How We Use Your Data
Transparency and trust in how we handle your personal information
Our Commitment to Your Privacy
At Shiny Spores, we believe in being completely transparent about how we collect, use, and protect your personal data.
We want you to feel confident and secure when using our services, knowing that nobody else gets access to your data.
Data Controller: Mushroom Growing Supplies LIMITED
Company Number: 15825582
View on Companies House
🔒 Our Privacy Promise
Nobody else gets your data. Ever.
We never share, sell, or give access to your personal information to any third parties.
Your data stays with us and is used only for the purposes you’ve explicitly agreed to.
Email Marketing & Promotional Material
✅ Opted In Marketing Emails
When you explicitly opt into our marketing communications, we’ll send you:
- Company updates – News about our business, new locations, or important changes
- Product updates – Information about new products, restocks, and exclusive items
- Promotions & offers – A newsletter type email with our latest promotions/offers
- Industry updates – Educational content about mushroom growing and related topics
Remember: You can easily opt out of marketing emails at any time using the unsubscribe link
in every email we send, or by contacting us directly.
📧 Non Marketing Email Use
If you provide your email address but do not opt into marketing, we only use it for:
- Saving your cart information – So you don’t lose your selected items
- Retrieving your saved cart – When you return to complete your purchase
- Essential order communications – Order confirmations, shipping updates, etc.
We promise: We will never send marketing emails to customers who haven’t opted in.
Your email stays private and is used only for the cart functionality you requested.
Easy Opt-Out Methods
We believe unsubscribing should be as easy as subscribing. Every correspondence we send has simple opt-out methods:
📧 In Every Email
- • Clear “Unsubscribe” link at the bottom
- • One click unsubscribe process
- • No login required to unsubscribe
- • Immediate removal from lists
🌐 Other Options
- • Reply to any email with “UNSUBSCRIBE”
- • Contact us via our contact form
- • Email us directly at website@shinyspores.co.uk
- • Manage preferences in your account (if you have one)
WordPress, WooCommerce & Plugins
Because we run on WordPress and WooCommerce, some processing is done by essential service providers (“processors”) to run the site securely and reliably. We keep this list lean and review it regularly.Our Typical Processors (examples)
- Hosting & Security — web host, CDN/WAF (to serve pages, prevent abuse, logs for security).
- Email — transactional email (order confirmations, password resets) and, if opted in, marketing emails.
- Payments — payment gateways (e.g., card processors, bank transfer handlers). We do not store full card numbers on our servers.
- Analytics — privacy minded analytics (e.g., Google Analytics or equivalent) to improve performance and UX.
- Backup — encrypted backups for disaster recovery.
We do not permit processors to use your data for their own marketing or resale.
Google Analytics & Performance
- Pages visited, navigation paths, product interest, referrers, device/browser, loading times/errors.
- Helps with: faster pages, better navigation, relevant content, quick issue resolution.
Understanding How You Use Our Services
We use Google Analytics to understand how customers interact with our website and how our pages perform.
This helps us improve your shopping experience and fix any issues you might encounter.
📊 What We Track
- Which pages you visit and how long you spend on them
- How you navigate through our website
- What products you’re interested in
- Where visitors come from (search engines, social media, etc.)
- Technical information like browser type and device used
- How our website performs (loading times, errors, etc.)
🎯 How This Helps You
- Faster loading pages based on performance data
- Better product recommendations
- Improved website navigation and user experience
- Quick identification and fixing of technical issues
- Better mobile experience optimisation
Tracking Where You Opted In
We track where users opt into our services to help us understand how our services are being used
and which communication methods work best for our customers.
What We Log
📍 Opt-in Sources We Track
- • Website footer subscription
- • Email newsletter signups
- • Checkout page opt ins
- • Product page subscriptions
- • Popup modal signups
- • Contact form interactions
📈 Why We Track This
- • Understand which opt in methods work best
- • Improve the user experience on different pages
- • Make our communication more relevant
- • Identify technical issues with signup processes
Privacy Note: This tracking is only used internally to improve our services.
We never share this information with third parties or use it for any purpose other than understanding
and improving our customer experience.
Rate Limiting & Network Protection
Protecting Our Services for Everyone
To maintain the integrity of our network and ensure our services remain fast and reliable for all customers,
we implement rate limiting on our APIs and services.
🛡️ How Rate Limiting Works
What triggers rate limiting: If one of our services receives too many requests
from a single IP address in a short period of time.
What happens: That IP address is temporarily stored and access to our API
is paused for that IP to prevent overload.
How long: The IP address is automatically removed after a short period
and access is restored.
What we don’t do: We do not process this IP address data any further,
share it with anyone, or use it for any other purpose.
🎯 Why This Protects You
- Prevents our website from being overwhelmed by automated requests
- Ensures fast loading times for all legitimate users
- Protects against potential security threats
- Maintains stable service for everyone
- Prevents abuse that could affect your shopping experience
⏱️ IP Address Storage Details
- Storage duration: Temporary only (typically minutes to hours)
- Purpose: Rate limiting only
- Access: Automated systems only, no human access
- Sharing: Never shared with third parties
- Processing: Automatically removed, no further processing
Your Data Rights
You Can Request:
- ✓ Access – See what data we hold about you
- ✓ Correction – Update incorrect information
- ✓ Deletion – Remove your data from our systems
- ✓ Portability – Export your data
- ✓ Opt out – Unsubscribe from marketing emails
Contact Us:
Email: contact@shinyspores.co.uk
Subject Line: Data Privacy Request
Response Time: Within 48 hours
How We Protect Your Data
Encryption
All data is encrypted in transit and at rest using industry standard protocols
Access Control
Only authorised personnel have access to personal data on a need to know basis
Backups
Regular encrypted backups ensure your data is safe and can be recovered if needed
Questions About Your Data?
We’re here to help you understand how we handle your information.
Don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions or concerns.
