Privacy

This notice covers the Medium Rare Showroom website, the forms on it, and Showroom accounts for retailers and brands. It explains what we collect, why, who sees it, how long we keep it, and what you can ask us to do with it. It is written to be read, not to be survived.

Who we are

Medium Rare Trading LLC (Dubai trade licence 1415394), Office No. 358, Obaid Musabeh Mohammed Al Mansoori Building, Hor Al Anz, Deira, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. We are the controller of the personal data described below. For anything in this notice, write to joseph@mediumrare.ae.

What we collect

If you register an interest or send an enquiry

Only what you type into the form: your name, your brand or retailer name, your email address, a contact number and website if you give them, your answers to the qualifying questions, and your preferred time for a call.

If you open a Showroom account

• Your log-in. The email address you sign in with. We email you a link each time; there is no password.
• Your contact details. A contact name and a phone or WhatsApp number, if you give them.
• Your business profile. For retailers: business name, website, store type, country, city, number of doors, sales channel, the brands you carry and any notes you add. For brands: brand name, website, country, city, year founded, price range, how the watches are made, current stockists and a description.
• Your criteria. The territories, movements, price bands and origins you are looking for, and for brands the kinds of retailer and the typical opening order.
• A verification document. For example a trade licence, company registration, VAT certificate or storefront photograph. These can show the name of an owner or director.
• Brand files. Line sheets, price lists, lookbooks and product images a brand uploads.
• Your choices. The plan a brand picks, whether a retailer wants to appear on the founding roster or receive updates, and when you accepted the terms and this notice.

What builds up as you use Showroom

• Introductions. Which retailer was introduced to which brand, when, how far it has got, and the text of the introduction email we sent. If you decline one, the reason you give.
• Orders. If a retailer records an order: its value, units, the references ordered, payment and delivery terms, lead time, a purchase-order reference and any note.
• Ratings. A score from one to five and an optional comment about how an introduction went.

Payments

Retailers pay nothing. Brand plans are invoiced by email. When card billing is switched on it will be run by Stripe: we will see that a payment went through, the amount and the last four digits of the card, and never the full card number.

What your browser sends

The companies that host the site and the database keep routine server logs: IP address, browser type and the time of each request. We use these only for security and fault-finding. When you log in, your browser stores a sign-in token so that you stay logged in; it is removed when you sign out.

We do not use analytics, advertising trackers or tracking cookies, and we do not load fonts or scripts from third-party servers.

Why we use it, and on what basis

• To reply to an enquiry and arrange a call. Our legitimate interest in responding to a business approach you made to us, and taking steps at your request before entering a contract.
• To run your account and make introductions. This is the service you signed up for, under the Showroom terms.
• To check that a business is real before we introduce it. Our legitimate interest, and that of every other member, in a roster with no impostors on it.
• To judge how introductions went and make better ones. Our legitimate interest in improving the service. This is what ratings and recorded orders are for.
• To invoice brands and keep accounts. The contract with the brand, and our legal obligations under UAE tax law.
• To show a retailer on the founding roster, or send occasional updates. Only if you ticked the box. That is consent, and you can withdraw it at any time from your profile or by email.

We will not use your details for anything else, and we will not sell them or pass them to anyone for their own marketing.

Who sees what inside Showroom

Nothing in Showroom is browsable. A retailer and a brand can see each other only after we have introduced them.

• A brand you have been introduced to sees your business profile.
• A retailer you have been introduced to sees your brand profile, and the line sheets, price lists and images you have uploaded.
• Contact details are not shown in either dashboard. We share them in the introduction email, which goes to both of you.
• An order a retailer records is visible to that retailer, that brand and us.
• Verification documents are seen only by Medium Rare. The other side sees the word “verified”, never the document.
• Ratings are seen only by Medium Rare. The business you rated does not see your score or comment.
• The founding roster shows a retailer’s name, city and store type, and only if that retailer opted in.

How matching works

Showroom compares what a retailer is looking for with what a brand makes and gives us a ranked list. A person at Medium Rare then decides every introduction and writes it by hand. Nothing is decided about you by software alone.

Who else handles it

We use a small number of service providers. They process your data on our instructions only:

• Supabase — the database, the log-in system and file storage behind Showroom accounts, held in Frankfurt, Germany. It also sends the log-in emails.
• Netlify — hosts the site and receives the enquiry and founding-registration forms.
• Google — our email and calendar (Google Workspace). Introductions are sent from here.
• Anthropic — the AI assistant (Claude) we use to help administer Showroom, for example bringing form registrations into the database and drafting correspondence. It does not decide introductions.
• Calendly — call scheduling, once connected.
• Stripe — card payments for brand plans, once billing is switched on.

We are based in the UAE and several of these providers are based in the United States, so your details may be handled outside your own country. Where data originates in the UK or the European Economic Area, those transfers rely on the providers’ standard contractual clauses.

How we keep it safe

Who can see what is enforced in the database itself, not just on the screen. Documents and brand files sit in private storage, encrypted, and can be opened only by their owner, by a business that has been introduced to it where that applies, and by us. Two people at Medium Rare have administrator access.

How long we keep it

• An enquiry or registration that goes no further: twenty-four months, then we delete it.
• Your account: for as long as it is open.
• Verification documents: while your account is open, so we do not have to ask twice. Ask and we will delete one sooner.
• Invoices and payment records: seven years after the end of the tax period they belong to, as UAE tax law requires.
• Emails between us: for as long as we work together and up to six years afterwards, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.
• Marketing consent: until you withdraw it.

Closing your account

You can close your account yourself at any time, from the Profile page of your dashboard. It takes effect immediately and cannot be undone.

Deleted straight away: your log-in, contact name, phone and email; your business profile and criteria; your verification documents; a brand’s line sheets, price lists and images; and the free text attached to your introductions, including the introduction email, order notes and rating comments.

Kept, without your name: the fact that an introduction was made, how far it got, any order figures recorded, and scores. The business you were introduced to keeps its own history, in which you appear as “Closed account” with only your country and, for a retailer, your store type or, for a brand, your price range.

Copies in our provider’s routine backups are overwritten on its normal cycle. Emails we have exchanged are not deleted automatically; ask and we will delete those too.

Your rights

You can see and correct most of what we hold by logging in, and you can close your account yourself. You can also ask us to show you everything we hold, correct it, delete it, or stop using it. You can object to our use of it, ask for a copy in a portable format, and withdraw consent at any time. Email joseph@mediumrare.ae and we will respond within thirty days. There is no charge.

If you are in the UK or the European Economic Area and you think we have handled your data badly, you can complain to your national data protection authority. In the UAE, that is the UAE Data Office.

Details collected in person

If you give us your details at a trade fair or a meeting rather than through this site, this notice applies in exactly the same way.

Changes

If we change how we use your data, we will update this page and change the date at the top.