Cookies policy

COOKIES POLICY
Last updated December 21, 2023

This document is meant to explain the types of cookies and other tracking technologies that Shopify may place on your device, either when you are visiting our web properties, or if you are visiting the storefront of a merchant who uses our platform to power their site.


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 several 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 or in Shopify's 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 the security 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 to 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:

NAME FUNCTION DURATION
_ab Used in connection with access to admin. 2y
_customer_account_shop_sessions Used in combination with the _secure_account_session_id cookie to track a user's session for new customer accounts 30d
_secure_account_session_id Used to track a user's session for new customer accounts 30d
_secure_session_id Used to track a user's session through the multi-step checkout process and keep their order, payment and shipping details connected. 24h
_shopify_country For shops where pricing currency/country set from GeoIP, that cookie stores the country we've detected. This cookie helps avoid doing GeoIP lookups after the first request. session
_shopify_m Used for managing customer privacy settings. 1y
_shopify_tm Used for managing customer privacy settings. 30min
_shopify_tw Used for managing customer privacy settings. 2w
_storefront_u Used to facilitate updating customer account information. 1min
_tracking_consent Used to store a user's preferences if a merchant has set up privacy rules in the visitor's region. 1y
_cmp_a Used for managing customer privacy settings. 1d
c Used in connection with checkout. 1y
cart Used in connection with shopping cart. 2w
cart_currency Set after a checkout is completed to ensure that new carts are in the same currency as the last checkout. 2w
cart_sig A hash of the contents of a cart. This is used to verify the integrity of the cart and to ensure performance of some cart operations. 2w
cart_ts Used in connection with checkout. 2w
cart_ver Used in connection with shopping cart. 2w
checkout Used in connection with checkout. 4w
checkout_token Used in connection with checkout. 1y
customer_account_locale Used in connection with new customer accounts 1y
dynamic_checkout_shown_on_cart Used in connection with checkout. 30min
hide_shopify_pay_for_checkout Used in connection with checkout. session
keep_alive Used in connection with buyer localization. 2w
master_device_id Used in connection with merchant login. 2y
previous_step Used in connection with checkout. 1y
discount_code Used in connection with checkout. session
remember_me Used in connection with checkout. 1y
secure_customer_sig Used to identify a user after they sign into a shop as a customer so they do not need to log in again. 1y
shopify_pay Used in connection with checkout. 1y
shopify_pay_redirect Used in connection with checkout. 1 hour, 3w or 1y depending on value
shop_pay_accelerated Used in connection with checkout. 1y
source_name Used in combination with mobile apps to provide custom checkout behavior, when viewing a store from within a compatible mobile app. session
storefront_digest Stores a digest of the storefront password, allowing merchants to preview their storefront while it's password protected. 2y
tracked_start_checkout Used in connection with checkout. 1y
checkout_session_lookup Used in connection with checkout. 3w
checkout_prefill Used in connection with checkout. 5m
checkout_queue_token Used in connection with checkout. 1y
checkout_queue_checkout_token Used in connection with checkout. 1y
checkout_worker_session Used in connection with checkout. 3d
checkout_session_token Used in connection with checkout. 3w
checkout_session_token_<<token>> Used in connection with checkout. 3w
cookietest Used to ensure our systems are working correctly 1m
order Used in connection with order status page. 3w
identity-state Used in connection with customer authentication 24h
identity-state-<<token>> Used in connection with customer authentication 24h
identity_customer_account_number Used in connection with customer authentication 12w
card_update_verification_id Used in connection with checkout. 20m
customer_account_new_login Used in connection with customer authentication 20m
customer_account_preview Used in connection with customer authentication 7d
customer_payment_method Used in connection with checkout. 1h
customer_shop_pay_agreement Used in connection with checkout. 20m
pay_update_intent_id Used in connection with checkout. 20m
localization Used in connection with checkout. 2w
profile_preview_token Used in connection with checkout. 5m
login_with_shop_finalize Used in connection with customer authentication 5m
preview_theme Used in connection with the theme editor session
shopify-editor-unconfirmed-settings Used in connection with the theme editor 16h
wpm-test-cookie Used to ensure our systems are working correctly. session

Reporting and Analytics

NAME DESCRIPTION DURATION
_landing_page Track landing pages. 2w
_orig_referrer Track landing pages. 2w
_s Shopify analytics. 30min
_shopify_d Shopify analytics. session
_shopify_fs Shopify analytics. 30min
_shopify_s Shopify analytics. 30min
_shopify_sa_p Shopify analytics relating to marketing & referrals. 30min
_shopify_sa_t Shopify analytics relating to marketing & referrals. 30min
_shopify_y Shopify analytics. 1y
_y Shopify analytics. 1y
_shopify_ga Shopify and Google Analytics. session
customer_auth_provider Shopify analytics. session
customer_auth_session_created_at Shopify analytics. session
shop_analytics Shopify analytics. 1y
unique_interaction_id Shopify analytics. 10min

