Privacy policy

 

Apocene Co. Privacy Policy

Last updated: September 12, 2026

This Privacy Policy describes how Apocene Co. (doing business as “Ap0cene,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, discloses, and otherwise processes personal information when you visit or use ap0cene.com, shop with us, create or use an account, communicate with us, subscribe to marketing, submit a form, participate in a promotion or event, or otherwise interact with our products and services (collectively, the “Services”).

For purposes of applicable data protection law, Apocene Co. is the controller of personal information described in this Privacy Policy unless otherwise stated. Shopify and certain other providers may also process personal information as independent controllers for their own purposes, as described in their respective privacy notices.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. If you do not agree with it, you should not use the Services. This Privacy Policy does not form part of any contract of employment and does not apply to workforce information governed by a separate notice, if any.

1. PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

The personal information we collect depends on how you interact with the Services.

Information you provide directly

We may collect information that you provide to us, including:

- Contact information, such as your name, email address, telephone number, billing address, shipping address, and social media handle.
- Account information, such as login credentials, account preferences, saved items, and account activity.
- Order and transaction information, such as products ordered, order value, discounts, payment status, fulfillment status, returns, refunds, disputes, and communications concerning an order. Payment card information is generally collected and processed directly by Shopify, our payment processors, or other payment providers rather than stored by us in complete form.
- Customer-service communications, including messages, requests, complaints, reviews, survey responses, and any attachments or other information you choose to provide.
- Marketing preferences, such as whether you wish to receive email or SMS marketing and the topics or products that interest you.
- Form and application information, such as information submitted through vendor, designer, stylist, press, employment, event, collaboration, or other forms available through the Services.
- Promotion and event information, such as entries, attendance details, eligibility information, photographs, and content submitted in connection with a contest, giveaway, activation, or event.
- Any other information you choose to provide. Please avoid sending sensitive personal information unless we specifically request it and it is necessary for the stated purpose.

Information collected automatically

When you visit or interact with the Services, we and our service providers may automatically collect information such as:

- Browser type, device type, operating system, language, approximate location derived from IP address, IP address, time zone, network and device information, and identifiers associated with your browser, device, session, or account.
- Referring and exit pages, campaign information, traffic source, and the date and time of activity.
- Pages, products, product variants, searches, and collections that you view or interact with.
- Products displayed to you within a collection or search result, their approximate position or order, whether and for how long a product tile was meaningfully visible, and whether you selected or clicked it.
- Cart activity, checkout activity, purchases, and related conversion events.
- Interactions with emails, advertisements, content, links, buttons, forms, and other features.
- Information about errors, performance, security events, and suspected fraud or misuse.

We collect this information using cookies, pixels, tags, web beacons, software development kits, log files, Shopify customer events, local storage, and similar technologies. Some identifiers are pseudonymous, meaning they do not directly identify you by name but may distinguish your browser, device, or session and may still be considered personal information under applicable law.

Information from other sources

We may receive personal information from:

- Shopify and its affiliates, including information associated with your storefront activity, account, checkout, payment, order, and use of Shopify-powered services.
- Payment processors, fraud-prevention providers, shipping carriers, fulfillment providers, insurance or shipping-protection providers, and vendors or designers involved in fulfilling an order.
- Marketing, advertising, analytics, and social media providers, subject to your choices and applicable law.
- Publicly available sources and platforms when you interact with us publicly or authorize a platform to provide information to us.
- Business partners, event partners, collaborators, professional advisers, and other persons where permitted by law.

Information about another person

If you provide personal information about another person—for example, when shipping a gift—you represent that you have authority to provide it and to permit us to use it as described in this Privacy Policy. Do not provide another person’s sensitive information without their permission.

