France has new rules regarding the selling prices of the goods and services

In France, whatever the sector of activity, the general rule is that all professionals must be transparent to their customers and prospects on the selling prices of the goods and services offered. Apart from a few rare cases, such as the sale of books, supply of gas or electricity, etc., professionals must ensure that certain rules are observed.

The prices charged by a professional must be displayed near or on the property for sale or in the scope of view of the future customers concerning service providers. The prices must be displayed for the amount in EUR to be paid by the buyer, that is to say with VAT incl. and therefore all taxes incl. Without being obliged to ask, the prospect must be informed about the amount he/she will have to pay before he/she concedes to buy and therefore accepts to pay the designated price. The professional must therefore warn upstream of the act of purchase whether it is necessary to add additional costs such as administration, delivery, or transport costs to the address desired. If it is impossible to determine a price in advance, the professional must provide the prospect with an estimation of costs, the calculation method which must be detailed.

When it comes to the goods, the display can take various forms depending on the category of the product to be sold. It can be a label on the product or a sign placed nearby. For a majority of products, it will be mandatory to add a price per kilograms or per liters, so that the consumer can compare the offers. Regarding product lots, an individual price per item should also be mentioned. When the nature of the product does not allow display by item, an exhaustive catalog must be made available.

The prices of the services offered must be displayed in public view in a place where the future customer can easily access them, such as a waiting room. It can be, for example, a panel displaying the hourly labor rates according to the complexity of the service or the speaker. The multitude of services can lead the professional to communicate the prices charged through the catalog made available to the public.

The price reduction: the price reduction, which does not apply uniformly to a set of articles belonging to the same category, is also regulated. The price before reduction must be displayed in addition to the new lowered price. The professional carrying out this commercial operation must be able to justify the old price by any means (like sales receipt for products sold before the reduction, for example). When the reduction applies to a category of items, it is not mandatory to display the reduced price on each item and the reduction can only be applied during the checkout.