processed in countries outside South Africa.

9. How We Protect Your Personal Information

We take the security of your personal information seriously and implement reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect it against unauthorised access, loss, disclosure, or destruction. These measures include:

  • Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption on our website to protect data in transit
  • Access controls limiting who within our organisation can access personal information
  • Use of reputable third-party payment gateways that are independently PCI-DSS compliant, ensuring that card data is never processed or stored on our own servers
  • Regular review of our data handling practices and third-party service providers

While we take all reasonable precautions, no method of electronic transmission or storage is completely secure. We cannot guarantee absolute security and you provide your personal information at your own risk. In the event of a data breach that is likely to affect your rights and interests, we will notify you and the Information Regulator as required by POPIA.

10. Your Rights Under POPIA

As a data subject under POPIA, you have the following rights in relation to your personal information held by VETRA:

10.1 Right of Access

You have the right to request confirmation of whether we hold personal information about you and to request a copy of that information. We will respond to such requests within a reasonable time and in accordance with POPIA.

10.2 Right to Correction

You have the right to request that we correct or update any personal information we hold about you that is inaccurate, incomplete, or out of date.

10.3 Right to Deletion

You have the right to request that we delete your personal information in certain circumstances, including where the information is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, where you withdraw your consent, or where the information has been unlawfully processed. This right is subject to any legal retention obligations that require us to retain the information.

10.4 Right to Object

You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information for direct marketing purposes at any time. You may also object to processing based on our legitimate interests where you believe those interests are overridden by your rights.

10.5 Right to Withdraw Consent

Where we process your personal information on the basis of your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal of consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before the withdrawal. To unsubscribe from our marketing emails, you may click the unsubscribe link in any marketing email or contact us directly at info@vetra.co.za.

10.6 Right to Complain

If you believe that we have not complied with our obligations under POPIA in relation to your personal information, you have the right to submit a complaint to the Information Regulator of South Africa. The Information Regulator can be contacted at:

Information Regulator (South Africa)

Email: inforeg@justice.gov.za

Website: www.inforegulator.org.za

To exercise any of your rights, please contact our Information Officer at info@vetra.co.za. We may require you to verify your identity before processing your request.

11. Direct Marketing and Email Communications

We will only send you marketing emails and newsletters where you have provided your explicit consent to receive them, such as by subscribing through our website. Each marketing email we send will include a clear and easy option to unsubscribe. We will act on unsubscribe requests within 10 business days.

We do not share your email address with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

We use Mailchimp to manage our email communications. By subscribing to our mailing list, you consent to your email address and name being transferred to and stored by Mailchimp in accordance with their Privacy Policy, available at mailchimp.com/legal/privacy/.

12. Children’s Personal Information

Our website and services are directed at adults and are not intended for use by persons under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from persons under the age of 18. If we become aware that we have inadvertently collected personal information from a minor without appropriate consent, we will take immediate steps to delete that information. If you believe we may have collected information from a minor, please contact us at info@vetra.co.za.

13. Third-Party Websites and Links

Our website may contain links to third-party websites. These links are provided for your convenience and do not constitute an endorsement by VETRA of those websites or their content. We have no control over the privacy practices or content of third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy policies. We encourage you to read the privacy policy of any third-party website you visit.

14. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, applicable law, or for other operational reasons. When we make material changes, we will update the effective date at the top of this document and, where appropriate, notify you by email or by placing a notice on our website. We encourage you to review this policy periodically. Your continued use of our website following the posting of an updated policy constitutes your acceptance of those changes.

15. PAIA Manual

In terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 (PAIA), VETRA is required to compile and make available a PAIA Manual describing the records held by the company and how to submit access requests. Our PAIA Manual is available upon request by contacting our Information Officer at info@vetra.co.za. We are in the process of compiling our PAIA Manual in accordance with the requirements of the Act.

16. Contact and Complaints

If you have any questions, concerns, or complaints about this Privacy Policy or the way we handle your personal information, please contact our Information Officer:

VETRA Information Officer

Email: info@vetra.co.za

Website: www.vetra.co.za

We will acknowledge receipt of your query within 3 business days and aim to resolve all matters within 21 business days. If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to escalate your complaint to the Information Regulator of South Africa as set out in Section 10.6 above.