2. HOW WE USE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may use personal information to:

- Provide, operate, maintain, and improve the Services.
- Process payments, fulfill orders, arrange shipping, provide shipping updates, administer shipping protection, process returns or refunds where applicable, and provide invoices or confirmations.
- Create and manage customer accounts, wish lists, preferences, and other requested features.
- Communicate with you about orders, accounts, inquiries, applications, policies, security, and the Services.
- Provide customer support and resolve complaints, disputes, delivery issues, and other requests.
- Understand how visitors interact with products, collections, search results, and the storefront.
- Evaluate product presentation, product imagery, collection organization, search results, and merchandising performance.
- Identify products, designers, product categories, price ranges, attributes, or collections that may be popular, underexposed, or in need of improvement.
- Generate aggregated analytics and internal recommendations concerning inventory, merchandising, content, marketing, and business operations.
- Personalize the Services and, where permitted, recommend products or content that may interest you.
- Send marketing communications where permitted by law and consistent with your preferences.
- Measure and improve advertising and marketing campaigns and understand how people discover the Services.
- Detect, investigate, prevent, and respond to fraud, security incidents, abuse, prohibited activity, chargebacks, and violations of our terms or policies.
- Protect our customers, business, vendors, designers, partners, rights, property, and systems.
- Comply with legal, tax, accounting, recordkeeping, sanctions, law-enforcement, and regulatory obligations and respond to lawful requests.
- Establish, exercise, or defend legal claims; enforce agreements; and conduct audits, due diligence, corporate transactions, and internal administration.
- Carry out other purposes disclosed to you when information is collected, with your consent where required.

We may use information that has been aggregated or de-identified so that it no longer reasonably identifies you. We may use and disclose such information for lawful business purposes, including analytics, research, forecasting, and improving our merchandising and Services. We will not attempt to re-identify information that applicable law requires us to maintain in de-identified form.

3. LEGAL BASES FOR PROCESSING

Where the law requires us to identify a legal basis, we process personal information under one or more of the following bases:

- Contract: Processing is necessary to provide requested Services, process and fulfill purchases, administer an account, or take steps at your request before entering into a contract.
- Legitimate interests: Processing is necessary for our legitimate interests or those of another person, such as operating and improving the Services, understanding our business, merchandising products, providing support, preventing fraud, securing our systems, and protecting legal rights, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights and interests.
- Consent: We rely on consent for nonessential cookies or similar technologies, certain marketing, or other processing where required. You may withdraw consent at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.
- Legal obligation: Processing is necessary to comply with laws and lawful requests, maintain required records, or satisfy tax, accounting, consumer-protection, sanctions, and regulatory obligations.
- Protection of rights and other lawful grounds: We may process information when necessary to protect vital interests, establish or defend legal claims, or on another basis permitted by applicable law.

4. COOKIES AND SIMILAR TECHNOLOGIES

We and our providers use cookies and similar technologies to operate the Services, remember choices, secure accounts and transactions, understand usage, improve merchandising, measure marketing, personalize experiences, and support advertising.

These technologies may fall into the following categories:

- Necessary: Required for functions such as navigation, account access, cart and checkout operation, fraud prevention, security, payment processing, and remembering privacy choices.
- Analytics or performance: Help us understand how the Services are used, including product and collection exposure, interactions, searches, cart activity, conversions, errors, and performance.
- Preferences or personalization: Remember selections and help tailor content or product recommendations.
- Marketing or advertising: Help measure campaigns, limit repetition, understand attribution, and, where permitted, provide advertising based on activity or inferred interests.

Our internal merchandising analytics may record product and collection identifiers, product-tile exposure and position, clicks, searches, cart and checkout events, timestamps, and pseudonymous session or client identifiers. We use these signals to evaluate and improve product presentation, collection ordering, search, inventory decisions, and the shopping experience. We do not use this internal merchandising analytics system to identify visitors by name, although pseudonymous identifiers may still be personal information under applicable law.

Where required, nonessential technologies are used only after you provide consent. You can review or change available choices using the Cookie Preferences link on the Site. You may also configure your browser to reject or remove cookies, but doing so may cause parts of the Services to function improperly.

Browser “Do Not Track” signals do not operate under a single accepted industry standard, so we may not respond to them. Where required, we recognize legally applicable opt-out preference signals, such as Global Privacy Control, for sale, sharing, or targeted-advertising choices. More information about Shopify’s cookies is available in the Shopify Cookie Policy.

5. HOW WE DISCLOSE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may disclose personal information to the following categories of recipients for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy:

Shopify

Our store is powered by Shopify. Shopify processes personal information to provide commerce, checkout, payment, account, security, analytics, and related services. Depending on the service and context, Shopify may act as our processor or as an independent controller. You can learn more in the Shopify Consumer Privacy Policy.

Service providers

We may disclose information to companies that perform services for us, such as:

- Cloud hosting, databases, and infrastructure, including Google Cloud and Firebase.
- Payments, accounting, and transaction processing.
- Website hosting, ecommerce, customer accounts, and technical support.
- Analytics, measurement, data management, and error monitoring.
- Email, SMS, customer relationship management, and marketing services, including Klaviyo where used.
- Shipping, logistics, label generation, warehousing, fulfillment, customs, and delivery services, including Shippo and shipping carriers where used.
- Shipping protection, insurance, fraud prevention, security, and chargeback management.
- Customer support, surveys, reviews, promotions, events, and communications.
- Professional services, including legal, accounting, insurance, compliance, and consulting services.

These providers may process information on our behalf or, in some cases, for their own purposes under their own privacy notices.

Designers, vendors, fulfillment partners, and carriers

Ap0cene is a marketplace featuring products from independent designers and vendors. When a product is shipped, serviced, authenticated, insured, or otherwise handled by a designer, vendor, warehouse, fulfillment partner, shipping-protection provider, customs provider, or carrier, we may disclose the information reasonably necessary to complete and support the transaction. This may include your name, shipping address, contact information, order contents, and delivery instructions.

Recipients must use information consistently with their contractual and legal obligations, but independent businesses may also process information under their own privacy notices. Please do not include unnecessary personal or sensitive information in delivery instructions.

Advertising, analytics, and social platforms

Subject to your choices and applicable law, we may disclose identifiers, device and browser information, activity, purchase or conversion information, and inferred interests to analytics, advertising, search, and social media providers, such as Google or Meta, to measure campaigns, understand usage, reach audiences, or provide relevant advertising.

We do not sell personal information for money. However, certain disclosures for interest-based advertising or cross-context behavioral advertising may be considered a “sale,” “sharing,” or “targeted advertising” under some US state privacy laws. Where applicable, you may opt out through our Your Privacy Choices or data-sharing opt-out page, Cookie Preferences, a legally recognized browser preference signal, or by contacting us.

Business and legal disclosures

We may disclose information:

- To comply with law, regulation, legal process, court order, or lawful governmental request.
- To enforce our agreements and policies or establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.
- To detect, investigate, or prevent fraud, security incidents, unlawful activity, or threats to rights, property, or safety.
- In connection with an audit, financing, investment, merger, acquisition, reorganization, sale of assets, bankruptcy, or similar corporate transaction, including during due diligence, subject to appropriate safeguards.
- With your direction or consent, or as otherwise disclosed when information is collected.

6. MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

You may unsubscribe from promotional email using the link in the message. You may opt out of promotional SMS as instructed in the message, such as by replying STOP where available. We may continue to send nonpromotional communications concerning orders, accounts, security, policy changes, or other transactions and relationships.

Opting out through an advertising provider may be browser- or device-specific and may not prevent all advertising. It generally prevents certain personalization rather than eliminating advertisements.

7. DATA RETENTION

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy, including providing the Services, maintaining business and transaction records, improving the storefront, preventing fraud, resolving disputes, enforcing agreements, and satisfying legal, tax, accounting, insurance, and regulatory requirements.

Retention periods vary according to the type and sensitivity of information, the purposes for processing it, the risk of harm from unauthorized use or disclosure, whether the information can be aggregated or de-identified, and applicable legal requirements.

For example:

- Order and transaction records may be retained for the period required by tax, accounting, consumer-protection, fraud-prevention, and legal requirements.
- Customer-service records may be retained while an inquiry, order, dispute, or relationship remains relevant and for a reasonable period afterward.
- Marketing records may be retained until you unsubscribe or object, together with limited suppression information needed to honor that choice.
- Raw or pseudonymous website-interaction and merchandising-analytics data is retained for a limited period appropriate to analysis and security needs, after which it may be deleted, aggregated, or de-identified.
- Aggregated or de-identified information may be retained for longer where it no longer reasonably identifies an individual.

