CBD promotions: what a real reference price is
Since 28 May 2022, every announcement of a price reduction has had to state the prior price, defined by the code de la consommation (the French consumer code) as the lowest price applied by the seller to all consumers over the thirty days preceding the reduction. The rule comes from Directive (EU) 2019/2161 of 27 November 2019, transposed by ordonnance no. 2021-1734 of 22 December 2021 (an executive order). It applies online and in store, to CBD as to everything else.
Contents
A struck-through price is not information about the value of a product: it is a statement about the price's past, and that statement is regulated. This article sets out the rule, says what it prohibits, what it leaves free, and how a buyer can check it for themselves on an offer in front of them.
> Key points > > - The prior price is the lowest price of the last thirty days, not the usual price nor the recommended price. > - Where reductions follow one another, the reference stays the price applied before the first reduction. > - The form of the announcement remains free: an amount, a percentage or a struck-through price. > - Perishable goods at risk of rapid deterioration fall outside the scheme. > - The penalty for a misleading commercial practice reaches two years' imprisonment and a fine of €300,000.
1. The rule, text in hand
Article L112-1-1 of the code de la consommation was created by article 2 of ordonnance no. 2021-1734 of 22 December 2021, which transposes Directive (EU) 2019/2161, known as the Omnibus Directive, into French law. It came into force on 28 May 2022 and runs to five short paragraphs.
| Paragraph | What the text says | What it changes on screen |
|---|---|---|
| I, 1 | The announcement states the prior price applied before the reduction | A percentage alone, with no prior price shown, is not enough |
| I, 2 | That prior price is "the lowest price applied by the trader" to all consumers over the last thirty days | A price applied on a single day within the window becomes the reference |
| I, 3 | Where reductions follow one another over a set period, the reference is the price before the first reduction | A deepening discount keeps the same starting point |
| I, 4 | Paragraph I does not apply to "perishable goods at risk of rapid deterioration" | End-of-day markdowns on fresh produce fall outside the scheme |
| II | The text does not cover comparisons with other traders' prices | Comparing is not reducing, and has to be presented as such |
Before that text, the DGCCRF practical sheet recalls, a seller was free to define the reference price from which the reduction was announced, subject only to not amounting to a misleading commercial practice. What was new in 2022 was therefore not the existence of a rule, but the fact that the point of comparison is now defined by law, identically for everyone.
2. What the rule prohibits
Three practices become irregular, and they can be spotted without any particular legal knowledge.
The inflated reference price. Raising the price of a reference a few days before an operation in order to announce a spectacular discount no longer works: the thirty-day window captures the low price from before the rise, and that is what has to be shown as the prior price.
The recommended price presented as the prior price. A manufacturer's indicative price, or a price "usually seen" in the sector, is not the prior price within the meaning of the text. It falls under paragraph II of the article, the one on comparisons, and the buyer must then be told clearly that this is a comparison and what the nature of that comparison price is.
The discount recalculated at each step. An operation moving from 20 % to 30 % and then to 40 % cannot recalculate its reference at each stage. Paragraph 3 fixes the starting point at the price applied before the first reduction, for the whole duration of the operation.
3. What the rule does not prohibit
It imposes no particular form of display. The DGCCRF points out that the trader remains "free to choose how to display the price reduction": an amount in euros, a percentage or a struck-through price all work, as long as the prior price is stated and correctly calculated.
Nor does it prohibit selling more cheaply, running short operations, or applying prices that slide with quantity. A sliding grid published for the year, of the kind described in our article on CBD hash prices per gram, is not an announcement of a reduction: it is a tariff, and each tier is a selling price, not a discount off a prior price.
Finally, it says nothing about the quality or the compliance of what is sold. A product can be announced with a perfectly regular reference price and still have no batch analysis. The two checks are independent, and the second is read on the certificate, not on the price label.
4. How a buyer checks an announcement
The check takes four moves, in this order.
Read the announcement itself. The prior price has to appear in it. If there is only a percentage, or a struck-through price with no readable amount, the first obligation in the text is already unmet.
Date the window. The thirty days are counted backwards from the start of the reduction, not from the day of the visit. An operation launched on the 1st of the month is checked against the previous month.
Look for a trace of the past price. Personal screenshots, order confirmation emails and the seller's newsletters are dated traces. Public web archives, such as those of the Internet Archive, sometimes keep older versions of a product page along with its price. None of these sources is exhaustive, and the absence of a trace proves nothing either way.
Report it if the gap is clear. The SignalConso platform allows a reduction announcement to be reported to the DGCCRF, which states that it pays particular attention to operations run nationwide, sales periods and big retail days included. The penalty for a misleading commercial practice is two years' imprisonment and a fine of €300,000.
To place a price outside a promotional period, the market ranges published in CBD prices in France in 2026 give a marker independent of any discount announcement.
5. What this article does not measure
This article is not a field investigation, and three limits have to be stated.
It rests on no price survey at other shops. Checking compliance case by case would mean tracking prices daily over thirty days, shop by shop and reference by reference. That tracking was not carried out, and no retailer is called into question here.
It passes no judgement on any particular commercial operation, past or forthcoming. The examples in section 2 describe mechanisms prohibited by the text, not facts observed at an identified seller.
Finally, the text of Directive (EU) 2019/2161 could not be consulted on EUR-Lex at the time of writing: its identity, date and subject are taken from the title of the transposing ordonnance published by Légifrance, and its content, as it applies in France, from Article L112-1-1 and the DGCCRF sheet. Questions about this page can be asked from the frequently asked questions page, and the way we work is described on the about page.
Frequently asked questions
What is a legal reference price?
It is the prior price within the meaning of Article L112-1-1 of the code de la consommation: the lowest price applied by the seller to all consumers during the thirty days preceding the reduction. It is neither a manufacturer's recommended price nor the usual price in the sector.
Since when has the thirty-day rule applied in France?
Since 28 May 2022. It stems from ordonnance no. 2021-1734 of 22 December 2021, which transposes Directive (EU) 2019/2161 of 27 November 2019 and creates Article L112-1-1 of the code de la consommation.
Can a seller show a struck-through price with no reference amount?
Not for an announcement of a reduction: the prior price has to be stated. The form, on the other hand, remains free. A comparison with other traders' prices falls under a different regime, and has to be presented as a comparison, with the nature of the price compared.
How do you report a promotion that looks irregular?
Through the SignalConso platform, which passes the report on to the DGCCRF. It helps to attach the date of the announcement, a screenshot of the page and, where one exists, a dated trace of the price applied during the previous thirty days.
Sources
- Légifrance, Article L112-1-1 of the code de la consommation
- Légifrance, ordonnance no. 2021-1734 of 22 December 2021
- DGCCRF, practical sheet on price reduction announcements
- EUR-Lex, Directive (EU) 2019/2161 of 27 November 2019
- SignalConso, the DGCCRF reporting platform
- Internet Archive, public web archives
- Phytogrammes, CBD resin and hash category
Written by the Phytogrammes team
Every article in this journal draws on primary sources (ANSM, EFSA, EUR-Lex, peer-reviewed publications) and on the lab's own practice: batch-by-batch HPLC analyses, measured cannabinoid profiles. Our approach.
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