How to Have an Effective Ecommerce Privacy Policy

Customers are quite apprehensive when it comes to the security and privacy of their personal data on various ecommerce websites. For this reason it is a wise thing to have your privacy policy disclosure displayed on your website to gain their trust and eventually their business.

However, an ecommerce privacy policy is much more than just a statement. It is something you need to collect, manage and use on a daily basis. You need to have a comprehensive policy for the satisfaction of the government norms and consumer protection groups.

But creation of a privacy policy for your e-commerce website is not that easy. You can get all the help you need by keeping in mind the following points.

A Clear Ownership Statement

You need to identify the individual or team that is responsible for the privacy of the visitors on your site. For this you need to have a a clear understanding of the various regulations, compliances and collaboration of teams and products, so that you have a set point that needs to be contacted if and when an issue arises.

Reviewing of Privacy Policies of Other Ecommerce Websites

Check what all do they state in their privacy policies. Go through the procedure the customers have to take up and have a keen eye on the data being asked for, shared and used. Also research the different software systems they use for the purpose. You should not blindly copy their statements.

Understand Your Own Privacy Policies

Now that you have a strong baseline of knowledge you can check your own procedures. Take a look at what all data you collect from your visitors and your customers when they purchase a product. This will also account for the information that may not be stored in your database at all and just pass through your site like transaction details that channelize through a gateway.

Form Your Privacy Policy

You can take help of other websites’ disclosure statements, engage your own lawyer and/or use the online policy generators for creating your own privacy policy. However, you need to customize them as per your own requirements.

Keep your disclosure concise and easily understandable for your customers. Set them up in clear sections and link them to other pages for more detailed information on the topic.

Remind Your Customers of The Privacy Policy

While most ecommerce websites prefer to give their privacy policy in the footer of the site, it can be easily missed and thus, fail to build trust for your site. You can overcome this problem by setting up a link reminder in a pop up where you ask your customers to submit any personal data. This will not only gain their trust for your site but also give them a picture of how responsibly do you take the shopper data. Remember to send a link of your privacy policies even in your emails and news-letters etc.

Maintain and Update Your Privacy Policy

The marketing techniques and your business practice on the whole are subjected to changes regularly. In that scenario, you should update your privacy policies too accordingly and notify all your subscribers. Also do not forget to mention it in your privacy section on your website. And even if there are no changes in the marketing practice whatsoever, you must still review and maintain your these policies and involve all the departments handling the customer data, marketing, legal etc.