We may retain information for a longer period when reasonably necessary for litigation, investigation, legal hold, security, fraud prevention, or compliance with law. Deletion from active systems may be followed by deletion from backups according to ordinary backup cycles, unless retention is legally required.

8. INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFERS

Ap0cene is based in the United States, and we and our providers may process information in the United States, Canada, and other countries that may not provide the same level of data protection as your country.

Where required, we use recognized safeguards for international transfers, such as adequacy decisions, standard contractual clauses, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, or another lawful transfer mechanism. You may contact us for more information about applicable safeguards, subject to lawful limitations and protection of confidential information.

9. SECURITY

We use administrative, technical, and organizational measures designed to protect personal information against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorized disclosure, and unauthorized access. These measures may include access controls, service-provider safeguards, encryption in transit where appropriate, monitoring, and data minimization.

No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. You are responsible for protecting your account credentials and for notifying us if you believe your account or interaction with us has been compromised. Communications through ordinary email or social media may not be secure; do not send payment-card details or other highly sensitive information through those channels.

10. YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS AND CHOICES

Depending on where you live and subject to legal exceptions, you may have rights to:

- Know or confirm whether we process your personal information.
- Access or obtain a copy of personal information.
- Correct inaccurate personal information.
- Delete personal information.
- Obtain information in a portable format.
- Restrict or object to certain processing.
- Withdraw consent.
- Opt out of sale, sharing, targeted advertising, or certain profiling.
- Appeal a denial of a privacy request where applicable.
- Lodge a complaint with an applicable data protection authority.
- Receive equal service and not be unlawfully discriminated against for exercising a privacy right.

You may exercise available rights by emailing contact@ap0cene.com or by using privacy controls made available through the Site. Please describe your request and the right you wish to exercise.

We may take reasonable steps to verify your identity and authority before completing a request. Verification may require matching information you provide with information already maintained by us. We will request only information reasonably necessary for verification. If we cannot verify a request, an exception applies, or fulfilling it would adversely affect another person’s rights, we may deny or limit the request as permitted by law and explain our decision where required.

You may use an authorized agent where applicable. We may require evidence of the agent’s authority and may ask you to verify your identity directly unless applicable law provides otherwise. To appeal a decision, reply to our decision or email us with “Privacy Appeal” in the subject line.

Some information may be exempt from a request, including information needed to complete transactions, maintain security, prevent fraud, comply with law, exercise legal rights, or retain required records. We may retain limited information needed to document and honor a deletion, objection, or opt-out request.

EEA, UK, and Switzerland

If you are located in the European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or Switzerland, you may have the rights described above under applicable data protection law. You may also complain to the supervisory authority where you live or work or where you believe a violation occurred. We encourage you to contact us first so we can try to resolve your concern.

United States state privacy rights

Residents of certain US states may have rights concerning access, correction, deletion, portability, sale, sharing, targeted advertising, profiling, and appeals. These rights apply only where the relevant law applies to Ap0cene and the particular information or processing.

We do not knowingly use or disclose sensitive personal information for purposes requiring a right to limit under applicable state privacy law. We do not offer financial incentives in exchange for personal information unless we provide a separate notice describing the material terms. We do not discriminate against customers for exercising applicable privacy rights, although some features may reasonably require information to function.

11. CHILDREN’S PRIVACY

The Services are not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child has provided personal information to us, contact us so we can review and, where appropriate, delete it. Where local law requires a higher age for valid consent to particular processing, we will follow that requirement.

12. THIRD-PARTY SITES AND SERVICES

The Services may contain links to or integrations with websites, platforms, services, and social networks operated by others. Their privacy and security practices are governed by their own policies, not this Privacy Policy. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, content, or security of third-party services. Review their policies before providing information.

13. CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY POLICY

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technologies, Services, legal requirements, or other operational reasons. We will post the revised policy and update the “Last updated” date. Where required by law, we will provide additional notice or obtain consent for material changes. Your rights concerning information collected before a change remain subject to applicable law.

14. CONTACT US

For questions, complaints, or requests concerning this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices, contact:

Apocene Co. (Ap0cene) Richmond, Virginia, United States Email: contact@ap0cene.com

If applicable law requires a mailing address or representative address in a jurisdiction where we operate, you may request the relevant contact details by email.