Privacy Policy

Who is responsible for your information

This policy is issued by Vovo Capital (Pty) Ltd (registration number 2024/073102/07), trading as Avarius, of Old Pretoria Road, Midrand, South Africa, the "responsible party" under POPIA for the personal information described below.

1. Information we collect

When you create an account, apply to sell, or place an order on Avarius, we collect personal information including your name, email address, phone number, and delivery address. If you apply to sell on Avarius, we also collect business details relevant to reviewing your application. We never collect or store your full payment card details — card payments are processed by our PCI-DSS-compliant payment processors (Paystack and Ozow), who are the parties scoped to handle that data.

2. Lawful basis for processing

We process your personal information on the basis that it is necessary to perform our contract with you (creating your account, processing orders, enabling delivery), to comply with our legal obligations, and, in limited cases such as marketing communications, on the basis of your consent. You can give or withdraw marketing consent at any time via the email preferences toggle in your account, or by emailing hello@avarius.store.

3. How we use your information

• To create and manage your Avarius account
• To process and fulfil orders, including sharing your delivery details with the relevant brand and courier
• To review seller applications and manage brand accounts
• To communicate with you about orders, account activity, and (where you've opted in) marketing updates
• To detect and prevent fraud and protect the security of the platform
• To comply with legal and regulatory obligations

4. Who we share information with

We share the minimum information necessary with the brand fulfilling your order (name, delivery address, contact number) and with the courier they use for delivery. We share payment information directly with our payment processors to complete transactions. We do not sell your personal information to third parties.

5. Cross-border data transfer

Our database is hosted by Supabase in their West Europe (London) region, and our application infrastructure runs on Vercel, which may process data in other jurisdictions as part of delivering the platform. Because this means personal information is processed outside South Africa, we take reasonable steps to ensure it remains protected to a standard consistent with POPIA — including relying on providers that are themselves subject to the United Kingdom's own data protection framework (UK GDPR).

6. Your rights

Under POPIA, you have the right to access the personal information we hold about you, request that we correct inaccurate information, request deletion of your information (subject to legal retention requirements, such as transaction records), and object to certain processing, including direct marketing. To exercise any of these rights, email hello@avarius.store with the subject line "POPIA Request" and we will respond within a reasonable time.

7. Our Information Officer

Our appointed Information Officer under POPIA is Steven Legae. To exercise any of the rights described above, or to raise a concern about how we handle your personal information, contact the Information Officer at hello@avarius.store.

8. Data retention

We retain personal information for as long as necessary to provide our services and to meet legal, accounting, or regulatory requirements, after which it is securely deleted or anonymised.

9. Security

We use industry-standard technical and organisational measures, including encryption in transit, row-level access controls, and restricted internal access, to protect your personal information against loss, misuse, or unauthorised access.

10. Complaints

If you believe we have not handled your personal information in accordance with POPIA, you may lodge a complaint with us at hello@avarius.store, or directly with the Information Regulator of South Africa:

11. Contact

Questions about this policy can be sent to hello@avarius.store.