What are cookies?


A cookie is a small amount of information that’s downloaded to your computer or device when you visit certain websites. We use a number of different cookies on the Shopify website, including strictly necessary, performance, advertising, and social media or content cookies. Cookies make your browsing experience better by allowing the website to remember your actions and preferences (such as login and region selection). This means you don’t have to re-enter this information each time you return to the site or browse from one page to another. Cookies also provide information on how people use the website, for instance whether it’s their first time visiting or if they are a frequent visitor. Read more about cookies (and other similar tracking technologies) and how we use the data collected through these technologies, in our Privacy Policy.

 

What cookies do we use and why?


Some cookies are necessary to allow you to browse our website, use its features, and access secure areas. The use of these cookies is essential for the website to work. For example, we use user-input cookies for the duration of a session to keep track of a user’s input when filling in forms that span several pages.

We also use functional cookies to remember choices you’ve made or information you’ve provided, such as your username, language, or the region you are in. This allows us to tailor your website experience specifically to your preferences. For example, authentication cookies are functional cookies that are used for the duration of a session (or persistent, if you agree to the “remember me” function) to allow users to authenticate themselves on subsequent visits or to gain access to authorized content across pages. The functional cookies we use include:

  • User-centric security cookies to detect authentication abuses for a limited persistent duration, like repeated failed login attempts. These cookies are set for the specific task of increasing thesecurity of the service.

  • Multimedia content player session cookies (flash cookies) are used for the duration of a session to store technical data needed to play back video or audio content (e.g. image quality, network link speed, and buffering parameters).

  • Load balancing session cookies are used for the duration of the session to identify the same server in the pool in order for the load balancer to redirect user requests appropriately.

  • User interface customization persistent cookies are used to store a user’s preference regarding a service across web pages.

Shopify is dedicated to user experience and we use many tools to help us improve our website and our commerce platform. To this end, we use reporting and analytics cookies to collect information about how you use our website or our merchants’ storefronts, and how often. These cookies only gather information for statistical purposes and only use pseudonymous cookie identifiers that do not directly identify you. The performance cookies we use include:

  • First party analytics cookies - We use these cookies to estimate the number of unique visitors, to improve our websites and our merchants’ websites, and to detect the most searched for words in search engines that lead to a webpage. These cookies are not used to target you with online marketing. We use these cookies to learn how our websites and our merchants’ websites are performing and make relevant improvements to improve your browsing experience.

  • Third party analytics cookies - We also use Google Analytics and other third-party analytics providers listed below to help measure how users interact with our website content. These cookies “remember” what our users have done on previous pages and how they’ve interacted with the website. For more information on Google Analytics, visit Google’s information page. For instructions on how opt out of Google Analytics, see below.

Advertising cookies are used on our website to tailor marketing to you and your interests and provide you with a more personalized service in the future. These cookies remember that you visited our website and we may share this information with third-parties, such as advertisers. Although these cookies can track your device’s visits to our website and other sites, they typically cannot personally identify you. Without these cookies, the advertisements that you see may be less relevant and interesting to you. Read more about how companies use cookies to conduct targeted or retargeted advertising here. We do not set advertising cookies through our merchants’ storefronts ourselves, though merchants may choose to do so independently.

Finally, Social and Content cookies are placed by many social media plugins (for example the Facebook ’like’ button), and other tools meant to provide or improve the content on a website (for example services that allow the playing of video files, or that create comments sections). We integrate these modules into our platform to improve the experience of browsing and interacting with our websites. Please note that some of these third party services place cookies that are also used for things like behavioural advertising, analytics, and/or market research.
 

 

Merchant storefronts

When merchants use our platform to power their online stores, we place the following cookies for visitors of their stores:

Cookies Necessary for the Functioning of the Store:

NameFunction
_abUsed in connection with access to admin.
_secure_session_idUsed in connection with navigation through a storefront.
CartUsed in connection with shopping cart.
cart_currencyUsed in connection with shopping cart.
cart_sigUsed in connection with checkout.
cart_tsUsed in connection with checkout.
cart_verUsed in connection with shopping cart.
checkoutUsed in connection with checkout.
checkout_tokenUsed in connection with checkout.
cookietestUsed in connection with navigation through a storefront.
master_device_idUsed in connection with merchant login.
previous_checkout_tokenUsed in connection with checkout.
previous_stepUsed in connection with checkout.
remember_meUsed in connection with checkout.
SecretUsed in connection with checkout.
Secure_customer_sigUsed in connection with customer login.
storefront_digestUsed in connection with customer login.
_shopify_countryUsed in connection with checkout.
_shopify_mUsed for managing customer privacy settings.
_shopify_tmUsed for managing customer privacy settings.
_shopify_twUsed for managing customer privacy settings.
_storefront_uUsed to facilitate updating customer account information.
_tracking_consentTracking preferences.
tracked_start_checkoutUsed in connection with checkout.

 

Reporting and Analytics

NameFunction
_landing_pageTrack landing pages.
_orig_referrerTrack landing pages.
_sShopify analytics.
_shopify_dShopify analytics.
_shopify_fsShopify analytics.
_shopify_sShopify analytics.
_shopify_sa_pShopify analytics relating to marketing & referrals.
_shopify_sa_tShopify analytics relating to marketing & referrals.
_shopify_yShopify analytics.
_yShopify analytics.

Shopify’s websites

When visitors load Shopify’s websites, we generally place the following Shopify cookies:

Cookies Necessary for the Functioning of the Sites

NameFunction
_Brochure_sessionUsed in connection with browsing through site.

 

Reporting and Analytics

NameFunction
_landing_pageTracks landing pages.
_orig_referrerTracks landing pages.
_sShopify analytics.
_shopify_fsShopify analytics.
_shopify_sShopify analytics.
_shopify_sa_tShopify analytics relating to marketing & referrals.
_shopify_uniqShopify analytics.
_shopify_yShopify analytics.
_yShopify analytics.
ab_test_*Shopify analytics.
cart_sigShopify analytics.
ki_rShopify analytics.
ki_tShopify analytics.

 

Additionally, we use pixels and tags from the following third parties, which may in turn place cookies:

Reporting & Analytics:

Advertising:

Third PartyDescriptionPrivacy Policy
Microsoft AdvertisingWe use Microsoft Advertising to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites.https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-ca/privacystatement
DriftWe use Drift to help us with conversational marketing to customers while they visit our websites.https://www.drift.com/privacy-policy/
Facebook Custom AudiencesWe use Facebook Custom Audiences to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites.https://www.facebook.com/policy.php
GoogleWe use Google Ads to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites.https://policies.google.com/privacy

 

Social Media & Content:

Third PartyDescriptionPrivacy Policy
Facebook ConnectWe use Facebook Connect to allow visitors to our website to interact with and share content via Facebook’s social media platform.https://www.facebook.com/policy.php
GravatarWe use Gravatar to allow visitors to our websites to create avatars.https://en.gravatar.com/site/privacy


How do you delete cookies?

Do you want to know which cookies have been placed on your device, or do you want to delete them? To do so, adjust your browser settings.

On the following pages, you can read how to detect cookies and delete them from your browser: