Wary of discounts, sold on Amazon
Where do French shoppers put their trust when every price looks too high?
For the first wave of the nabel retail tracker, we talked with 246 people who had bought non-food products both in store and online in the past three months, all of them in a voice conversation with the nabel agent.
Get the full report30 pages, in French
246voice conversations
18 minmedian length
6 daysof fieldwork
Prices feel too high, so they shop around.
84%
find prices too high, 32% much too high. 55% of those who mention slashed prices distrust them.
I don’t trust them, because sometimes prices are changed to make us think there are promotions, so I keep an eye on some products over several months.
Woman, 18–34, north-east France
67%
compare prices across retailers often or always before they buy.
When they tell you […] buy two and get 30% off, you look at the unit price, you take two at the unit price, and it costs you less than the so-called promotion.
Man, 35–54, rural area, north-west France
73%
bought on a marketplace like Amazon in the past three months, compared with 16% on a French retailer’s own site.
[…] I open an artificial intelligence and tell it the features I want. […] And I ask it, basically, where it’s cheapest.
Woman, 35–54, south-west France
33%
trust Amazon most, ahead of E.Leclerc (23%). Temu is trusted least (33%), yet 26% bought from sites like it.
[…] on Temu, these are things that […] help me out, even though I know full well they won’t necessarily last.
Man, 55+, south-west France
246 conversations, one bubble each.
Click a red bubble to hear or read what that person said.Tap a red bubble to hear or read what that person said.
Why they stopped believing in promotions, and what would win them back
The full report goes further. 30 pages, in French:
- 01Six findings on channels, prices, low-cost and second-hand sites, trust and AI
- 02Shoppers’ own words, transcribed verbatim
- 03Three opportunities for retailers, e-commerce teams, second-hand players and brands
- 04Full methodology and sample limitations
Methodology · Mainland France · 11–17 Sept 2026
246 respondents who had bought non-food products both in store and online in the past three months. 205 complete voice conversations with the nabel agent, plus 41 partial ones whose completed answers were kept.
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