PLACEHOLDER: legal review pending; remove this note once reviewed.
This policy is part of our terms of service. It applies to every message sent through Retain Flow: email, SMS, WhatsApp and web push.
1. Consent comes first
- Marketing goes only to shoppers who opted in to that channel: at the store’s checkout, in its signup forms, in the Retain Flow popup, or at the browser’s notification prompt. Consent is recorded per channel; agreeing to email is not agreeing to SMS.
- Consent is synced with Shopify. Retain Flow reads each customer’s email, SMS and WhatsApp marketing consent from Shopify, writes changes back, and checks it again right before every send.
- No bought, rented, shared or scraped lists. Imported contacts may only be mailed if the store collected their consent itself and can show it. Cleaning a list does not create consent.
- Joining a loyalty program is not consent to marketing.
- Transactional messages (for example consent confirmations and loyalty notices) may be sent without marketing consent. Cart and checkout reminders are marketing.
2. Every message can be stopped
| Channel | How shoppers opt out | What Retain Flow does |
|---|---|---|
| A one-click unsubscribe header (RFC 8058, shown by Gmail, Yahoo and others) and a visible unsubscribe link in every marketing email | Stops marketing email immediately and writes the change to the customer’s consent in Shopify | |
| SMS | “Send UNSUB to <number>” for that store, and “send REG to 3627” for Pakistan’s national Do Not Call Register, in every promotional SMS | Stops that store’s promotional SMS; registered numbers are filtered out |
| Replying stop, blocking the business, or Meta’s own marketing opt-out | Stops marketing messages on WhatsApp for that store | |
| Web push | The browser’s notification settings | The subscription is deleted as soon as the browser reports it gone |
Stores may not hide, delay or break these mechanisms, or ask for a login to unsubscribe.
3. Bounces and complaints
- Hard bounces and spam complaints are suppressed automatically, both on Amazon SES’s account-level suppression list and on the store’s own list. Suppression is checked before every send.
- Each store has its own email sending reputation (a separate SES tenant), so problems are contained to the store that caused them.
- A store whose bounce or complaint rate rises is paused automatically while we look into it. PLACEHOLDER: publish the exact pause thresholds once they are set.
- We monitor account-wide bounce and complaint rates and act well before the levels at which mailbox providers or Amazon SES would act.
4. Volume, timing and identity
- New sending domains are warmed up gradually, most engaged shoppers first. Until a store verifies its own domain, it sends from our shared domain at low limits.
- Email is authenticated with SPF, DKIM and DMARC, on our shared domain and on each store’s own domain.
- Frequency caps apply per shopper and channel. Defaults: one email in 16 hours; one SMS a day and four a week; one WhatsApp marketing message a day and three a week; two pushes a day.
- Quiet hours: SMS, WhatsApp and push only between 09:00 and 21:00 in the shopper’s time zone. Email has none.
- Every message names the store that sent it. SMS uses the store’s approved sender name.
- No misleading headers, subject lines or sender names, and no content that pretends to be a personal message.
5. Channel rules from others
- WhatsApp: stores must follow Meta’s WhatsApp Business and Commerce policies. Conversations are started only with Meta-approved templates; free-form messages only within the 24-hour customer service window. No unofficial WhatsApp tools.
- SMS in Pakistan: messages follow the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s rules on unsolicited messages, including the Do Not Call Register. Numbers outside Pakistan are blocked unless enabled.
- Email: stores must follow the anti-spam law of the countries their shoppers live in, and the sender requirements of mailbox providers such as Gmail and Yahoo.
6. Content that is not allowed
- Illegal goods or services, gambling, and adult content.
- Phishing, malware, or links to anything other than the store’s own site.
- Deceptive offers, fake urgency, or false claims about health or money.
- Hate, harassment, or content that exploits children.
- Content that infringes someone else’s rights.
PLACEHOLDER: owner to confirm the full list of restricted business types.
7. Enforcement
Depending on how serious a breach is, we may warn the store, pause a channel or a campaign, pause the store’s sending, or close the account. Messages already accepted by a delivery provider may still arrive after a pause. A store that keeps breaking this policy cannot use Retain Flow.
8. Report abuse
If you received a message you never agreed to, reply using the opt-out in the message, and write to [email protected] PLACEHOLDER: confirm this inbox exists with the store’s name and, if you can, the message. We look into every report. Shoppers can find more help on Got a message from a store?.