You can ask us to delete your Proudly SA Online Store account at any time and you do not have to give a reason. This page explains what a deletion removes, what we have to keep and why, and how to ask for one if you do not have the app.
Deleting your account in the app
Open the app, go to the Account tab and choose "Delete my account" at the bottom of the screen. You will be asked for your password, because a phone that is lent, lost or stolen should not be enough to destroy an account, and you will be asked to confirm once. The deletion then happens while you wait, and the app signs you out.
Asking us to delete it without the app
Email [email protected] from the address on the account and ask us to delete it. Say nothing more than that if you do not want to. You can also phone 011 327 7778, Monday to Friday from 08:30 to 17:00, or use the contact form on this website.
We will act on a request that comes from the email address on the account. If you cannot use that address any more, tell us in your message and we will ask you for something else that shows the account is yours. We check, because handing somebody's account to a stranger who asked for it would be the worse failure.
What is removed
Your name, your email address and your password. Your date of birth, your company name and any note held against your account. Your saved delivery addresses, including the phone numbers on them. Anything still in your basket, your wishlist, and any back-in-stock alert you asked for. Your marketing preferences, and your address comes off our mailing list. Your sign-in sessions on every device, in the app and on the website, so you are signed out everywhere at once. If you registered the app for notifications, that registration goes too.
After that you cannot sign in again, and there is no way to restore the account. If you want to shop here again you create a new account, and it starts empty.
If you have never ordered and never started a payment, there is nothing we have to keep and the account is removed outright.
What we have to keep, and why
If you have ordered or paid, the orders stay. That is not a choice we make. An order is an accounting record. Section 24 of the Companies Act 71 of 2008 requires accounting records and the documents supporting them to be kept for seven years, and the Tax Administration Act 28 of 2011 requires five years for records supporting a tax return. The Protection of Personal Information Act allows us to keep a record for longer where another law requires it, and here another law does.
A kept order still carries the name, the delivery address and the amounts that were on it, because that is what makes it a record. What it no longer has is an account attached to it, a password that reaches it or a phone number on it. The phone numbers, and the identity number field if anything was ever in it, are removed from every address on your account.
Your account itself stays behind as an empty stub with no personal details in it, because the orders are attached to it and cutting them loose would leave a vendor's commission and payout records pointing at nothing. The stub carries the name "Deleted Customer" and an email address that cannot receive mail.
The delivery and payment records attached to an order stay in the same way. The waybill, the delivery charge and the tracking reference are kept so the shipment can still be accounted for, and the recipient's name, phone number and street are removed from them. A payment keeps its amount, its reference and whether it succeeded, and loses the details of who made it.
Reviews you have written
A review you left on a product or on a vendor stays published, and your name on it is replaced with "Deleted customer". Reviews are how other shoppers judge a vendor, and pulling them down would change a vendor's rating because somebody closed an account. If you want a particular review taken down as well, say so in your message and we will remove it.
What is on your phone
Your recently viewed products and your recent searches are held on your phone and are not sent to us. Deleting your account in the app clears them, and uninstalling the app removes them too.
If you sell on the marketplace
An account that is also a vendor account cannot be closed from the app, and the app will tell you so rather than pretending it worked. Email [email protected] and we will close it once any outstanding payouts are settled and your listings have been taken down.
If you are not happy with how we handled it
Our Privacy and POPIA policy explains your rights over your own information and how to complain to the Information Regulator. Deleting your account is free, and it always will be.