Our Policies

Cookies are small text files that a website stores on your device when you visit. They’re used by almost every modern website to remember things — like whether you’re logged in, what’s in your cart, or which language you prefer.

Some cookies are essential to making the site work. Others help us understand how the site is being used so we can improve it. A few are used for marketing — to show relevant ads on other websites or measure how well our ads perform.

This policy covers all four categories, what each is used for, and how to control them.

When you first visited element3.co.nz, you saw a cookie banner asking which categories of cookies you wanted to allow. Your choice is stored as a cookie itself (necessary, to remember your preference), and it controls which other cookies we set on subsequent visits.

You can change your choice at any time:

• Open cookie settings from the link in the website footer
• Clear all cookies and refresh to see the banner again
• Change browser settings to block specific cookie types globally (see Section 7)

If you’ve never seen our cookie banner, it may be because your browser is blocking it, or because you accessed the site through a region where the banner isn’t shown by default (e.g. NZ/AU — see Section 6).

These cookies are required for the site to function. They cannot be disabled through our cookie settings, though you can block them at the browser level (which may break parts of the site).

Examples:

• Cart cookies — remember the products you’ve added to your cart so they don’t disappear when you navigate
• Session cookies — keep you logged in while you browse
• Security cookies — detect and prevent fraudulent activity
• Consent cookies — remember your cookie preferences

Set by: Shopify (the platform our store runs on), our payment provider (Stripe), and our security tools.

Retention: Most expire when you close your browser; consent cookies persist for 12 months.

These cookies help us understand how visitors use the site — which pages they read, how they got here, where they drop off. We use this to improve the site, not to identify individual people.

Tools we use:

• Google Analytics 4 — aggregated traffic and behaviour analytics; data is anonymised before processing
• Shopify Analytics — built-in store analytics for sales, conversion, and inventory

These cookies are only set if you’ve consented to performance cookies in the banner.

Retention: Up to 14 months for GA4; up to 2 years for Shopify.

These cookies enable features that improve your experience but aren’t strictly necessary. Disabling them won’t break the site but may make it less useful.

Examples:

• Remember which currency or language you’ve selected
• Remember items you’ve recently viewed
• Remember your wishlist between visits
• Recognise you as a returning customer for personalised content

Set by: Klaviyo (customer messaging), Appstle (subscription management), and our personalisation tools.

Retention: 12 months by default.

These cookies let advertising platforms know you visited our site, so they can show you element³ ads on other websites, and tell us whether their ads led to a purchase. They’re only loaded if you consent to marketing cookies.

Tools we use:

• Meta Pixel (Facebook/Instagram) — for advertising on Meta platforms
• Google Ads — for advertising on Google Search and the Google Display Network
• Pinterest Tag — for advertising on Pinterest
• TikTok Pixel — for advertising on TikTok

These cookies share information with third parties. Each platform has its own privacy policy governing what they do with the data they receive — links are in the Third-Party Vendors section below.

Retention: Up to 13 months.

We apply different consent standards depending on the region you appear to be visiting from:

• UK, EU, EEA, Switzerland: Strict opt-in. No non-essential cookies are loaded until you actively consent. This is required under the UK PECR, the EU ePrivacy Directive, and GDPR.
• California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, and other US states with comprehensive privacy laws: A "Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information" option is offered. You can opt out of cross-context behavioural advertising.
• New Zealand, Australia: Opt-out model permitted under current law. Cookies may load by default, with an option to disable them via the cookie settings link.

We aim to apply the strictest applicable standard where there’s any doubt about your region.

You can control cookies in three ways:

1. Through our cookie settings panel — click "Cookie Settings" in the website footer. Change which categories you allow at any time.

2. Through your browser settings — every major browser lets you block or delete cookies. Guides:

Note: blocking necessary cookies will break parts of the site (cart, checkout, login).

3. Through industry opt-out tools — for advertising cookies, you can opt out across many advertisers at once:

When you visit element3.co.nz, the following third parties may set cookies (depending on your consent choices):

• Shopify — platform, checkout, fraud prevention.
• Klaviyo — email and SMS marketing personalisation.
• Google — Analytics, Ads.
• Meta (Facebook/Instagram) — advertising and measurement.
• Stripe — payment processing.
• Appstle — subscription management.

Each vendor processes data under its own privacy policy, in addition to our agreement with them. We don’t control what they collect once you interact with their cookies — that’s set by their own policies linked above.

We update this Cookie Policy whenever we add or remove a tool that sets cookies on the site. The "Last Updated" date at the top reflects the most recent change.

For substantive changes, we’ll show the updated cookie banner again so you can review and update your consent.

Questions? Email privacy@element3.co.nz.