Cookie Policy

1. What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files placed on your device when you visit a website. Cookies help websites function properly, remember user preferences, improve security, and provide information about how visitors use a website. Cookies may be session cookies (deleted when you close your browser) or persistent cookies (which remain on your device until they expire or are deleted). This Policy also covers similar technologies, such as browser storage and tracking pixels, which work in a comparable way.

2. How We Use Cookies

We use essential cookies to make the Website work, keep it secure, and remember your choices. If you choose to accept them, we also use optional cookies to understand how visitors use the Website and to measure which of our adverts lead people to it. We do not sell personal information.

3. Types of Cookies We Use

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These are essential for the Website to operate and cannot be switched off. They are used to keep your shopping cart, keep you signed in securely to your customer account, process orders, remember that you have confirmed your age and accepted our terms, remember your cookie choice, and protect the security of the Website. Without them, parts of the Website would not work.

Analytics Cookies (optional)

Analytics cookies help us understand how visitors use the Website. They run only if you accept optional cookies. We use:

• PostHog (hosted in the European Union): records the pages viewed, how a visitor arrived (for example from an advert or a search engine), and key actions such as viewing a product, adding to cart and completing an order. We have configured it not to record clicks, keystrokes or the contents of forms, and not to build profiles of individual visitors. For further information, see PostHog's Privacy Policy.
• Microsoft Clarity: records how visitors interact with pages, such as mouse movement, clicks, scrolling and page views, together with device and browser information, to help us improve the Website. For further information, see Microsoft's Privacy Statement.
• Google Analytics: collects information such as pages viewed, session duration, device and browser information, and approximate location. For further information, see Google's Privacy Policy.

Functional Cookies

Functional cookies help remember your preferences and improve how the Website works for you, such as your cookie choice and Website settings. Disabling them may affect certain features.

4. Advertising and Marketing Cookies (optional)

We advertise on third-party platforms and measure which adverts lead to visits and orders. These tools run only if you accept optional cookies:

• Meta Pixel (Meta Platforms)
• TikTok Pixel (TikTok)
• Taboola Pixel (Taboola)
• Google Ads conversion tracking (Google)
• Leadpipe, a visitor-identification service used for marketing purposes

These tools can record the pages you view and actions such as adding a product to your cart or placing an order, and may use advertising identifiers to match that activity to your account on the relevant platform. This lets us measure the results of our advertising and show our adverts to relevant audiences. The platforms may also use this information for their own purposes under their own policies.

Separately from cookies, when you place an order we also send order information to some advertising platforms directly from our servers. This does not depend on cookies and is explained in our Privacy Policy.

5. Your Cookie Choice

When you first visit the Website you are asked to confirm your age and accept our Terms of Sale and Privacy Policy, and at the same time to choose between accepting optional cookies (analytics and advertising) or essential cookies only. The two choices are equally prominent, and you can use the whole Website whichever you choose. If you confirmed your age before this choice was introduced, you are shown the same choice in a banner at the bottom of the page.

You can change your choice at any time using Cookie settings in the footer of every page. If you switch to essential cookies only, we stop the optional tools and delete the cookies we are able to delete. Cookies placed by third parties may also need to be deleted through your browser. Your choice is remembered in your browser's storage, so if you clear that storage you will be asked again. Strictly necessary cookies cannot be switched off because the Website needs them to work.

6. Managing Cookies

Most web browsers allow you to control cookies through browser settings. You can typically view stored cookies, delete cookies, block cookies, and configure cookie preferences. Instructions can usually be found within your browser's help section. Please note that disabling certain cookies may affect Website functionality.

7. Third-Party Cookies

Some of the cookies described above are placed by third parties, including Google, Meta, TikTok, Taboola, Microsoft, PostHog and Leadpipe. When you pay for an order, our payment provider (Invco) hosts its own payment page and may place cookies needed to process and secure your payment. These third parties operate under their own privacy and cookie policies. Mercia Research does not control third-party cookies once they have been placed.

8. Changes to This Cookie Policy

We may update this Cookie Policy from time to time. Any changes will be published on this page together with an updated revision date. If we introduce a new type of cookie that needs your consent, we will ask for your choice again.

9. Contact

Questions regarding this Cookie Policy may be directed to: info@merciaresearch.com
Mercia Research Limited, Company Number 17189709, 5th Floor, 167–169 Great Portland Street, London W1W 5PF, United Kingdom