Privacy Policy

Shopi Limited ("Shopi", "we", "us") operates Shopi, Kenya's social discovery classifieds marketplace. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, and the choices you have.

Shopi is a platform that helps buyers and sellers find each other. We do not process payments, hold money, arrange delivery, or take a commission on any sale. This affects the kind of information we collect — for example, we never ask for your card details or M-Pesa PIN.

By using Shopi, you agree to the collection and use of information as described in this policy.

Account information

When you register, we collect your email address and a password (if you sign up with email), or basic profile details shared by Google, Apple, or Facebook when you sign up using one of those services.

Profile information

You can add a username, first name, last name, avatar, bio, and website link. Some of this is visible to other users on your public profile.

Listings you create

When you post a listing, we collect the title, caption, hashtags, price and currency, whether the price is negotiable, any custom specifications you add, and the location you choose (county, sub-county, ward, and place details). You choose what location detail to share on each listing.

Contact number

If you add a phone number when posting, we save it to your account and your listings so you only type it once. It is not shown publicly: a signed-in buyer can reveal it on your listing to call or WhatsApp you.

Bulk uploads

If you upload listings from an Excel sheet, we read the titles, descriptions, prices and other details in it to create your draft listings.

Invite programme

If you invite people to Shopi, we store your invite code, who joined through your link, and the M-Pesa number you give us for rewards. We send rewards over M-Pesa and never ask for your M-Pesa PIN.

Media you upload

Photos and videos you upload to create listings, including videos imported from TikTok if you use that feature.

Messages

When you message another user, we store the content of that conversation so both people can see their message history. If you choose to share your location in a message, we store the coordinates and label you provided.

Reports and blocks

If you report a conversation or block another user, we store the reason and any details you provide so we can review the report.

Device and usage information

We automatically receive some technical information when you use Shopi, such as your browser and device type, language, time zone, screen and viewport dimensions, referral source, general usage patterns, and information needed to keep your session secure. When you are signed in, our service may also record a random session identifier with browser and device details to understand sessions and protect the service.

Analytics and interaction events

We measure how people use Shopi to improve the marketplace. Events can include page views, which homepage buttons are clicked, seller and listing interactions, and steps in creating a post — such as starting a post, choosing a format, media upload status, submitting details, saving a draft, and attempting or completing publication. Event details may include the button placement, post category, media type, page surface, and referral or campaign source.

These analytics events do not include your listing title or description, phone number, message text, or the photo or video itself. We store some seller and listing interaction events on our service using a random session identifier and the relevant seller or listing reference; message and call content is not included.

Explore search analytics

When you search in Explore, we may send the settled search phrase to our service to understand what people are looking for and improve the marketplace. We normalize and aggregate phrases into search counts without attaching your account, session, or IP address to those search records. Queries that look like an email address or a phone number are filtered out. Please avoid entering personal or sensitive information in a search.

Analytics providers

We use Vercel Analytics for website usage measurement. We also use Google Tag Manager to load and manage analytics tags. The app sends interaction events to Google Tag Manager's data layer. Google Analytics receives page views or those events only when the container has the corresponding Google Analytics tags configured and published. Those tags may also send technical, referral, and campaign information. Google Analytics may use first-party cookies such as _gato distinguish visits. If a Meta Pixel is enabled, Meta receives page views, account registration, and successful post publication events. The tags active in the Tag Manager container can change, and a tag may send information to its provider under that provider's privacy terms.

Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics and the Meta Pixel load only if you accept analytics cookies. You can change your choice at any time with the "Cookie settings" link in the site footer.

Approximate location from your IP address

When you first sign in, we work out an approximate location (county level at best) from your IP address to understand where our users are. We don't store the IP address itself.

Profile visits

If you view someone's profile while signed in, we record the visit and that person can see that you viewed their profile.

Location information

If you allow it, we use your browser's location permission to show you listings near you and to help you set an accurate location when creating a listing. You can decline this permission — location-based features simply won't work as well.

Push notification data

If you enable push notifications, we store the technical subscription details needed to deliver them (such as the notification endpoint and encryption keys), along with your locale and browser/device type.

Local and session storage

We use your browser's local storage to keep you signed in and to remember your theme preference (light/dark mode). We use session storage for things like restoring your scroll position when you navigate back to a feed, and to remember short-lived states such as where to send you after signing in.

See our Cookie Policy for details about browser storage and analytics tags.

• Create and manage your account
• Show your listings to other users and let them find you through search and nearby browsing
• Enable direct messaging between buyers and sellers
• Auto-suggest a category for your listing using automated classification, so it's easier to find
• Send you push notifications you've opted into (like new messages)
• Investigate reports of abuse, harassment, or fraud, and enforce our Community Guidelines
• Keep the platform secure and prevent misuse

Shopi Agent is our built-in AI assistant. To do its job, it processes the content you give it:

• Creating listings: from your photos, videos and any text you add, it suggests a title, description, category, specifications and price. For bulk uploads, it fills in the category and specifications from the media you attach.
• Finding products: it reads what you type, or a photo you share, to find matching listings.
• Categories: it suggests a category for listings so buyers can find them.

Suggestions are generated automatically and can be wrong. You review and can edit everything before a listing is published — nothing is posted without you. Shopi Agent does not message, negotiate or buy on anyone's behalf.

Other users:Your public profile, listings, and any messages you send are visible to the people you're interacting with. Think of Shopi as a public marketplace — don't include sensitive personal information in a public listing that you don't want strangers to see.

Service providers: We work with infrastructure providers that help us run Shopi, including cloud storage providers for hosting your photos, a video hosting and streaming provider for your videos, mapping and location providers to resolve addresses and coordinates, AI providers (OpenAI and Google) that process the photos, videos and text you submit to Shopi Agent, and an email delivery provider for account emails. These providers only process data on our behalf and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes.

Legal reasons: We may disclose information if required by Kenyan law, to respond to a valid legal process, or to protect the rights, safety, or property of Shopi, our users, or the public.

We do not sell your personal information.

We keep your account and listing information for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account, we will remove or anonymise your personal information within a reasonable period, except where we're required to keep certain records for legal or fraud-prevention purposes.

Messages are retained as part of your conversation history until you or the other participant deletes the conversation, or your account is deleted.

We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including secure transmission of data and access controls on our systems. No online service is 100% secure, so we encourage you to use a strong, unique password and to be cautious about the information you share with other users.

Under Kenya's Data Protection Act, 2019, you have the right to:

• Know what personal data we hold about you
• Access your personal data
• Request correction of inaccurate data
• Request deletion of your data
• Object to certain processing
• Withdraw consent where processing is based on consent (such as analytics cookies, location access or push notifications) — you can do this at any time with "Cookie settings" in the site footer, through your device or browser settings, or by contacting us

You can update most of your profile information directly in the app.

Delete your account: you can do this yourself at any time from your profile menu (Profile → Delete account). Your account is locked and anonymised, and your listings, comments and saved items stop being visible. You can also ask us to delete your data by email.

To exercise other rights, contact us using the details below.

Shopi is not intended for children under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has created an account or provided us with personal information, please contact us so we can remove it.

Some of our service providers (such as cloud storage and video hosting) may process data outside Kenya. Where this happens, we take steps to ensure your information continues to receive an appropriate level of protection, consistent with the requirements of the Data Protection Act, 2019.

We may update this policy from time to time as Shopi evolves. If we make material changes, we'll notify you through the app or by other reasonable means. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page shows when the policy last changed.

If you have questions about this policy or want to exercise your data protection rights, contact us: