Cookies Policy

Last Updated: 21, August 2025

1. Introduction – What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or device when you visit our website. These files are stored by your web browser and perform a variety of functions. In simple terms, cookies help our website remember who you are and what your preferences are. For example, cookies allow your shopping cart to keep items you’ve added, and let us recognize you when you return to our site.

Cookies can be “session cookies” which last only while your browser is open (and get deleted when you close it), or “persistent cookies” which remain on your device for a period of time or until you delete them. Persistent cookies help us remember you on future visits. Cookies may be set by our website (first-party cookies) or by third-party services we use (third-party cookies).

Importantly, cookies do NOT give us access to anything on your device like your files or personal information stored elsewhere. They only contain data about your visit to our site. Most cookies identify your browser or device through a unique ID number, not by your personal name or details.

2. Why We Use Cookies

We use cookies to enhance your experience on iGadget.co.nz and to ensure our website functions correctly. Some cookies are essential for our site to work, while others help us improve our services or advertise effectively. In summary, our uses of cookies include:

  • To remember your shopping cart and account login, so you can navigate the store and checkout seamlessly.

  • To understand how visitors use our site, so we can make improvements to product selection, navigation, and overall user experience.

  • To measure and analyze the performance of our marketing, such as which promotions are effective or how users find our site.

  • To offer relevant content or ads for our products on other platforms (like showing you a product ad on Facebook if you viewed that product on our site).

We do not use cookies to collect sensitive personal information like your credit card numbers or passwords. We also do not sell any information collected via cookies to outside parties. Cookies are there primarily to make our website convenient and to help us learn what’s working and what isn’t.

3. Types of Cookies We Use

To be transparent, here are the categories of cookies in use on our website:

  • Strictly Necessary Cookies: These cookies are essential for the operation of our online store. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to use basic features like adding items to your cart or proceeding through checkout. For example, when you add a product to your shopping cart, a cookie keeps track of your cart items. Similarly, if you log into your customer account, a cookie might keep you logged in as you browse pages. These cookies do not gather information about you for marketing or remember where you’ve been on the internet; they only remember information necessary to keep the site functional during your visit.

  • Functional & Preference Cookies: These cookies remember choices you make to improve your experience. They may remember things like your preferred currency or region, or keep track of whether you’ve seen certain messages so we don’t show them again. For instance, if our site is set to show prices in NZD or if we later introduce a wishlist, these cookies would store those preferences. While currently iGadget.co.nz is focused on New Zealand customers (so currency and language are uniform), we still use cookies to maintain things like your login session (so you don’t have to sign in repeatedly). The data these cookies collect is anonymized and not used for any purpose other than providing you with a smoother experience (e.g. remembering that “Guest” user is actually you once you log in, until you log out).

  • Analytics Cookies: We want to know how our website is performing and how users engage with it. For this, we use analytics cookies. These may include first-party analytics cookies (set by our site’s platform) and cookies from third-party analytics providers like Google Analytics. These cookies collect information such as which pages you visit, how long you stay, what links you click, and if you encounter errors. This data is aggregated and helps us see overall patterns – for example, which product categories are most popular or where users might be getting lost. Google Analytics cookies, for instance, give us reports on website traffic and usage patterns without identifying individual visitors by name. They might tell us “X number of users visited the iPhone Accessories page this week” or that “users who came from Google spent an average of 3 minutes on the site.” This information is invaluable in helping us improve our site layout, product offerings, and marketing efforts. All analytics data is pseudonymous – it’s tied to random IDs, not directly to you – and is used only for statistical purposes. We do not receive personally identifying info like your personal emails or names through analytics cookies.

  • Advertising & Marketing Cookies: Like many online stores, we participate in digital advertising to reach new and returning customers. Advertising cookies (sometimes called targeting cookies) help ensure that the ads you see about iGadget on other platforms are relevant to you. For example, we may use the Facebook Pixel and Google Ads cookies on our site. These cookies allow us to note if you’ve looked at a particular product on iGadget.co.nz. If you have, we might later show you an ad on Facebook or Google for that product or similar items, as a reminder or special offer. This is called retargeting. The data collected includes information like the product pages you visited, any purchases you made, or if you signed up for our newsletter. No personally identifiable information (like your name, email, etc.) is contained in these cookies, just an anonymous identifier linked to your browser. The advertising partners (e.g. Facebook, Google) may combine this info with what they know from your profile on their platform to serve ads, as per their privacy policies. These marketing cookies also help us measure the effectiveness of our ads – for instance, a cookie will tell us if someone who clicked an ad actually ended up buying something on our site, which helps us avoid spending on ineffective ads. We only use trusted ad networks and we do not allow third-party advertisers to directly collect your personal data on our site beyond these cookie-based tracking events.

Third-Party Cookies on Our Site: When we use third-party services (like the ones mentioned: Google Analytics, Facebook/Instagram, Google Ads), those providers may set cookies on your browser through our site. These are still only used for the purposes we’ve described – analytics or advertising. We list the main third-party tools we use and their purpose here:

  • Google Analytics: (_ga, _gid, and similar cookies) – Analytics cookies that help us count visitors and understand usage patterns. Google’s ability to use and share information collected by its cookies about your visits to our site is restricted by the Google Analytics Terms of Use and Google’s Privacy Policy.

