The French supermarkets offering subscriptions for in-store discounts

Some major French supermarkets including Carrefour, Casino, and Monoprix have started offering monthly subscriptions in exchange for permanent reductions on a range of products.

How much is it, and what do you get?

The monthly fees currently vary from €5.99 to €10 depending on the shop. In return, customers can expect a 10-15% permanent discount on a wide range of products.

This is different to existing loyalty cards, which often mean customers get limited-time, money-off vouchers on a few chosen products.

Which supermarkets are offering subscriptions?

Casino Max

Casino Max is an app that combines Géant Casino and Casino for online shopping.

For €10 per month or €90 per year, Casino Max customers receive a 10% immediate discount on everything (except specialist items, books, CDs, DVDs, tickets, para-pharmacy goods and service stations).

Casino and Géant Casino

Casino was the first to offer a subscription model, in 2019. The supermarket subscription costs €20 for three months (as opposed to €30 at Casino Max), and the Géant Casino offers a six-month subscription for €49 (rather than €60).

Monoprix

The “Monopflix” scheme offers a 10% nationwide reduction at the till and online, for food, cleaning, and hygiene products, for €9.90 per month.

Again, there are packages. A six-month subscription costs €54.90 (€9.15 per month), and a year is €99.90 (€8.33 per month).

Carrefour

Since September 2021, Carrefour has been testing a subscription model in around 20 stores near Rouen.

The first is called “Carrefour + quotidien”, which offers 15% maximum reduction on 7,000 Carrefour brands for €5.99 per month. This drops to €4.74 per month if customers also hold a PASS card.

The second, called “Carrefour + marché frais", offers up to 15% discount on most fresh produce, - including meat, fruit and veg, fish, bakery, patisserie, cut charcuterie, and deli cheese - for €7.99 per month. This drops to €6.74 for PASS card holders.

The two schemes can also be used with other discounts and promotions, for a maximum discount of 34%.

The schemes may be rolled out nationwide towards the end of 2022.

Since December 2021, Carrefour has also offered another service across the whole of France, which offers discounts on 400 at-home delivery products, via sign-up on its website.

To sign up, the customer indicates the products they buy most often (once a month, or once every two or three months), and then receives regular free deliveries for a basket costing at least €30 per month, along with savings of up to 10% on their regular items.

Prices are fixed for the length of the subscription, and there is no sign-up cost or set sign-up duration.

Are these subscriptions financially worth it?

In general, the Casino Max and Monoprix subscriptions begin to benefit customers if they spend more than €100 in the shop per month, as with the 10% discount, they will make their €10 subscription fee back and more.

Similarly, Carrefour states that its “Carrefour + quotidien” offer is especially worth it for customers who buy at least €40 worth of eligible products, and that its "Carrefour + marché frais" works best for a spend of €64 and over.

The subscriptions come as some supermarkets rush to show consumers that they are helping fight rising inflation and prices.

E. Leclerc, for example, has frozen prices on its 120 most-bought items until July, in a move that was announced just as it was confirmed that inflation had hit 4.8% in France in April.

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