Top Tropicals Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

We may collect information that you provide directly to us, information collected automatically when you use our website, and limited information received from service providers.

Information You Provide

Depending on how you use our website, we may collect:

• Your name
• Email address
• Telephone number
• Billing address
• Shipping address
• Account login information
• Order number and order history
• Products placed in your cart or wish list
• Newsletter subscription preferences
• Messages submitted through our contact forms
• Customer service emails and other communications
• Reviews, questions, comments, photographs, videos, documents, or other files you send to us
• Information submitted through promotions, contests, surveys, or other website features
• Other information you choose to provide

Please do not send complete credit card information through ordinary email, contact forms, photographs, or other unsecured communications.

Payment and Transaction Information

Payments are processed by third-party payment processors and payment gateways.

Complete payment card numbers and card security codes are not stored on Top Tropicals servers. Our payment processors may provide us with limited transaction information, such as:

• Payment authorization or rejection status
• Transaction identification number
• Card type
• Last four digits of the card
• Billing address verification results
• Fraud or security screening results

Payment processors handle payment information according to their own privacy policies and security procedures.

Information Collected Automatically

When you visit or use our website, our servers and service providers may automatically collect information such as:

• Internet Protocol address
• Browser type and version
• Device type and operating system
• Approximate location derived from an IP address
• Referring website or page
• Pages and products viewed
• Search terms entered on our website
• Links and buttons clicked
• Shopping cart and checkout activity
• Date and time of visits
• Session information
• Cookie and advertising identifiers
• Website performance and error information
• Server, security, and fraud-prevention logs

You may browse the website without creating an account or placing an order. However, some technical and usage information is still collected automatically when you visit the website.

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2. How We Use Information

We may use the information we collect to:

• Process, fulfill, and deliver orders
• Calculate shipping charges and applicable taxes
• Confirm payments and prevent fraudulent transactions
• Communicate about orders, payments, shipping, delays, cancellations, returns, refunds, or claims
• Create and manage customer accounts
• Provide customer service and respond to questions
• Review photographs or other information submitted for plant identification, diagnosis, care recommendations, or customer support
• Maintain shopping carts, wish lists, and account preferences
• Send requested product availability or account notifications
• Send newsletters, promotions, company news, and product information
• Administer contests, promotions, surveys, or other website features
• Personalize website content and product recommendations
• Measure advertising and marketing performance
• Understand how visitors use our website
• Improve our website, products, services, and customer experience
• Diagnose technical problems and maintain website security
• Detect bots, spam, abuse, unauthorized access, and fraud
• Enforce our policies and protect our legal rights
• Comply with tax, accounting, regulatory, and legal obligations

We may combine information collected from different interactions with us when reasonably necessary for these purposes.

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3. Customer Questions, Emails, Reviews, and Photos

Customers frequently send us questions, comments, reviews, testimonials, emails, photographs, videos, and other information relating to plants, orders, gardening problems, growing conditions, and customer experiences.

We may reproduce, quote, summarize, edit, adapt, or discuss customer-submitted questions, emails, comments, reviews, testimonials, photographs, videos, or similar content in:

• Promotional emails and newsletters
• Educational articles and gardening guides
• Product pages
• Website content
• Social media posts
• Advertising or other promotional materials
• Internal employee or customer-service training materials

Before publishing customer-submitted content, we remove, crop, blur, cover, obscure, or otherwise omit direct personal information when reasonably practical.

This may include:

• Full names
• Email addresses
• Telephone numbers
• Mailing or street addresses
• Order numbers
• Payment information
• Shipping labels
• Account information
• Photograph metadata
• Vehicle license plates
• Faces of people who are not the subject of the submission
• Other information that directly identifies the customer

For example, if a customer sends us a photograph showing a plant and a shipping label, home address, order paperwork, or other personal information is visible in the photograph, we may crop, cover, or blur that information before using the photograph.

Unless a customer has specifically authorized attribution, we generally publish customer-submitted material without the customer's full name or direct contact information.

We may use a first name, initials, a general location such as a city or state, or a general description such as "a customer in California" when useful for context.

Customers should avoid including sensitive personal information in photographs, videos, messages, emails, or documents sent to us.

If you do not want a question, email, comment, photograph, video, review, or other submitted content to be used in educational or promotional materials, please tell us when you submit it.

You may also contact us later to request that we discontinue future use of previously submitted content. We will make reasonable efforts to honor such requests, but we may not be able to recall or remove materials that were already distributed, printed, archived, reposted, or published by third parties.

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4. Order and Promotional Emails

We may use the email address associated with an order to send transactional messages concerning that order. These may include:

• Order confirmations
• Payment notices
• Shipping updates
• Delivery information
• Product substitutions or availability questions
• Customer-service messages
• Requests for information needed to complete an order
• Other information necessary to complete the transaction

Transactional order messages are not promotional newsletters and cannot always be disabled while an order is active.

When you subscribe to our newsletter or otherwise agree to receive promotional communications, we may send company news, gardening information, promotions, product announcements, and related offers.

You may unsubscribe from promotional emails by following the unsubscribe instructions included at the bottom of each promotional email or by using our newsletter subscription page.

Unsubscribing from promotional emails will not prevent us from sending necessary communications concerning an order, account, transaction, security issue, or customer-service request.

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5. Cookies and Similar Technologies

Top Tropicals and our service providers may use cookies, local storage, pixels, tags, scripts, and similar technologies.

These technologies may be used to:

• Keep the website and shopping cart functioning
• Maintain login sessions and preferences
• Remember products placed in a cart
• Protect forms and checkout pages from fraud and automated abuse
• Measure website traffic and performance
• Understand how visitors use the website
• Measure advertising conversions
• Display or evaluate advertising
• Diagnose errors and improve website operation

Some cookies are necessary for the website to function. Other cookies may be used for analytics, advertising, security, or performance measurement.

You can usually manage or delete cookies through your browser settings. Blocking all cookies may prevent some website features, including shopping carts, account logins, and checkout functions, from working properly.

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6. Analytics, Advertising, and Security Services

We may use third-party services such as Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, Google Ads, Google reCAPTCHA, and similar analytics, advertising, performance, or security services.

These providers may collect information such as:

• IP address
• Browser and device information
• Cookie or advertising identifiers
• Pages and products viewed
• Links clicked
• Referring pages
• Shopping or checkout events
• Advertising interactions
• Approximate location
• Information used to identify bots, spam, fraud, or abusive activity

Third parties whose technology is present on our website may collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites or online services.

These providers process information according to their own privacy policies. We do not control all cookies, identifiers, or information-processing practices used by third parties.

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7. How We Disclose Information

We do not sell customer names, mailing addresses, email addresses, telephone numbers, order details, or payment information to data brokers or unrelated companies for monetary compensation.

We may disclose information to service providers and other parties when reasonably necessary to operate our business, including:

• Payment processors and payment gateways
• Shipping carriers and delivery providers
• Website hosting and server providers
• Email and newsletter providers
• Analytics and advertising providers
• Fraud-prevention and cybersecurity providers
• Customer-service and communication providers
• Information technology and software providers
• Professional advisers, including accountants, attorneys, insurers, and auditors

These parties may receive only the information reasonably necessary to perform their services.

For example, a shipping carrier must receive the recipient's name, delivery address, telephone number, and shipment information to deliver an order.

We may also disclose information:

• When required by law, regulation, court order, subpoena, or legal process
• To respond to lawful requests from government or regulatory authorities
• To investigate fraud, theft, security incidents, or misuse of our website
• To enforce our agreements and policies
• To protect the rights, property, health, or safety of Top Tropicals, our customers, our employees, or others
• In connection with a merger, financing, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, sale of assets, or similar business transaction

We may disclose aggregated or de-identified information that does not reasonably identify a specific individual.

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8. Progressive Web App and Local Storage

If you install or use our website as a Progressive Web App, your browser or device may store certain website files locally.

These files may include:

• HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files
• Images and other website assets
• Cached pages
• Shopping cart information
• Website preferences
• Session information

Local storage allows faster loading and may provide limited functionality when an Internet connection is unavailable.

You can generally remove locally stored information by uninstalling the Progressive Web App, clearing the website's browser data, or changing your browser or device settings.

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9. Data Retention

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

The length of time information is retained depends on factors such as:

• Whether you have an active customer account
• Whether an order, claim, refund, or dispute remains open
• Tax, accounting, and recordkeeping requirements
• Fraud-prevention and security needs
• Warranty and customer-service requirements
• Legal obligations and limitation periods
• The need to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims

Order and transaction records may be retained after an order is completed when necessary for accounting, tax, fraud-prevention, customer-service, or legal purposes.

Customer communications, questions, photographs, and other submissions may be retained for customer service, training, educational, historical, promotional, legal, or recordkeeping purposes.

Newsletter subscription information may be retained until you unsubscribe. We may retain limited suppression-list information after an unsubscribe request so that we do not add the address back to promotional mailing lists by mistake.

Server and security logs may be retained for operational, diagnostic, fraud-prevention, and security purposes.

When information is no longer reasonably needed, we may delete it, de-identify it, or securely dispose of it.

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10. Data Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards designed to protect personal information.

These measures may include:

• Secure Socket Layer encryption
• Access controls
• Server and network security measures
• Fraud and abuse detection
• Restricted access to customer information
• Payment processing through specialized payment providers
• Monitoring and logging of suspicious activity

Complete payment card information is handled by payment processors and is not stored on Top Tropicals servers.

However, no website, transmission method, computer system, or electronic storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. You should use caution when sending information over the Internet and should never send complete payment card information by ordinary email or through a general contact form.

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11. Your Choices

Account Information

You may review or update certain account information by signing in to your account, where that functionality is available.

You may also contact us to request correction of inaccurate contact or account information.

Promotional Emails

You may unsubscribe from promotional emails by using the unsubscribe link included in each promotional message or through our newsletter subscription page.

Cookies

You may manage cookies and local storage through your browser or device settings. Disabling certain technologies may affect website functionality.

Customer-Submitted Content

You may tell us not to use a submitted question, email, photograph, review, comment, video, or other material for educational or promotional purposes.

Requests made after publication will apply to future use when reasonably practical. We may not be able to remove materials that have already been distributed, printed, archived, reposted, or published by third parties.

Access, Correction, or Deletion Requests

You may contact us to request access to, correction of, or deletion of personal information we maintain about you.

We will review and respond to requests as required by applicable law. We may need to verify your identity before processing a request.

We may retain information when reasonably necessary to complete transactions, maintain business records, prevent fraud, comply with legal obligations, resolve disputes, or enforce our agreements.

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12. California Do Not Track Disclosure

Some browsers allow users to send a "Do Not Track" signal.

There is no universally accepted standard governing how websites should interpret or respond to these signals. Our website does not currently change its practices in response to browser Do Not Track signals.

You may use browser settings, cookie controls, advertising settings, or privacy tools to limit certain forms of tracking.

As explained above, third-party analytics, advertising, and security providers may collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites or online services when their technologies are present on our website.

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13. Children's Privacy

Our website and products are intended for a general audience and are not directed to children under 13.

We do not knowingly collect personal information directly from children under 13. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under 13 without appropriate authorization, we will take reasonable steps to delete it.

A parent or legal guardian who believes that a child has provided personal information to us may contact us using the information below.

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14. Third-Party Websites

Our website may contain links to websites, social media platforms, payment services, shipping services, or other online services operated by third parties.

We are not responsible for the privacy, security, content, or practices of third-party websites and services. Their collection and use of information are governed by their own privacy policies.

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15. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, technology, business practices, or legal obligations.

The updated policy will be posted on this page with a revised "Last updated" date. When appropriate, we may provide additional notice of material changes through the website, account notifications, or email.

Your continued use of the website after an updated Privacy Policy becomes effective indicates that you have received notice of the updated policy. This statement does not limit any rights you may have under applicable law.

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16. Contact Us

Questions, concerns, or privacy-related requests may be submitted using the following contact information:

To help us locate relevant records, please include your name, email address, order number if applicable, and a clear description of your request. Do not send complete payment card information.