Who we are

Sewing Machine World is a New Zealand based sewing retailer, with two shops (Auckland and Hamilton).

Sewing Machine World operates under the legal entity Quill Trading Company Limited, New Zealand Business Number (NZBN) 9429038196362.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it

Orders and Purchases

When you place an order on this website, we collect the personal information needed to process and fulfil it, including: 

• Your name, email address, and phone number 
• Billing and delivery/shipping address 
• Order details (items purchased, quantities, price) 
• Payment status (successful, declined, refunded) — we do not collect or store your full card number or card security code; this is handled directly and securely by our payment processor.  

We use this information to process your order, arrange delivery, provide customer support, and meet our legal obligations (such as tax and accounting record-keeping). We do not use your order information for any other purpose without your consent. 

 If you create an account, we also store your order history so you can view past purchases when you’re logged in. You do not need to create an account to place an order. 

Comments

When visitors leave comments on the site we collect the data shown in the comments form, and also the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help spam detection.

An anonymised string created from your email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if you are using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: http://www.smw.matrixmedia.nz/privacy-policy/. After approval of your comment, your profile picture is visible to the public in the context of your comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact forms

When you submit an enquiry through a contact form on this website, we collect the information you provide, which may include your name, email address, phone number, and the content of your message.

We collect this information for the purpose of responding to your enquiry and providing the products or services you’ve asked about. We do not use this information for any other purpose, and we will not share it with third parties except where necessary to respond to your enquiry (for example, passing details to our Auckland or Hamilton store team) or where required by law.

We retain contact form submissions only for as long as reasonably necessary to deal with your enquiry, after which they are securely deleted.

You have the right to ask us what personal information we hold about you, and to request that it be corrected if it’s wrong. To do this, contact us at carol_sewing@xtra.co.nz or phone 09 634 2037.

Cookies

This website uses cookies — small text files stored on your device — to help it function properly and to understand how visitors use the site. 

We use the following types of cookies: 

• Essential cookies — required for core site functions such as the shopping cart and checkout process. The site won’t work properly without these, including the ability to add items to your cart or complete a purchase. 

• Analytics cookies — help us understand how visitors use the site (e.g. Google Analytics), so we can improve it. See “Analytics” below for more detail. 

• Marketing/advertising cookies — if used, these help us show relevant ads and measure their effectiveness.  

If you leave a comment on our site, you may opt in to saving your name, email address, and website in a cookie for your convenience, so you don’t have to fill in your details again next time. This cookie lasts one year. 

If you have an account and log in, we set cookies to keep you logged in and remember your screen display choices. Login cookies last two days (two weeks if you select “Remember Me”), and display option cookies last one year. These are removed when you log out. 

You can control or delete cookies through your browser settings at any time. Please note that blocking essential cookies will affect the site’s functionality, including your ability to use the shopping cart or complete checkout.  

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.

These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Analytics

We use analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, to help us understand how visitors use this website — for example, which pages are viewed, how long visitors stay, and how they arrived at the site. This helps us improve the website and the products and services we offer.

These tools may collect information such as your IP address, browser and device type, general location (city/region level), and browsing behaviour on the site. This information is processed in aggregate and is not used to personally identify you.

Analytics data may be processed by third-party providers (e.g. Google) on servers located outside New Zealand. Where this occurs, we take reasonable steps to ensure your information is protected to a standard comparable to New Zealand’s privacy laws.

You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on, or by adjusting your cookie preferences in your browser.

Who we share your data with

We do not sell your personal information. We share personal information only with the following categories of third parties, and only as needed to run our business and provide our products and services:

• Payment processors — Stripe and Windcave to securely process your payment. We do not store your full card details ourselves.
• Couriers and delivery providers — we work with a range of courier and freight companies to deliver your order, and share your name, delivery address, and phone number with them for this purpose.
• Website and IT service providers — companies that host our website or provide technical support, who may have access to data stored on our systems as part of that service.
• Email marketing platform — if you sign up to receive our newsletter or marketing emails, your email address is stored with our email marketing provider (Mailchimp) so we can send you these communications. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in any email we send.
• Analytics providers — such as Google Analytics, as described above.
• Professional advisers and regulators — such as our accountant, or government agencies, where required by law (e.g. tax reporting obligations).

