Privacy Policy

Who we are

Tradeora is a South African sourcing and Request-for-Quote marketplace, connecting buyers with suppliers. It's built and operated by Vahlave Quick Tech Solutions, based in Gauteng, South Africa. For anything in this policy, reach us at info@tradeora.co.za.

Information we collect

Directly from you:

• Account details — name, email address, phone number, and a password (stored as a one-way hash, never in readable form). If you sign up with Google instead, we receive your name, email address, and whether Google considers that email verified — see "Sign in with Google" below.
• Business/individual profile — business or individual name, category, description, province and city, address, public phone/email/website, logo, and, if you register as a formal business, an optional registration number and any verification documents you choose to upload for admin review.
• Marketplace activity — requests for quote (RFQs) you post, quotes you submit, product/service listings, orders, reviews and star ratings you leave, messages you send to other users, and disputes you raise. Some of this is inherently visible to other users or the public by design — a supplier profile, a listing, an open RFQ, and a review are all meant to be seen; see "How we share information" below.
• Support & communication — anything you send us directly, e.g. by email.

Automatically, as you use the site: page-view and traffic-source analytics, and a small set of cookies — both covered in full, cookie by cookie, in our separate Cookie Policy. We deliberately do not log IP addresses or full referrer URLs against your activity — our analytics table only ever stores the page path, a coarse traffic-source bucket (direct / search / social / referral / internal), and, only once you've accepted preference cookies, a random visitor id that carries no personal information in it.

How we use your information

To run the marketplace: create and secure your account, match buyers with relevant suppliers, deliver notifications about your RFQs/quotes/orders/messages (in-app, and by email or browser push if you've enabled them), review and verify business profiles, and moderate content that breaks our Terms of Service.

To improve the platform: understand which pages and traffic sources are working, and — for approved, verified sellers only — measure signups that come through their own referral link (see Grow your reach). We do not use your data to train any third-party AI model, and we do not sell your personal information to anyone.

Google services we use

We use a small number of Google products, each disclosed here specifically because Google requires it of any site that uses them.

Google AdSense

Tradeora displays ads served by Google AdSense. Google and its advertising partners may set cookies, use web beacons, or read device identifiers in your browser to serve ads — including, where permitted, ads based on your visits to this and other sites. This happens independently of anything Tradeora itself stores. You can see how Google uses this information and control your ad personalization at policies.google.com/technologies/partner-sites, and opt out of personalized advertising at myadcenter.google.com or, for non-Google vendors, aboutads.info/choices. If you're in the EU/EEA or UK, Google may also request your consent choices directly, per its EU user consent policy.

Sign in with Google

If you choose "Continue with Google" instead of a password, Google shares your name, email address, and email-verified status with us via a standard OAuth sign-in — we never see or store your Google password. We use that information only to create or sign you into your Tradeora account (auto-linking to an existing account only when Google confirms the email is verified, so no one can claim an account that isn't theirs); we don't request access to your Gmail, Drive, contacts, or any other Google data, and we don't request any Google API scope beyond your basic sign-in profile. This use of Google user data complies with the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements — the data is used solely to provide the account sign-in feature described here, never sold, and never used for advertising.

Google Search Console

We submit our sitemap to Google Search Console so Tradeora shows up in Google Search. This only involves already-public pages (supplier profiles, listings, the RFQ board) — nothing account-specific is shared with Google through this.

Other services we use

• Brevo (transactional email) sends account-related emails on our behalf — confirmation links, password resets, and notifications. Only the minimum needed for that email (your address, name, and the message content) is shared with them, governed by Brevo's own privacy policy.
• Our web host processes standard server logs (e.g. for security and uptime) as part of hosting the site.
• We do not currently use a payment processor — Tradeora charges no commission, subscription, or listing fee, and no payment card details are ever collected by us.

How we share information

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only:

• As part of how the marketplace works: your business/individual profile, listings, open RFQs, and reviews are visible to other users (and, unless marked otherwise, to the public and search engines) by design — that's what makes the marketplace function.
• With the service providers named above (Google, Brevo, our host), strictly to provide the features described.
• If required by law, to protect Tradeora's or others' rights and safety, or to investigate fraud or abuse.
• If Vahlave Quick Tech Solutions is ever involved in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets — with the same protections carried over.

Data retention

We keep account and marketplace data for as long as your account is active, plus a reasonable period after (for legal, security, and dispute-resolution reasons). Single-use tokens (email confirmation, password reset) are short-lived and cleared once used or expired — see our Cookie Policy for individual cookie lifetimes. If you close your account, ask us at info@tradeora.co.za and we'll delete or de-identify what we're not legally required to keep.

Your rights

Under South Africa's Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), you have the right to ask us what personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected if it's wrong, to ask us to delete it (subject to what we're legally required to retain), and to object to certain uses of it. Most of your own account and profile information can already be updated directly from Account settings once logged in. For anything else, email info@tradeora.co.za and we'll respond within a reasonable time.

If you believe we've mishandled your information, you're entitled to lodge a complaint with South Africa's Information Regulator. If you're visiting from outside South Africa, your information will still be processed here, under South African law. For the formal process to request access to a specific record we hold, see our PAIA Manual.

Security

Passwords are never stored in readable form. Sensitive one-time links (email confirmation, password reset) use single-use, hashed tokens rather than storing the raw link. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable technical steps to protect your information and expect the same from every third party named above.

Children's privacy

Tradeora is intended for people old enough to enter into a binding contract in their jurisdiction (18+ in South Africa) and isn't directed at children. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children; if you believe a child has given us information, contact us and we'll remove it.