Legal

Privacy Policy

This notice explains what personal data Wholesale Welding Supplies Ltd (trading as Weldability SIF) collects through this website, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the rights you have over it. We are a trade-only supplier, so most of the data here belongs to people acting for a business rather than to consumers — but the same rights apply either way.

Last updated: 17 August 2026 · Version 1.0

1. Who we are

This website is operated by Wholesale Welding Supplies Ltd, trading as Weldability SIF, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 01684362), with its registered office and trading address at Unit 2, The Orbital Centre, Icknield Way, Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire SG6 1ET. Our VAT number is GB382172749.

For the purposes of UK data protection law we are the data controller for the personal data described in this notice. You can reach us by post at the address above, by telephone on 01462 482200, or through our contact form. If you are contacting us about your personal data, please mark it for the attention of the Data Protection Contact so it reaches the right person.

2. The short version

We collect the details you type into our enquiry and account forms, plus the minimum technical data needed to run a shop, take a payment and keep the site free of spam. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies, our website analytics do not use cookies at all, and we do not sell your personal data or share it for anyone else's marketing.

3. What we collect, and why

Enquiries, trade-account requests, demonstration bookings and expert questions. When you submit a form on this site we collect the details you provide. Depending on the form that can include your name, business name, email address, telephone number, business type, the product or service you are asking about, quantities, and your message or question. The demonstration form also asks about the materials, thickness, process and problems you work with, along with sample parts, fit-up, package interest, budget and timescale, so the right specialist brings the right equipment.

Form submissions are sent to the relevant Weldability SIF inbox by email so that a person can answer you. They are not stored in our website database. We do separately record an anonymous row — the type of form, the general topic, the product referenced and the page it came from — so we can count and trend enquiries. That record contains no name, email, telephone number or message.

Newsletter. If you subscribe, we collect your email address and add it to our mailing list. You can unsubscribe from any email we send you, at any time.

Trade portal accounts. If you have a trade account, we hold your email address, your contact name, the company you are linked to and the reference for your customer record in our order system, together with the time you last signed in. We do not store a password: signing in sends a single-use link to your email address, which expires after 15 minutes and is stored only as an irreversible hash, never in readable form.

Orders, quotes and delivery. When you order through the portal we record the order and its contents, your purchase-order reference, the delivery and invoice addresses you choose, and the totals. Orders are passed to our order-management system, which is where your account, invoices and delivery records are held.

Payments. Card payments are handled by Stripe. Card details are entered directly into a secure payment form served by Stripe and are never seen by, sent to, or stored on our systems. We receive only the outcome of the payment and a reference for it.

Product reviews. If you leave a review we record your rating, your title and comments, and the product concerned. Reviews are published with a shortened display name only — for example "Dave M." Your email address and company name are held for moderation purposes and are never published. Reviews appear on the site only after a member of our team has approved them.

Back-in-stock alerts. If you ask to be told when an item returns to stock, we record your email address against that product so we can send you that one notification.

Site search. When a search returns no results we record the search term itself, aggregated with a count, so we can fix gaps in the catalogue. These records are not linked to you, your account or your device.

Spam and abuse prevention. Our forms use Cloudflare Turnstile to tell humans from bots. As part of that check your IP address is passed to Cloudflare. We do not store your IP address ourselves.

Website analytics. We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to understand which pages are used. It is cookieless, does not fingerprint visitors and does not track you across other websites. It reports aggregate figures such as page views, referrers and general country-level location.

4. Our lawful basis for using your data

• Legitimate interests — answering your business enquiry, assessing a trade account application, running your account, protecting the site from spam and fraud, and understanding site usage in aggregate. Our interest is in operating and improving a business-to-business supply service, balanced against your right to privacy.
• Performance of a contract — processing your orders, taking payment, arranging delivery and providing support.
• Consent — sending you our newsletter. You can withdraw consent at any time by unsubscribing, without affecting anything else.
• Legal obligation — keeping the accounting and tax records we are required by law to keep.

5. Cookies and storage on your device

We do not use advertising, profiling or cross-site tracking cookies, and our analytics do not set cookies. The cookies we do set are strictly necessary to make signing in and ordering work, which is why you are not asked to consent to them:

• portal_session — keeps you signed in to the trade portal. Not readable by JavaScript, sent only over HTTPS, and expires after 30 days or when you sign out.
• portal_signed_in — records only that you are signed in, so the page does not briefly show signed-out content while loading. It carries no personal data and is not a credential.
• staff_link_result — short-lived, set only for our own staff, to carry the result of a sign-in attempt.

We also store two small values in your browser to greet returning customers by name and remember which account section you had open. These stay on your device, are not personal data we receive, and clearing your browser storage removes them.

Embedded videos are served by YouTube in no-cookie mode, so YouTube sets nothing until you actually press play on a video.

6. Who we share your data with

We do not sell your personal data. We share it only with service providers who process it on our instructions, and with professional advisers, auditors or authorities where the law requires it:

7. Sending data outside the UK

Some of the providers above may process personal data outside the United Kingdom. Where that happens we rely on UK adequacy regulations, or on the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, so that your data keeps an equivalent level of protection. You can ask us for details of the safeguards that apply.

8. How long we keep it

We keep personal data only for as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it, and then delete it or reduce it to anonymous records. In practice:

• Sign-in links expire after 15 minutes; sessions expire after 30 days.
• Enquiries are kept as email correspondence for as long as we need them to answer you and to keep a record of the business relationship.
• Trade account, order and invoice records are kept for the life of the account and then for as long as tax and accounting law requires.
• Newsletter subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe.
• Back-in-stock requests are kept until the notification has been sent.
• Analytics and search records are aggregated and hold no personal data.

9. How we protect it

The site is served only over HTTPS. Sign-in links are single-use, time-limited and stored hashed. Access to the trade portal is limited to the account you are linked to, and access to our internal reports is restricted to authorised staff. Card details never reach our systems. Enquiry forms are validated on the server, limited in length, and protected by Turnstile.

10. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
• have inaccurate data corrected;
• ask us to delete data where we no longer have a good reason to keep it;
• ask us to restrict how we use your data, or object to us using it for our legitimate interests;
• ask us to transfer your data to you or another provider, where it was given to us electronically;
• withdraw consent for marketing at any time;
• opt out of direct marketing.

To exercise any of these, contact us using the details in section 1. We will respond within one month. There is normally no charge.

11. Children

This is a trade-only website intended for business customers. It is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18.

12. Changes to this notice

We may update this notice as our services or systems change. The date and version at the top of the page show when it was last revised. Where a change is significant we will make that clear on the site.

13. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, please tell us first so we can try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK supervisory authority, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.