Shopify’s websites

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

Cookies Necessary for the Functioning of the Sites

NAME DESCRIPTION DURATION
_Brochure_session Used in connection with browsing through site. -
checkout Used in connection with Pay checkout on shop.app. 3w
signed_in Used in connection with Shop login. 1y
user Used in connection with Shop login. 1y

Reporting and Analytics

NAME FUNCTION
_landing_page Tracks landing pages.
_orig_referrer Tracks landing pages.
_s Shopify analytics.
_session_id Shopify analytics
_shopify_s Shopify analytics.
_shopify_sa_t Shopify analytics relating to marketing & referrals.
_shopify_uniq Shopify analytics.
_shopify_y Shopify analytics.
_y Shopify analytics.
*_assignment Shopify analytics
ab_test_* Shopify analytics.
cart_sig Shopify analytics.
ki_r Shopify analytics.
ki_t Shopify analytics.

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

Cookies Necessary for the Functioning of the Sites

THIRD PARTY DESCRIPTION PRIVACY POLICY
Cloudflare Shopify uses Cloudflare Network as a Service for edge routing. https://www.cloudflare.com/privacypolicy/

Reporting & Analytics

THIRD PARTY DESCRIPTION PRIVACY POLICY
Alexa Metrics We use Alexa Metrics to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.alexa.com/help/privacy
Bizible We use Bizible to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://documents.marketo.com/legal/privacy/
Chartbeat We use Chartbeat to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://chartbeat.com/privacy/
Crazy Egg We use Crazy Egg to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.crazyegg.com/privacy
Datadog RUM We use Datadog RUM to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.datadoghq.com/legal/privacy/
DC Analytics We use DC Analytics to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://dcanalytics.dcmn.com/privacy-policy
Facebook Pixel We use Facebook Pixel to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation
Fullstory We use Fullstory to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.fullstory.com/legal/privacy/
Google Analytics We use Google Analytics to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://policies.google.com/privacy
Google Tag Manager We use Google Tag Manager to help manage analytics vendors. https://policies.google.com/privacy
Hotjar We use Hotjar to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.hotjar.com/legal/policies/privacy
iSpot We use iSpot to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.ispot.tv/terms-of-service
KissInsights We use KissInsights to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://signin.kissmetrics.com/privacy/
LinkedIn Insight Tag We use LinkedIn Insight Tag to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy
New Relic We use New Relic to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://newrelic.com/termsandconditions/privacy
Optimizely We use Optimizely to help us test improvements or changes to our websites. https://www.optimizely.com/privacy/
Pinterest Analytics We use Pinterest Analytics to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://policy.pinterest.com/privacy-policy
Segment We use Segment to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://segment.com/legal/privacy/
Snapchat We use Snapchat to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://snap.com/privacy/privacy-policy
Taboola We use Taboola to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.taboola.com/policies/privacy-policy
Tealium We use Tealium to help manage analytics vendors. https://tealium.com/privacy/
TikTok We use TikTok to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.tiktok.com/legal/privacy-policy?lang=en
Twitter We use Twitter to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://twitter.com/en/privacy
Yelp Audience Platform We use Yelp to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://terms.yelp.com/privacy/en_us/20200101_en_us/

Advertising

THIRD PARTY DESCRIPTION PRIVACY POLICY
Microsoft Advertising We use Microsoft Advertising to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites. https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-ca/privacystatement
Drift We use Drift to help us with conversational marketing to customers while they visit our websites. https://www.drift.com/privacy-policy/
Facebook Custom Audiences We use Facebook Custom Audiences to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites. https://www.facebook.com/policy.php
Google We use Google Ads to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites. https://policies.google.com/privacy
Hubspot We use Hubspot to manage our relationships with our customers. https://legal.hubspot.com/privacy-policy
Intercom We use Intercom to manage our relationships with our customers. https://www.intercom.com/terms-and-policies#privacy
Marketo We use Marketo to manage our relationships with our customers. https://documents.marketo.com/legal/privacy/
Outbrain We use Outbrain to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites. https://www.outbrain.com/privacy
Quora We use Quora to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites. https://www.quora.com/about/privacy
Reddit We use Reddit Ads to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites. https://www.reddit.com/help/privacypolicy
SourceKnowledge We use SourceKnowledge to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites. http://www.sourceknowledge.com/privacy
Yahoo Japan Ads We use Yahoo Japan Ads to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites. https://about.yahoo.co.jp/common/terms/

Social Media & Content

THIRD PARTY DESCRIPTION PRIVACY POLICY
Disqus We use Disqus to provide commenting capabilities on posts on our websites. https://help.disqus.com/terms-and-policies/disqus-privacy-policy
Facebook Connect We 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
Gravatar We use Gravatar to allow visitors to our websites to create avatars. https://en.gravatar.com/site/privacy
Twitter We use Twitter to allow visitors to our website to interact with and share content via Twitter’s social media platform. https://twitter.com/en/privacy
Wistia We use Wistia to display video content. https://wistia.com/privacy

Oberlo websites

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

Cookies Necessary for the Functioning of the Sites

NAME FUNCTION
oberlo_session Used in connection with navigation through an app.
shippingCountry Used in connection with navigation through an app. For product exploration, calculating shipping price.
user_locale Used in connection with customer login. For storing language chosen in log-in page.
hideFufilmentBanner Used in connection with navigation through an app.
hideBulkOrderingFeatureBanner Used in connection with navigation through an app.
hideChangePlanBannerBulkFulfillment Used in connection with navigation through an app.
hideBanner101 Used in connection with navigation through an app.
alert_setup_notifications_1 Used in connection with navigation through an app.

Reporting and Analytics

NAME FUNCTION
conversion Oberlo analytics.
conversion_leave Oberlo analytics.
trackExtensionCheck Oberlo analytics.
shopify_ref Analytics relating to marketing & referrals. Referrals tracking.

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

Reporting & Analytics:

THIRD PARTY DESCRIPTION PRIVACY POLICY
Loggly We use Loggly to help us troubleshoot and fix issues with our websites. https://www.loggly.com/about/privacy-policy/
Sleeknote We use Sleeknote to measure how people interact with our website. https://sleeknote.com/privacy-policy
Inspectlet We use Inspectlet to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.inspectlet.com/terms-of-service
Google Analytics We use Google Analytics to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://policies.google.com/privacy
Fullstory We use Fullstory to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.fullstory.com/legal/privacy/
KissInsights We use KissInsights to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://signin.kissmetrics.com/privacy/
Optimizely We use Optimizely to help us test improvements or changes to our websites. https://www.optimizely.com/privacy/
LinkedIn Insight Tag We use LinkedIn Insight Tag to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://www.linkedin.com/legal/privacy-policy
Tapfiliate We use Tapfiliate to help measure how users interact with our websites. https://tapfiliate.com/privacy/privacy-policy/

Advertising:

THIRD PARTY DESCRIPTION PRIVACY POLICY
Microsoft Advertising We use Microsoft Advertising to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites. https://privacy.microsoft.com/en-ca/privacystatement
Facebook Custom Audiences We use Facebook Custom Audiences to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites. https://www.facebook.com/policy.php
Google We use Google Ads to deliver targeted advertisements to individuals who visit our websites. https://policies.google.com/privacy
Intercom We use Intercom to manage our relationships with our customers. https://www.intercom.com/terms-and-policies#privacy

Social Media & Content:

THIRD PARTY DESCRIPTION PRIVACY POLICY
Disqus We use Disqus to provide commenting capabilities on posts on our websites. https://help.disqus.com/terms-and-policies/disqus-privacy-policy
Facebook Connect We 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
Gravatar We use Gravatar to allow visitors to our websites to create avatars. https://en.gravatar.com/site/privacy
Youtube We use Youtube to display video content. https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en-US
Wistia We use Wistia to display video content. https://wistia.com/privacy
AddThis We use AddThis to display social share capabilities on the website. https://www.addthis.com/privacy/terms-of-service
Twitter We use Twitter to allow visitors to our website to interact with and share content via Twitter’s social media platform. https://twitter.com/en/privacy
Kajabi We use Kajabi to serve Oberlo 101 course material. https://kajabi.com/policies/privacy

How long will cookies remain on my computer or mobile device?

The length of time that a cookie remains on your computer or mobile device depends on whether it is a “persistent” or “session” cookie. Session cookies last until you stop browsing and persistent cookies last until they expire or are deleted. Most of the cookies we use are persistent and will expire between 30 minutes and two years from the date they are downloaded to your device. See the section below on how to control cookies for more information on removing them before they expire.

How to control cookies?

You can control and manage cookies in various ways. Please keep in mind that removing or blocking cookies can negatively impact your user experience and parts of our website may no longer be fully accessible.

Most browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can choose whether or not to accept cookies through your browser controls, often found in your browser’s “Tools” or “Preferences” menu. For more information on how to modify your browser settings or how to block, manage or filter cookies can be found in your browser’s help file or through such sites as: www.allaboutcookies.org.

Many of the third-party advertising and other tracking services listed above offer you the opportunity to opt out of their tracking systems. You can read more about the information they collect and how to opt-out through the privacy policy links listed above.