This number tells a story. Cdiscount understands something many French retailers have not yet grasped: real profit does not come from transaction margin. It comes from monetizing audience.

And the numbers prove it. Cdiscount has multiplied its advertising revenue by ten in seven years. In 2025, Cdiscount Advertising generated approximately 80 million euros. This is not a bonus. This is the core business.

How Cdiscount Became a Publishing House

Cdiscount started as a classic marketplace. Products, sellers, commissions on each sale. Simple model, tight margins, total dependence on transaction volume.

Then Cdiscount understood that every customer typing a search on its platform was an audience to sell. A customer looking for an electric scooter? A scooter brand would pay to be visible. A customer adding a phone to their cart? Samsung would pay to put its accessories in front.

Cdiscount launched Cdiscount Advertising. A publishing house. Brands pay for visibility on the marketplace. And the model exploded.

Retail media revenue in 2018? A few million. Revenue in 2025? 80 million. Growth of 10x in seven years, while transaction volume grew just 2x to 3x.

The Numbers: What Changes When You Monetize Audience

A classic marketplace works like this. A customer buys a product for 100 euros. The marketplace takes 10 to 15 percent commission. That is 10 to 15 euros. That is the margin.

With retail media, the same customer buying 100 euros now generates two revenue streams. First, commission on the sale. But also, the brand that won this sale paid to be visible. That payment adds to the commission.

And here is the magic detail: this second revenue stream does not erode the first. It stacks on top. This is why margins explode.

At Cdiscount, 1 sale out of 3 is attributed to retail media. This means that for 1 euro of transaction commission, Cdiscount takes about 0.5 euros of advertising revenue on average. Overall margin doubles.

Why This Is a Data Battle

Cdiscount’s retail media works well because Cdiscount masters its data. Every product has a complete listing. Every customer has a profile. Every search is tracked. With this data, Cdiscount can offer brands precise targeting and measurable ROI.

If Cdiscount had incomplete product listings or fragmented customer data, retail media would not work. Brands would not pay for poorly targeted visibility.

This is why the stakes of product data are so high. Click2Buy ensures your product data is flawless everywhere. Because without quality data, media monetization does not take off.

Cdiscount’s Strategy: Marketplace Plus Publishing

Cdiscount plays on two fields. First, it remains a marketplace. It sells products. It captures transaction commissions. But at the same time, it is a publishing house. It sells visibility to brands.

Both businesses reinforce each other. More customers on Cdiscount means more audience to sell to brands. More brands investing in retail media means they push their products harder, more customers find them easily, more they buy.

This is a virtuous cycle. And it is exactly the model French retailers should copy.

What a French Retailer Can Do Now

Cdiscount is a marketplace. But the model works for retailers that are not. If you are a French retailer with an e-commerce site, you have an audience. You can monetize this audience.

Start by auditing your product data. Is it complete? Consistent across all your retail partners? Updated in real time? Without it, media monetization will not take off.

Next, structure your retail media. Offer brands visibility on your site. Also offer visibility through your retail partners, if you have them. This is the off-site model Cdiscount masters.

Finally, measure. Every euro of advertising revenue must be transparent. Every brand must see the ROI. That is how they increase their spending.

This is where Click2Buy helps: ensure your data is flawless and your distribution is visible with every retailer. Because without it, you cannot monetize.

Outlook: French Retailers Can Catch Up

Cdiscount has a seven-year head start. It built its retail media progressively. But French retailers starting now can catch up quickly. The model is proven. The tools exist. Brands are ready to pay.

The real question is not technical. It is strategic. Are you ready to shift from a transaction model to a media monetization model? Are you ready to invest in your data to make this model work?

Cdiscount answered yes. And it makes 80 million per year. Other French retailers can do the same. But not without quality data.

Sources

• Ecommerce Nation – Cdiscount S1 2026 Retail Media Performance
• LSA Conso – Cdiscount Strategy and Growth 2026
• Hi-Commerce – Retail Media Statistics France 2026

Hugo, Marketing at Click2Buy

« Cdiscount multiplied its revenue by 10 in 7 years by understanding one thing: profit comes from monetization, not volume. »

The post Cdiscount retail media 2026: 1 sale out of 3, 80 million euros appeared first on Mr..

What Universal Cart Does, and Why an AI Decides

Universal Cart works simply. A customer types a query into Gemini or Google Search: “I’m looking for running shoes.” Gemini suggests options. The user adds one to their cart. They continue their session, add a Sephora product discovered elsewhere. All items live in the Google cart, not on your sites.

But here is the crucial detail: it is the AI that decides which products to display. If your product listing is incomplete, poorly structured, or lacks proper information, Google’s AI will not recommend you. You remain invisible.

This means that the quality of your product data—descriptions, dimensions, compatibility, images—is no longer just an SEO detail. It is a survival criterion. AIs read and compare your data against your competitors. Those with clear and well-structured data gain visibility.

The Challenge: Being Visible to AI, Not Just Google

Before Universal Cart, the journey was straightforward. Customer searches, Google displays results, customer clicks, sale closes at the retailer. Today, a new intermediary enters the picture: the AI reads your data, decides if your product deserves recommendation, and either showcases or ignores you.

68% of French consumers plan to use AI for their year-end shopping, according to Klaviyo. These assistants compare prices, availability, specifications. An incomplete product listing or poorly tracked inventory at a reseller becomes a disadvantage before the consumer even reaches your site.

What Retailers Lose (and What They Stand to Gain by Improving)

Before Universal Cart, the cart lived with you. On your site, under your control, with your data. You knew who added what, when they saw the price drop. Today, this dynamic has changed.

The cart is no longer yours. The user manages their cart in Google, not on your site. You do not know they have your product waiting elsewhere. Discovery now passes through AI and your visibility depends on the quality of your data and how the AI interprets it. Retargeting escapes you because cart abandonment data belongs to Google, not you. And price competition intensifies when a customer can compare three brands in a single cart and the only remaining argument is price.

But there is a counterattack: control your data. If you ensure that your product listings are complete, consistent, and up to date across all distribution channels, you gain AI visibility. This is where Click2Buy Where-to-Buy comes in. It unifies your product data across all retailers and ensures that Google’s AI, and others, always sees the right version.

Why the Giants Signed Immediately

Google represents 92% of search traffic in the United States. If Universal Cart concentrates Google Search and Gemini attention on your product and your AI visibility depends on your data quality, then ignoring the service means accepting invisibility.

Nike, Sephora, Target, Walmart and Wayfair all signed in October 2026. This is not a strategic choice. It is a survival choice. And it is also a tacit acknowledgment: AI visibility is now as important as Google visibility.

The Antitrust and Regulatory Problem

Senator Elizabeth Warren posed the question directly. Why can Google operate a marketplace (Universal Cart), sell advertising (Google Shopping), and collect data from all retailers? This is a vertically integrated conflict of interest.

But there is a second, less visible problem: how Google’s AI ranks products. If Google controls the algorithm, it controls who shows up first. For a retailer without AI optimization expertise, there is a risk of becoming invisible without knowing it.

How to Prepare Your AI Visibility Now

Universal Cart does not exist in France yet. But those who prepare now gain a competitive advantage.

Start by auditing your data at each retailer. Are descriptions identical? Dimensions complete? Images high quality? AIs compare. Inconsistencies hurt your AI credibility. Next, ensure availability is updated in real time. If AI recommends you and the product is out of stock, that is a poor experience. Your inventory must be known everywhere, always. Finally, optimize for AI assistants, not just Google. Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude all read your product listings. The richer and more structured they are, the better they rank.

This is where Click2Buy helps retailers: unify data, keep inventory current, ensure your distribution is visible and visible to AI.

Outlook: France and the AI Revolution

Universal Cart does not yet exist in France. But the logic behind it, letting AI decide your visibility, is already here. Every ChatGPT query, every question asked to Gemini, is an opportunity for you to be invisible or visible. It all depends on your data quality.

Retailers who master their AI visibility with complete, consistent and current data gain market share. Others remain invisible, even if they are good.

Sources

• MediaPost – Google Universal Cart Launch 15 October 2026
• 9to5Google – Technical Details and Feature Breakdown
• Google Official Blog – Universal Cart Announcement

Hugo, Marketing at Click2Buy

« Universal Cart or not, the issue remains the same: your data and your distribution must be visible to AI, just as they must be visible to customers. »

The post Google Universal Cart 2026: How Retailers Are Adapting appeared first on Mr..

Black Friday 2026 falls on November 27, and it arrives in a market that is changing pace. French e-commerce generated €196.4 billion in revenue in 2025, up 7%, according to Fevad. The number of transactions rose 10% to 3.2 billion, but the average basket fell 3% to €62: the French are buying more often, for smaller amounts. Black Friday 2025 followed the same slope, with transactions up 3% in France and revenue up almost 6%, according to Criteo.

For a brand that sells through retailers, this period is less about promotions than about information logistics: research happens online and well in advance, the decision is made on price, and the sale closes at a retailer whose stock and display the brand controls neither. That is where Black Friday is won or lost.

Constrained demand, concentrated on price

Spending intentions remain cautious. According to Shopify’s Holiday Retail 2026 study, run in July among 2,000 French consumers, the planned budget for the Black Friday weekend is €151, versus €143 in 2025. These are declared amounts, not observed spending: 55% of respondents say they suffered negative economic effects over the past year, and nearly one in four fills a basket and then waits for a price drop before paying. The 2025 results point the same way: according to Joko, which analyzed the bank transactions of more than one million users, average Black Week spending reached €236, three euros more than in 2024.

The overall mood is gloomier than these figures suggest. In AlixPartners’ Global Consumer Outlook 2026, run by YouGov, 29% of French consumers plan to spend less than last year over the holidays, against 6% who plan to spend more, and 57% wait for promotional periods for their Christmas shopping. Other surveys are more nuanced: Klaviyo finds that 57% of French consumers plan to spend as much as in 2025 and 26% more. The gaps come from the samples and the questions asked; they agree on one point, vigilance on prices.

Categories do not benefit from the event in the same way. At Criteo, Black Friday 2025 transactions rose 12.1% in sports and outdoor, 9.5% in home and garden, and 10.2% for department stores and marketplaces, while electronics and technology fell 1%.

A journey that starts before D-day

Research largely precedes the purchase. In a ShopFully and OpinionWay study on the 2024 edition, 42% of consumers started researching at least a week ahead, and 53% compared prices on the day itself, mostly online. Sales, for their part, are shifting online: according to BPCE L’Observatoire, 47% of the euros spent during Black Friday week 2025 went to e-commerce.

A new intermediary is entering this journey. According to Klaviyo, 68% of French consumers plan to use an AI assistant for their year-end shopping; Fevad already noted in 2025, citing an Odoxa study, that one online shopper in three used generative AI in their journey. These assistants compare prices and availability. An incomplete product page or poorly maintained stock data at a retailer then becomes a handicap before the consumer even reaches a website.

Impact: what a stockout or a price gap costs

Data on the cost of stockouts is mostly British and comes from inventory management vendors, so it should be read with caution. A study relayed by Modern Retail UK indicates that 46% of British retailers suffered stockouts that cost them sales, that 65% of in-store shoppers abandoned their purchase for lack of product, and that 41% of consumers would stop buying from a brand after repeated stockouts. For brands the stake is twofold: the lost sale, and the media budget spent driving traffic to an unavailable item, as Internet Retailing describes.

The risk is all the more costly as advertising pressure rises. According to Skai, retail media spending on Black Friday 2024 almost doubled year on year (+92%), and spending on Amazon reached 4.8 times the daily average before Thanksgiving. These figures are not specific to France, but the mechanics are the same: the higher the bids climb, the more each click to an unavailable or mispriced product weighs on return on investment.

The regulatory framework adds a consistency constraint. Since May 2022, the reference price of a discount must be the lowest price charged over the previous thirty days. In the 2024 inspections covering several thousand points of sale and more than 300 websites, nearly a third showed invalid discounts, Europe 1 reports, citing the DGCCRF (France’s consumer protection authority). Shein was fined €40 million in July 2025 for misleading price reductions. A brand is not responsible for each retailer’s price display, but it bears the effect on how its prices are perceived.

Outlook: what brands can control before November 27

A brand does not control its resellers’ prices, but it can act on three points. Product data (references, dimensions, compatibility, visuals) must be identical from one retailer to the next, otherwise AI assistants and comparison sites will relay contradictory versions. Availability must be known by reseller, before sending paid traffic to a page. And the redirection of visitors to a point of sale that has the item in stock must be measurable, to know which campaigns actually fed sales at retailers.

That is the role of the Click2Buy Where-to-Buy: linking a product page or a campaign to the right retailer. Over the period, online product availability varies widely from one reseller to another, and it is often what separates a completed purchase from an abandoned one.

Sources

• CB News, Fevad 2025 e-commerce review (in French)
• CB News, Black Friday 2025 review according to Criteo (in French)
• Tout sur mes finances, Shopify Holiday Retail 2026 study (in French)
• FashionUnited, