Data Protection (and that newsletter popup)
At Rene Herse Cycles, we take protecting your data seriously—and your privacy, too. We don’t store sensitive data in our systems, we don’t collect data we don’t need, and we’ll never sell your data. This means that sometimes our website doesn’t know things about you that you think it should know, but we think it’s better that way.
Almost every other week, I get a notice from a bank, a hospital, etc., that my information has been compromised. At Rene Herse Cycles, we want to make sure this doesn’t happen to our customers. We use industry-leading protections against hackers, but we also know that the best protection is not storing your information on our website in the first place. That has been our policy for as long as we’ve had a website.
When you place an order with Rene Herse Cycles, your payment information (credit card number, etc.) is not processed on our site, but on the secure server of our credit card processing company. We never see your credit card number, and it’s not stored in our systems, either. That’s why you have to enter payment information every time you order.
We value and protect your privacy. We won’t share your information with anybody, neither now nor in the future. California now requires an opt-out, so you can put your name on a ‘do not sell’ list. One big bike company makes you send a letter—by snail mail—if you want to opt out. At Rene Herse Cycles, you don’t have to opt out, because we automatically opt out all our customers. We figure none of you want to receive unsolicited “offers and information from our partners.”
Our web site uses cookies only to improve your user experience and the performance of the site as you view it (making images load faster, etc.). We don’t use cookies to track you around the web, etc.
Rene Herse doesn’t have a big black box that connects all the data we have about you. We don’t contract with the myriad services that promise to increase ‘shopping cart conversions’ and ‘customer engagement.’ We won’t send you emails about things you ‘forgot’ in your shopping cart. Our products won’t follow you around the web and pop up in ads wherever you go.
This also means that you need to login—or at least input your email address—when you order, otherwise, you won’t receive your order confirmation, tracking, etc. You can check out as a guest, but then you won’t be able to see your order in your account. So even though it’s a hassle, please create an account and sign in when you place your order. Your account isn’t used for anything else, except to keep track of your orders.
When you come to our website, the site doesn’t know who you are—even if you come from our email newsletter. That’s why you are seeing a popup asking you to sign up to our newsletter—even though you’re obviously already signed up. Since the mailing list is only used for the purpose of sending our newsletter, our website does not know that you’re already getting the newsletter. If you sign into your account (top right corner of our home page), then the website knows you’re an existing customer and won’t show you the popup. (If you wonder why we don’t get rid of the newsletter signup altogether—the majority of our newsletter readers sign up that way, so it’s clearly something most of you appreciate.)
In the end, what it comes down to is simple: We’re a small company, and we’d rather spend our resources developing new components that improve the cycling experience for all of us. We don’t want to sell you things that you don’t need or want. We’re confident that you’ll buy our products because you enjoy using them every time you ride your bike. And that’s enough for us.
Thank you,
Jan & Natsuko
