What are Cookies?

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences. On later visits, this data is then returned to that website.

Cookies allow us to recognize you automatically whenever you visit our site so that we can personalize your experience and provide you with better service. If your web browser is set to refuse cookies from our website, you will not be able to complete a purchase or take advantage of certain features of our website, such as storing items in your Shopping Cart or receiving personalized recommendations. As a result, we strongly encourage you to configure your web browser to accept cookies from our website.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

 

How we use cookies

Cookies we use and why we use them

Essential cookies  

Essential cookies are technical cookies that are required for the operation of our site. Without essential cookies our sites can’t operate properly. Essential cookies include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas.

Performance cookies  

Performance cookies allow us to recognize and count the number of visitors to our sites and to see how visitors move around them. This helps us to improve the way our sites work by enabling us to tailor our sites to the way visitors use them. The information we collect from performance cookies is aggregated which means that we cannot identify you from it.

Experience cookies  

Experience cookies allow our sites to remember the choices you make. Our sites use experience cookies to provide you with enhanced and personalized features. For example, we use information collected through what are known as “web-analytic” cookies to compare the choices you make to those of our other customers so that we can learn from those choices. Information collected by experience cookies cannot track your browsing activity when you leave our sites to browse other sites.

Marketing cookies 

Marketing cookies record your visits to our sites, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We use this information to make our sites and the advertising displayed on them more relevant to your interests. For example sometimes we use marketing cookies to limit the number of times that you see an advert.

Fraud prevention cookies

We also use cookies (and similar browser data, such as Flash cookies) for fraud prevention and other purposes.

Your right to refuse cookies and what happens if you refuse them

You can refuse cookies by activating the relevant setting on your browser. However, if you do so you may not be able to access all or parts of our sites. If you carry on using our sites and do not change your browser settings we will assume you consent to us using cookies as described above.