  • Google Ads: (gcl* cookies) – Advertising cookies that help us track ad performance and show you relevant iGadget ads if you’ve visited our site.

  • Facebook/Meta Pixel: (_fbp cookie) – Advertising cookie that helps us show personalized ads on Facebook/Instagram to people who visited our site. It also helps limit how often you see our ads and measures the results of our Facebook ad campaigns.

  • Shopify Platform Cookies: (such as _shopify_y, _shopify_s, cart cookies) – Functional and analytics cookies built into our site’s e-commerce platform (Shopify). These help with things like maintaining your session and collecting general traffic data for store analytics.

We may add or remove third-party integrations over time. Whenever we introduce a new tool that collects data via cookies, we will update this policy to reflect its usage and purpose.

4. Your Choices: How to Control or Disable Cookies

We believe in giving you control over your data and understanding your options regarding cookies:

  • Browser Controls: Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you do not have to accept cookies if you don’t want to. You can adjust your browser settings to block new cookies, delete existing cookies, or alert you when cookies are being set. How you do this depends on the browser you use (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, etc.), but it’s usually in the “Preferences” or “Settings” menu under a section named Privacy or Security. If you choose to block all cookies from our site, please note that some parts of our website might not work correctly – for example, you won’t be able to add items to your cart or proceed through checkout if necessary cookies are disabled. For guidance on managing cookies, websites like AllAboutCookies.org provide detailed, browser-specific instructions.

  • Opting Out of Analytics: If you want to prevent Google Analytics from tracking your visits, Google provides an Opt-Out Browser Add-on you can install (available at Google’s site). This tells Google Analytics (on all sites, not just ours) not to record your visits. Keep in mind that we anonymize analytics data and use it only to improve our website, but we respect your choice to opt out. Similarly, our internal Shopify analytics cookies (_shopify_y, etc.) can be blocked via browser settings as described above.

  • Opting Out of Personalized Ads: For advertising cookies, you have options to opt out of targeted advertising. For Facebook and Instagram, you can adjust your ad preferences in your Facebook account settings so that Facebook doesn’t use data from partners (like our site) to show you ads. For Google Ads, you can visit Google’s Ad Settings page and turn off personalized ads. Additionally, industry organizations offer sites where you can opt out of many targeted advertising cookies in one place – for example, the Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) websites allow you to see which advertisers have cookies in your browser and opt out of some or all of them.

  • Site Cookie Preferences: (Note: As of the latest update, iGadget.co.nz does not use an on-site cookie consent tool – since we primarily serve New Zealand users, we rely on implied consent. If you are visiting from a region with strict cookie laws (like the EU/UK), you may see a cookie banner to comply with those requirements.) We plan to continually monitor privacy best practices. If we implement a cookie consent banner or preferences center on our site, we will update this policy and clearly guide you on how to use it to manage your cookie choices. In the meantime, the methods above (browser settings and ad/analytics opt-outs) are the ways you can control cookies on our site.

Remember, you are always free to decline cookies, but blocking certain categories of cookies (especially “necessary” ones) might affect your ability to use some features of our site. We encourage you to at least allow the essential cookies so that you can shop with us, while using the other opt-out strategies if you want to limit analytics or advertising tracking.

5. Cookies and Your Privacy

Our use of cookies is governed by our broader Privacy Policy (which you can refer to for more details on how we protect your personal information). In many cases, the data collected via cookies (like an IP address or a unique ID) can be considered personal information under privacy laws, because it can indirectly identify you. Rest assured, we treat all information collected from cookies with the same care as any other personal data. We handle it in accordance with New Zealand’s Privacy Act and other applicable laws. We do not attempt to personally identify you through cookie data, and we do not merge cookie data with other personal details like your name or address without your consent.

Any insights we gain from cookies are used to improve our service to you – whether that’s making the website easier to use, stocking more of the products you like, or ensuring you hear about relevant deals (and not irrelevant ones).

We also want to be clear that we will never sell information about your browsing behavior on iGadget.co.nz to advertisers or unrelated third parties. Information collected via third-party cookies (like Google or Facebook) is also subject to those third parties’ privacy policies. We recommend reviewing Google’s and Facebook’s privacy policies if you have concerns about how they handle cookie data.

6. Updates to this Cookies Policy

We may update this Cookies Policy from time to time to reflect changes in technology, legal requirements, or our own practices. If we make significant changes, we will notify users by posting a prominent notice on our website (and if applicable, through other communication channels). The “Last Updated” date at the top will always indicate when the latest changes were made.

By continuing to use our website after any changes come into effect, you will be deemed to have accepted the updated policy. However, we encourage you to check this page periodically for the latest information on our cookie practices.

7. Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns about our use of cookies, or about our privacy practices in general, please don’t hesitate to contact us. You can reach our team by email at admin@igadget.co.nz. We appreciate your feedback and will do our best to address any issues.

 

By providing this Cookies Policy, iGadget.co.nz aims to give you clear and honest information about cookies in use on our site. We value your privacy and want you to feel confident and informed while shopping with us. Thank you for reading, and happy gadget shopping!