Privacy Policy

Who we are

Nelson Brand Hams ("Nelson Brand", "we") sells hams through this website. This policy explains what information we collect, why, who handles it and what choices you have. To reach us about it, call 1-866-296-4267 or email kim@nelsonbrand.com.

Information you give us when you order

When you check out we collect the details needed to take payment and deliver your order:

• your name, email address and phone number
• the shipping address (street, city, state and ZIP code)
• what you ordered, the shipping choice and the discount code you entered, if any
• for invoice or purchase-order orders: an optional PO number and a billing contact's name, email address and phone number
• whether you ticked the box to hear from us when next season's hams are available

Card and PayPal payments

You enter card details on Square's payment screen, or sign in to PayPal, and not on our servers. We never see or store your full card number. Square and PayPal tell us whether the payment went through and give us a payment reference, which we keep with your order.

Gifts sent to other people

If you send an order to several recipients, we collect each recipient's name and delivery address, and, if you choose to give them, their email address, phone number and a gift message. We use this only to deliver the gift and to email the recipient a shipping notification with tracking, which includes your gift message. A recipient has not given us their details themselves, so if you are a recipient and want your details removed, contact us using the details above.

Interest list and contact form

If you join our interest list we collect your email address and, if you give them, your name, company, the product you are interested in, a quantity and a note. If you use the contact form we collect your name, email address and message and email them to us.

How we use your information

We use your information to take payment, prepare and ship your order, send you order, shipping and refund emails, answer your questions, keep our records, prevent abuse of the site and meet our legal and accounting obligations. We use your interest-list details, and your email address if you ticked the box at checkout, to tell you about the next season's hams. We do not sell or rent your information.

Who else handles your information

We use these service providers, and share with each only what it needs:

• Square, to process card payments: we pre-fill your email address and phone number on its payment page, and it sends back your email address with the payment result
• PayPal, to process PayPal payments: we send it your shipping address, and it sends back the payer's email address with the payment result
• FedEx, to rate and deliver orders: it receives your ZIP code for rates and the delivery name, address and phone number for shipping, and the street address when our staff check an address with FedEx
• Amazon Web Services, which hosts the website and our database, sends our email (Amazon SES) and signs our staff in

Cookies and browser storage

We do not use advertising cookies or ad trackers. Google Analytics, described below, sets its own cookies. Apart from those, your browser's own storage keeps these items on your device so the site works. They stay on your device and are not a tracking profile:

• your cart (kept until you check out or clear it)
• the discount code you applied, and a hold reference for an unfinished card or PayPal checkout so you can use that code again on the same order
• the ZIP code you entered for shipping estimates
• for orders sent to several addresses, the recipient list you are building, which is cleared when you close the tab
• after you check out, your order confirmation details, such as your email address and a private order-status link, which are cleared when you close the tab
• a flag that records that the order confirmation page has been shown in this tab; it holds no personal information and is cleared when you close the tab

Analytics and tracking

We use Google Analytics 4, from Google (Google LLC), to see which pages are visited and how orders move through checkout. Google processes that information for us. Google Signals is turned off, so a visit is not tied to a signed-in Google account. Ad personalization is turned off too, and we do not use this information for advertising or remarketing.

Google Analytics sets cookies named _ga and _ga_ followed by an identifier. They hold a randomly generated client id so one visit can be told from another. For each page, we send its address without the query string, keeping only campaign tags such as utm_source, and, if you came from another website, that website's address without the page you were on. We also send what you do in the cart and checkout: the hams you add or remove, their prices and quantities, the payment method you choose, the percentage of a discount code you apply (never the code) and the order total. When an order is placed, the purchase record carries a reference so each sale is counted once: the Square payment reference for a card order, and our order number for a PayPal, invoice or no-charge order. We also record when you send the contact form, join the interest list or tap our phone number.

Google Analytics also records some things on its own: how far you scroll down a page, clicks on links to other websites (that website's address only), the type of device and browser you use, and an approximate location. We do not send your name, email address, phone number, delivery address, order-status link or unsubscribe link to Google Analytics.

We keep Google Analytics data for 14 months, the retention period set in our Google Analytics property, and then Google deletes it. Google uses your IP address only to derive a coarse location and then discards the address. You can opt out by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, which Google publishes for the major browsers, at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. Payment pages run by Square and PayPal are not ours and set their own cookies, which we do not control.

Email

We send order emails, shipping updates (shipped, out for delivery, delivered, or a delivery problem), refund and cancellation notices, and replies to your messages. These are about orders you placed, so we send them even if you have unsubscribed from our other email.

We also send a confirmation when you join the interest list and, about once a year, an email about next season's hams. Every one of these emails has an unsubscribe link, and mail apps such as Gmail also offer a one-click unsubscribe. We then keep your address on a do-not-email list so we do not email you again. We also add addresses that bounce or report our email as spam to that list.

IP addresses

When you use an unsubscribe link, we store the IP address of that request with your do-not-email entry. Separately, the website counts requests per IP address for a few minutes to limit abuse (a rate limit); those counters are deleted automatically within minutes.

How long we keep information

We keep order records for 7 years for tax and accounting. Our database is backed up automatically, and backups are kept for 30 days.

We keep interest-list entries until you ask us to delete them. If you unsubscribe, we stop emailing you and keep your email address on a do-not-email list so we do not email you again. If you ask us to delete your interest-list entry, we delete it, apart from your email address on the do-not-email list if you had unsubscribed.

Your choices

Anyone may ask us what information we hold about them, or ask us to correct or delete it. Email kim@nelsonbrand.com or call 1-866-296-4267, and we will answer within 30 days. We may have to keep order records that we are required to keep, such as those needed for accounting. You can unsubscribe from marketing email at any time with the link in any of those emails.

Security

The website and its API are served over HTTPS. Access to order records is limited to signed-in staff. Please keep your order-status link private, because anyone with it can see the status of that order.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will post the new version on this page and update the date at the top.