If you run a cookie banner, you need to be able to say what every app on your storefront stores in a shopper's browser. This page is that list for Arbyn, written so you can copy it into your banner's cookie declaration.
The short version
Arbyn stores nothing persistent in a shopper's browser until one of two things happens: they open the chat, or they accept analytics cookies. Before either, a shopper who lands on your store and never interacts with the widget leaves no trace in their browser and sends us no page views.
If a shopper declines cookies, the chat still works. They can still ask questions and still get answers. Consent controls tracking, not support.
What Arbyn works with
Arbyn reads Shopify's Customer Privacy API, which is the same mechanism every certified cookie banner writes to. That means it works with Consentmo, Shopify's own cookie banner, Klaviyo's banner, or any other certified app, with no setup on your side. We do not show a banner of our own and we do not try to detect a shopper's region. Your banner decides; Arbyn obeys.
The full inventory
Necessary. Set only when a shopper opens the chat.
Name | Type | Duration | Purpose |
| Local storage | Until cleared | Keeps a conversation attached to the shopper so their chat history is still there if they navigate to another page |
| Session storage | Until the tab closes | Remembers the chat panel was open so it does not close itself on the next page |
| Session storage | Until the tab closes | Stops a proactive greeting appearing over and over in one visit |
| Local storage | Until cleared | Lets a shopper who clicked a link in one of your emails land straight back in their own conversation |
These exist to make a conversation the shopper started actually work. Under most cookie rules that is the "strictly necessary" category, and they are only set from the moment a shopper opens the chat or arrives from an email link.
Analytics. Set only after a shopper accepts analytics cookies.
Name | Type | Duration | Purpose |
| Cookie | 90 days | An anonymous visitor identifier that links a shopper's browsing to their conversation, so the agent can see what they were looking at when they ask "is this in stock?" |
Page view record | Sent to Arbyn, not stored in the browser | 90 days on our side | The page, product, or collection a shopper viewed, so the agent has context |
If a shopper has not accepted analytics cookies, none of this happens: no identifier is written and no page view is sent.
Marketing. Set only after a shopper accepts marketing cookies.
Name | Type | Duration | Purpose |
| Local storage | Until cleared | Recognises a returning visitor so a proactive message can say something more useful than a generic greeting |
| Local storage | Until cleared | Counts how many times a shopper has looked at the same product, used to time a proactive offer |
These power personalised proactive messages. Declining them does not switch proactive messages off entirely, it removes the personalisation: triggers that do not need stored history, like a shopper about to leave the page, still work.
What happens if a shopper accepts partway through
If someone lands on a page, ignores the banner, then accepts a moment later, Arbyn notices straight away and does not wait for the next page load. The page view they were on is recorded at that point, not lost.
What Arbyn does not do
No third-party trackers in the widget. The chat panel loads no advertising or analytics scripts of its own.
No selling or sharing data for advertising. If your banner has a "do not sell or share my personal information" option, it does not apply to Arbyn, because we do not do the thing it turns off.
No IP addresses and no browser fingerprints are stored with page views.
No tracking in the theme editor preview. When you are customising the widget it makes no network calls at all.
Troubleshooting
My cookie scanner found arbyn_sid and flagged it. That is expected if you or the scanner accepted analytics cookies first. Declare it under Analytics with a 90-day duration. If it appears before any consent was given, tell us, because that should not happen.
A shopper says the chat forgot their conversation. Most likely they declined cookies and then closed the tab. The conversation itself is safe on our side, but the browser value linking them to it is session-only until they accept. This is the trade-off of declining, not a fault.
Proactive messages stopped after I installed a cookie banner. The personalised ones need marketing consent, so shoppers who decline will not see them. The ones based on live behaviour still fire. If none fire at all, check your triggers under Settings, then Chat.
I want the widget to stay hidden until a shopper accepts. Not currently available. We deliberately kept the chat working for shoppers who decline, because a hidden widget helps nobody and support is not tracking. If your policy requires it, tell us.
For your cookie declaration
Copy the three tables above. The categories map to the standard ones most banners use: Necessary, Analytics, Marketing. Sale or sharing of personal data: not applicable.
What this page is not about
This page is only about what gets written to a shopper's own browser. It has nothing to do with what Arbyn remembers about a customer between conversations, things like a stated preference or a computed pattern in how they shop, which is a separate question with its own answer: see The customer map, and how to remove something from it. That memory lives on our side, not in the shopper's browser, so declining cookies here does not affect it.