Store Connections & Data Use

Sellers can connect their own online store to Sourship so that orders arrive here automatically, stock stays in step, and tracking goes back to the store. This page explains, in plain words, exactly what we receive from a connected store, what we do with it, what we never do with it, and how it is deleted. It applies to Shopify, WooCommerce, Etsy and eBay connections, and it sits alongside our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

1. One purpose: fulfilment

We act as a service provider to the seller who connects the store. We use store data for one purpose only: to fulfil that seller’s own orders. In practice that means:

• Importing the seller’s orders so they can be picked, packed and shipped
• Keeping stock levels in step between our warehouse and the seller’s store
• Creating or updating the seller’s own listings, only when the seller asks for it
• Sending tracking numbers back to the store once an order ships
• Answering the seller’s support questions about those orders

2. What we receive

Through the marketplace’s own API, and only after the seller authorises it:

• Orders: order number, items, quantities, prices, and the delivery details needed to ship the parcel — the buyer’s name, delivery address and, where the marketplace provides it, a contact email or phone number
• Listings: the seller’s own product titles, variants, SKUs, images and stock levels
• Store identity: the store’s name, address and currency
• Access keys: the connection token issued by the marketplace, stored encrypted

We ask each marketplace for the narrowest set of permissions the work needs, and we never ask a seller for their marketplace password.

3. What we never do

• We do not research, rank, monitor or analyse other people’s shops. Sourship has no competitor-analysis, keyword-research or sales-estimate tool of any kind.
• We do not read any shop but the one the seller connected.
• We do not sell, rent or share store data, and we do not pass it to advertising or marketing platforms.
• We do not use it to train artificial-intelligence models.
• We do not scrape marketplace websites or use automated browsing. Everything comes through the marketplace’s official API.
• We do not contact buyers. We never email, message or market to them; only the seller and the carrier do.
• We do not use one seller’s data for another seller, and we publish no combined or anonymised marketplace statistics.

4. Who can see it

• The seller who connected the store, in their own account.
• Sourship staff, only to prepare and ship those orders and to answer support requests. Staff access is limited to the sellers they serve, and their actions are logged. Orders are packed and shipped from our warehouse in China, so the delivery details are handled there.
• Service providers we depend on to run the service: hosting, email delivery, payment processing, and the carriers who deliver the parcel. They may use the data only to provide that service to us.

5. How long we keep it, and how it is deleted

• Raw order messages received from a marketplace are erased within 90 days. We keep only what the order record itself needs.
• Disconnecting a store immediately revokes our access and erases that store’s buyer details — names, contact details and delivery addresses — from our system.
• Sellers can erase a store’s data themselves, at any time, from the Connected Stores page in their account.
• Erasure requests from a marketplace are honoured. Shopify’s and eBay’s automatic requests are applied as they arrive; an Etsy request sent to the address below is applied within 30 days.
• Account deletion can be requested at any time and is completed within 30 days, except where we must keep a record to meet a legal or tax obligation.

What an erasure keeps: the order’s amounts, items and tracking numbers, because we are required to keep a record of the transaction. What it removes: every personal detail about the buyer.

6. Security

Connection keys are stored encrypted and are never shown again after a store is connected. Data is transmitted over encrypted connections, access is restricted to the staff who need it, and access is logged. If we ever discover that store or buyer data has been exposed, we notify the affected seller and the marketplace within 24 hours of discovering it.

7. Independence and trademarks

Sourship is an independent service. It is not operated, endorsed, certified or sponsored by any marketplace.

The term “Etsy” is a trademark of Etsy, Inc. This application uses the Etsy API but is not endorsed or certified by Etsy.

Shopify, WooCommerce and eBay are trademarks of their respective owners and are used here only to say which stores Sourship can connect to.

8. Sellers stay responsible for their shops

Each marketplace has its own rules about what may be sold and how listings must be described. The seller decides what to list and remains responsible for following those rules. Listings that Sourship creates for a seller’s WooCommerce or Shopify store arrive as drafts for the seller to review and publish. An eBay listing goes on sale only once the seller has allocated units to it. Sourship never creates Etsy listings. For the listings it does create, Sourship passes on the origin details the marketplace asks for, such as who made the item and which production partner was used.

9. Contact

For any question about this page, or to ask us to delete store data, contact us:

Email: support@sourship.com

Website: www.sourship.com/contact