Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Wholesale Managers ("the Platform", "we", "us") operates the B2B wholesale marketplace and directory at wholesalemanagers.com. Wholesale Managers Ltd, 20-22 Wenlock Road, London N1 7GU, United Kingdom, is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. This policy explains what we collect, why, and the choices you have.

2. What we collect

You can browse the public parts of the site without an account. When you use the Platform, we collect:

• Account information: your name, email address, and password (stored only as a secure hash), plus optional profile details you choose to add.
• Company affiliation: the company you say you work at and the verification signals we use to check it, such as your work email domain and confirmations from colleagues or our team.
• Directory and listing content: company profiles, product listings, prices, and stock information that members submit for publication.
• Trading activity: orders, pricing requests (RFQs), buy requests, band assignments, and the messages you exchange with other members through the Platform.
• Payment information for Pro membership: payments are processed by our payment provider (Stripe); we never see or store your full card details, only a reference such as the card brand and last four digits.
• Technical data: IP address, browser type, and the cookies described below. During company registration we may check the country your IP address resolves to as part of fraud prevention.

3. How we use it

• To provide the marketplace: accounts, directory pages, listings, orders, RFQs, buy requests, and messaging.
• To verify company affiliations and keep the directory trustworthy, including reviewing reports made against members.
• To bill and manage Pro memberships.
• To send the transactional emails the service depends on: email verification, password resets, order and RFQ notifications, message notifications, and membership receipts.
• To prevent fraud, spam, and abuse, and to enforce our Terms of Service.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to third parties for their marketing.

4. What other members see

The Platform is a business directory, so some information is public by design: published company profiles, their contact details, product listings, and the name and company of people who choose a public profile. Your buy requests are shown to sellers anonymised (your identity is revealed only when you are contacted through the Platform's messaging).

When you trade, the other party sees what they need to transact with you: your name, your company, and the content of your orders, RFQs, and messages to them.

5. Messages and platform oversight

Messages sent through the Platform are private between the participants, but for quality, safety, and dispute-handling purposes our administrators may receive copies of order-related notifications and messages, as set out in the Terms of Service. Do not share sensitive personal information in messages.

6. Cookies

We use first-party cookies that the site needs to work:

• a session cookie that keeps you logged in as you move between pages;
• a "remember me" cookie if you choose to stay logged in;
• a CSRF token cookie that protects forms from abuse.

We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. Where a page includes Google reCAPTCHA to block automated abuse, Google may set its own cookies subject to Google's privacy policy.

7. Who we share data with

We share personal data only with service providers who process it on our instructions to run the Platform:

• Email delivery (Postmark): to send transactional emails to you.
• Payments (Stripe): to process Pro membership subscriptions.
• Spam protection (Google reCAPTCHA): on some public forms.
• Hosting and infrastructure providers that store our databases and serve the site.
• IP geolocation: during company registration your IP address may be checked against a geolocation service as a fraud signal.

We may also disclose data where the law requires it or to protect the rights, safety, or property of the Platform and its members. Links to other websites are subject to those sites' own privacy policies.

8. International transfers

We operate from the United Kingdom and work with service providers in the United States and elsewhere. Where personal data leaves the UK or EEA we rely on appropriate safeguards, such as adequacy decisions or standard contractual clauses.

9. How long we keep data

We keep your data while your account is active. If you close your account we delete or anonymise your personal data, except data we must keep for administrative, legal, accounting, or security purposes, and records of trades (orders, RFQs, messages) that the other party to the trade is entitled to retain a copy of.

10. Your rights

Under UK and EU data protection law you can ask us to:

• give you access to the personal data we hold about you;
• correct inaccurate data;
• delete your data ("right to be forgotten"), subject to the retention exceptions above;
• provide your data in a portable format;
• restrict or object to certain processing.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us. You also have the right to complain to your data protection authority; in the UK that is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

11. Under 18s

The Platform is a business-to-business service and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect information from anyone under 18 years of age.

12. Security

All traffic to the site is encrypted with TLS (SSL), passwords are stored hashed, and access to personal data inside our team is limited to what running the Platform requires. No system is perfectly secure, so please use a strong, unique password and keep it to yourself.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be announced on the Platform, and the date at the top of this page always shows when it was last revised.

14. Contact

Questions about this policy or your data? Contact us or write to Wholesale Managers Ltd, 20-22 Wenlock Road, London N1 7GU, United Kingdom.