We require third parties to protect your information and only use it for the purposes we’ve engaged them for. We do not share your information with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

How long we retain your data

If you place an order, we retain your order and transaction records for at least 7 years, in line with our obligations to Inland Revenue under New Zealand tax law. This includes your name, contact details, order details, and payment status, but not your full card details, which we do not store.

If you create an account, you can request access to, correction of, or deletion of your account information at any time, except where we are required to keep certain records for legal, accounting, or tax purposes.

For users that register on our website (if any), we also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognise and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue.

What rights you have over your data

Regardless of whether you have an account on this site, you have the right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you (for example, if you’ve placed an order as a guest or contacted us through a form), and to request that we correct or erase it.

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data we hold about you, including any data you have provided to us. You can also request that we erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data we are obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes, such as order and tax records (see “How long we retain your data”).

To make a request, contact us using the details under “Your contact information.”

Where we send your data

Some of the tools and services we use store or process data outside New Zealand, including:

• Payment processing — Stripe or Windcave, which may process payment data on overseas servers.
• Website analytics — Google Analytics, which processes data on overseas servers (see “Analytics” above).
• Email marketing — Mailchimp, which stores subscriber data overseas.
• Website hosting — [your hosting provider, if overseas — otherwise remove this line].

Where your information is sent or stored overseas, we take reasonable steps to ensure it is protected to a standard comparable to New Zealand’s privacy laws, as required under the Privacy Act 2020.

Visitor comments may also be checked through an automated spam detection service.

Your contact information

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, or would like to access, correct, or request deletion of the personal information we hold about you, please contact us:

Sewing Machine World
Email: carol_sewing@xtra.co.nz
Phone: 09 634 2037
Address: Sewing Machine World, 155 Onehunga Mall, Onehunga, Auckland 1061

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to make a complaint to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner:
Website: privacy.org.nz
Phone: 0800 803 909

Additional information

How we protect your data

We take reasonable steps to protect the personal information we hold from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration, or destruction. These steps include:

• Storing data on secure, password-protected systems
• Using SSL encryption to protect information sent to and from this website
• Restricting access to personal information to staff who need it to do their jobs
• Using reputable third-party providers (such as our payment processor and website host) who maintain their own security standards
• Regularly updating our website software and plugins to address security vulnerabilities

No method of storage or transmission over the internet is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security, but we are committed to protecting your information to the best of our ability.

What data breach procedures we have in place

If we become aware of a privacy breach that has caused, or is likely to cause, serious harm to any individual, we will:

• Assess the breach as soon as practicable to understand its nature and scope
• Take immediate steps to contain the breach and prevent further harm
• Notify the Office of the Privacy Commissioner as required under the Privacy Act 2020
• Notify any affected individuals directly, where feasible, explaining what happened and what steps we are taking
• Review our systems and processes afterward to reduce the risk of a similar breach happening again

What third parties we receive data from

In most cases, we collect personal information directly from you (for example, when you place an order, sign up for our newsletter, or contact us). In some circumstances, we may also receive information about you from:

• Payment processors (e.g. confirmation that a payment was successfully processed)
• Analytics and advertising platforms (e.g. Google), which provide aggregated or de-identified data about how visitors interact with our website
• Manufacturers/suppliers we work with, e.g. for warranty registration purposes

What automated decision making and/or profiling we do with user data

Our payment processors Stripe and Windcave uses automated fraud detection to assess the risk of each transaction. This may result in a payment being automatically declined or held for review if it is flagged as high-risk, without a person reviewing it first.

This automated check is limited to assessing payment/transaction risk — we do not use automated systems to set individual pricing, assess creditworthiness, or make any other decisions about you.

If your payment is declined or flagged and you believe this was made in error, please contact us at carol_sewing@xtra.co.nz or phone 09 634 2037 and we will review it manually.

We may use analytics tools to understand general browsing trends across our visitors as a group, but this is not used to make automated decisions about any individual.

Industry regulatory disclosure requirements

As a New Zealand retail business, we may be required to disclose information to regulatory or government bodies where legally required, including:

• Inland Revenue (IRD), for tax and GST reporting purposes
• The Commerce Commission, in relation to obligations under the Fair Trading Act 1986 and Consumer Guarantees Act 1993
• Law enforcement agencies, where required by law (e.g. under a court order or statutory notice)

We do not operate in a specifically regulated industry (such as health or financial services) beyond these general obligations that apply to all NZ retailers.