1 Operating Entity & Marketplace Scope

ENC Vendors (“we,” “us,” or “our”) operates the regional vendor and event directory accessible at https://encvendors.com/.

Our directory is engineered to connect event organizers, brides, corporate event hosts, festival planners, and community members directly with independent Eastern North Carolina vendors—including gourmet food trucks, artisan makers, live entertainers, event rental suppliers, and seasonal market coordinators across our core regional hubs: New Bern, Morehead City, Greenville, and Jacksonville.

This Privacy Policy governs the collection, processing, storage, and transfer of personal data, commercial listing details, and event inquiry information submitted by visitors (“Users,” “Planners”) and registered business owners (“Vendors,” “Merchants”).

2 Information We Collect

We collect information in three distinct categories to facilitate direct marketplace connections:

A. Information Provided Voluntarily by Event Planners & Visitors

• Contact Information: Full name, personal or corporate email address, and telephone number provided through contact forms, date check widgets, or budget planners.
• Event Logistics: Event date, preferred regional hub city, anticipated guest count, venue destination, budget parameters, and requested vendor specialties (e.g., BBQ catering, live acoustics, tent rentals).
• Communications: Messages, custom catering questions, and direct booking inquiries dispatched to listed merchants.

B. Information Provided by Registered Vendors & Merchants

• Commercial Identity: Legal and DBA business names, federal EIN or state registration (where applicable for verification), owner/manager contact details, and physical or dispatch base location.
• Directory Catalog Assets: Cuisine or craft classifications, service radii, promotional biographies, public menus, hourly/package rate estimates, business phone numbers, website URLs, and social media handles.
• Account Credentials: Username and encrypted password hashes used to maintain vendor dashboard access.

C. Automatically Collected Technical Metadata

When navigating our directory, standard web server logs automatically collect device IP addresses, browser user agent strings, referral URLs, operating systems, and page interaction timestamps solely for cybersecurity, spam prevention, and server load balancing.

3 Vendor Profile Data & Listing Information

When business owners submit details through our Submit a Listing or Subscription Plans onboarding funnels, the data is separated into public and private tiers:

• Public Directory Information: Information intended to be publicly discoverable by event planners—including your trade name, service categories, city hub association, menus, package pricing, public business phone, social media links, and marketing gallery photographs—is published on your public listing node (e.g., /food-trucks/new-bern/{your-business}/) and indexed by commercial search engines.
• Private Administrative Information: Your account password, private billing email, administrative phone number, and Stripe transaction history are strictly confidential. Staff members cannot view plain-text passwords.

4 Lead Routing & Event Inquiry Handling

Our directory features interactive planning utilities designed to connect planners with available local pros, including the Check Date Availability widget, the Coastal Budget Planner, the Multi-Vendor Date Match Finder, single-listing inquiry forms, and exit-intent quote broadcasts.

How Lead Data Is Processed & Routed:

• Direct Merchant Dispatch: When you submit a specific inquiry for a listed vendor, your name, contact information, and event parameters are routed directly to that vendor’s verified business contact channel or secure internal directory inbox.
• RFP Broadcast Inquiries: When you request date matching across multiple vendors in a category or regional hub, your event date, city, and requirements are broadcast to participating verified vendors so they can provide direct quotes without middleman involvement.
• Secure Infrastructure: Lead payloads are transmitted over TLS 1.3 encrypted HTTPS channels directly to our dedicated internal REST API endpoints (/wp-json/snb/v1/event-vendor-lead) and archived in secure, restricted-access directory databases.

5 Payment Processing & Stripe Merchant Security

ENC Vendors operates as a direct-connection directory. Planners book vendors directly with zero commission fees or middleman markups. Where financial transactions occur on our platform (such as vendor subscription memberships for Featured Pro placements at $19/mo or $99/yr), payment processing adheres to strict financial industry safeguards:

When a vendor subscribes to a featured tier, Stripe stores the tokenized customer record, card brand, expiration date, and last four digits for customer billing management. We receive only transaction confirmation tokens and subscription status webhooks.

6 Commercial Image & Media Rights

To showcase local talent with maximum visual fidelity, vendors upload brand logos, food truck photos, artisan craft galleries, and event setup imagery to their listing profiles:

• Vendor Retains Ownership: Participating merchants retain 100% intellectual property ownership, copyright, and brand trademarks in all photography, logos, and marketing copy uploaded to their listings.
• Non-Exclusive Display License: By uploading media to the directory, vendors grant ENC Vendors a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, resize, cache, display, and promote these assets across our website, regional social spotlights, email digests, and marketing collateral solely for the purpose of promoting the vendor’s listing and directory discovery.
• Media Compliance: Vendors warrant that they own or have obtained the necessary commercial rights, licenses, or client releases for all photographs and media submitted. Images containing copyright infringements will be removed promptly upon verified notice.

7 Cookies, Local Storage & Analytics

Our directory minimizes tracking technologies to ensure fast load speeds and visitor privacy:

• Essential Session Cookies: Used for authenticated vendor logins, dashboard preferences, and administrative security.
• Local Storage (UX Frequency Suppression): We utilize lightweight browser localStorage keys (such as enc_exit_modal_suppressed_until) to remember when a visitor has closed or dismissed our planning modal, strictly suppressing it for 7 days to prevent repeated interruptions.
• Performance Analytics: Aggregated, non-personally identifiable server telemetry is monitored to identify high-traffic regional searches, optimize mobile rendering speeds, and prevent automated scraping bots. We do not deploy cross-site behavioral tracking beacons.

8 Data Retention & Your Rights

Whether you are an event host or a registered merchant, you maintain complete rights over your personal data under applicable North Carolina and federal privacy standards:

• Right of Access & Inspection: You may request an itemized record of any personal contact information or inquiry history held in our database.
• Right to Rectification: You may update or correct inaccurate business details, phone numbers, or menu offerings at any time.
• Right to Erasure (“Right to Be Forgotten”): You may request complete permanent deletion of your vendor profile, inquiry logs, or contact records from our active servers.
• Data Retention: Inquiry data is retained only as long as necessary to fulfill event communication cycles (typically 12 months) or comply with statutory financial recordkeeping obligations.

9 Questions, Listing Removals & Compliance

For privacy questions, data requests, listing edits, or merchant removals, our dedicated administration team can be contacted directly: