Privacy policy
Last updated: 28 September 2026
Who we are
Marixia Limited, trading as Marixia Scientific, runs this shop and is the controller of your personal data. We are registered in England and Wales, company number 16982045. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), reference ZC178318. Email info@marixia.co.uk with any data protection question or request.
Our representative in the EU, under Article 27 of the EU GDPR, is Alvatek GmbH, Gartenstrasse 26, 35581 Wetzlar, Germany, info@alvatek.de. If you're in the EU, you can contact Alvatek GmbH instead of us about anything in this notice. It passes your message to us, and we reply.
We sell research materials to organisations. Most of the personal data we hold is business contact data: the names and work contact details of people who order, pay for or receive our products for their organisation.
What we hold and where it comes from
- Order and contact details: name, organisation, work email, phone number, billing and delivery addresses, purchase order or card reference, what was ordered, and our correspondence. These come from you, from a colleague who names you as a delivery or finance contact, or from a regional partner that passes us your order.
- Payment details: how and when an order was paid. We never see full card numbers. For bank transfers we see the payer's name and reference.
- Checks: the results of our fraud, organisation and sanctions checks. We use public sources, such as your organisation's website, company registers and the UK Sanctions List, and fraud indicators from our payment processors.
- Website data: IP address, device and browser details, and how you use the site. Shopify, which runs our shop, collects these, partly through cookies.
We can't take or deliver an order without a name, organisation, email address, phone number and delivery address.
How we use it, and our lawful basis
| Purpose | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Taking, checking, making and delivering orders; invoicing; dealing with problems and claims | Legitimate interests: supplying your organisation under our contract with it. Contract, if you buy in your own name, for example as a sole trader |
| Checking orders for fraud and payment risk, and that the buyer is an organisation | Legitimate interests: preventing fraud and loss |
| Screening buyers, organisations and delivery addresses for sanctions and export-control risks | Legitimate interests: complying with sanctions and export law, and showing that we do |
| Keeping accounting and tax records | Legal obligation |
| Answering enquiries and quotation requests; keeping customer and supplier records | Legitimate interests: running our business |
| Emailing customers, and people who asked us for a quotation, with news of similar products | Legitimate interests; consent where the law requires it |
| Keeping the website working and secure | Legitimate interests |
| Measuring how the website is used (analytics cookies) | Consent, given in the cookie banner |
You can opt out of our product news at any time with the link in each email or by emailing us.
We don't make significant decisions that affect you based solely on automated processing. Our payment processors screen card payments automatically and may decline one.
Who we share it with
- Grove Nanomaterials Limited makes and packs our products in Cardiff. It receives the delivery contact's name, address and phone number, the shipping label and the customs paperwork, and uses them only to dispatch the order, on our instructions.
- Carriers (DHL Express, and Royal Mail in the UK) and customs authorities in the destination country receive the details they need to deliver and clear the parcel. Carriers use them under their own privacy notices.
- Shopify hosts our shop and stores order data for us. Shopify may also use some data from our shop for its own services, as a controller; see Shopify's Consumer Privacy Policy at shopify.com/legal/privacy/consumers. Some US state privacy laws may treat this as a "sale" or "sharing" of personal information; you can opt out on Your privacy choices.
- Shopify Payments processes card payments with Stripe. Stripe also uses payment data for its own purposes, such as preventing fraud and meeting its legal duties. If you pay with a digital wallet, such as Shop Pay, Apple Pay or Google Pay, its provider's privacy notice also applies.
- Regional partners: Alvatek Ltd (UK), Alvatek GmbH (Germany) or Scribner (US), if you choose to buy through one. The partner then sells to you and uses your details under its own privacy notice.
- Our IT and accounting providers, for email, file storage and bookkeeping.
- HMRC and other authorities where the law requires, and professional advisers such as our accountant and solicitors.
Transfers outside the UK
- Shopify processes data in Canada, which UK adequacy regulations cover, and in other countries under the standard contractual clauses in its Data Processing Addendum.
- Alvatek GmbH is in Germany. UK adequacy regulations cover all EEA countries.
- Carriers and customs authorities abroad, and Scribner in the US if you choose it, receive your details because that is necessary to perform the contract for your order.
- Our IT and accounting providers may process data outside the UK. Where they do, they rely on UK adequacy regulations or the UK's approved contract terms.
Email us for a copy of the safeguards.
How long we keep it
- Orders, invoices, payment, delivery and customs records: 6 years after the end of the financial year they relate to, as UK tax law requires.
- Records of our order and sanctions checks: 6 years after the order.
- Enquiries and quotations that don't lead to an order: 2 years after our last contact.
- Delivery details held by Grove: deleted within 30 days of dispatch.
- Cookies: as shown in the cookie banner.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of your data, and ask us to correct or delete it, to restrict our use of it, or to give you data you provided in a reusable format. You can object to our use of it, and to marketing at any time. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it. Some rights have limits: for example, we must keep invoices for 6 years.
Email info@marixia.co.uk to use a right, or, in the EU, our representative Alvatek GmbH. We reply within one month of receiving your request and anything we need to confirm who you are. For a complex request we can take up to two more months, and we'll tell you why within the first month.
Complaints
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, please tell us first at info@marixia.co.uk. We'll acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it, keep you informed and tell you the outcome without undue delay.
You can also complain to the ICO at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113. The ICO usually asks people to raise a complaint with the organisation first. In the EU, you can also complain to the data protection authority in the country where you live or work.
Cookies
Shopify, which runs our shop, sets cookies. Essential cookies keep the basket and checkout working. Others, such as Shopify's analytics cookies, are used only if you accept them in the cookie banner. You can change your choice at any time with "Cookie preferences" at the bottom of each page. We don't use third-party advertising cookies or tracking pixels.
Changes to this notice
We'll post changes here and update the date at the top. If we plan to use your data for a new purpose, we'll tell you first.