What is a cookie?
Cookies are text files that contain small pieces of information. They are stored on your computer, tablet or smartphone, and sent to your browser from our web server. Most websites use cookies to gather essential information to provide the user with the best experience.
Cookies ensure websites function as you expect them to:
- They identify which platform you’re using and display an optimised version of the website for that platform.
- They save your login details.
- They remember your language preferences.
Types of cookies we use.
Our website uses three types of cookies:
- Essential to site function cookies
These cookies allow you to browse the site, search for products and add items to the basket. They also remember your preferences, such as your log in details and language preferences. They are essential to ensure our website runs as you would expect. - Performance cookies
These cookies are used to collect anonymous information about how you use our website. They inform us of any error messages from web pages and allow us to improve our website. - Third-party cookies
These allow us to record the customer experience and test new services to improve the customer journey on the website. This can also include on-page advertising from third-parties, where cookies tailor the advertising to your preferences. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.
Consent
According to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) consent to store cookies is not required "for cookies that are essential to provide an online service at someone's request" (e.g. to remember what's in your online basket, or to ensure security).
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-pecr/cookies-and-similar-technologies/
All of our cookies fall under this exception. Therefore we are not required to gain consent before the use of the cookies on this site.
Cookie Details
* indicates a wildcard
We use cookies and similar technologies for the operation of our website and to understand how our website is used.
| Cookie | Purpose |
|---|
basket
quote | This is a functional cookie that is stored when you add an item to your basket or quotation. It enables the site to remember the contents of your basket. It stores an overview of the items added to your basket together with the unique identification code assigned to your basket. |
token | This is a functional cookie that is stored when a registered user logs into the site. It enables the site to recognise the logged-in customer and maintain their authenticated session. |
__Host-vbm_sid | This is a first-party session identifier used by our server-side analytics to understand how our website is used. It contains a randomly generated identifier which allows page views and other interactions occurring during the same browsing session to be counted together. It does not contain your name, email address or other directly identifying information. |
__Host-vbm_vid | This is a first-party visitor identifier used by our server-side analytics to produce statistics about use of our website, such as visitor numbers, page views and user journeys. It contains a randomly generated identifier and does not contain your name, email address or other directly identifying information. We do not use this identifier for advertising or to create profiles about individual visitors. |
Our server-side analytics | Information collected through our server-side analytics is used solely to produce statistical information about how our website is used and to help us monitor and improve the service. Individual-level analytics information is retained only for as long as necessary to produce aggregate statistics. We aggregate this information regularly, including hourly and daily, and do not retain individual browsing histories for long-term analytics. We do not use our server-side analytics for advertising, cross-site tracking or to make decisions about individual visitors. |
_ga* | These cookies relate to Google Analytics and are separate from our server-side analytics. They are used to collect information about how visitors use our site so that we can compile reports and improve the site. |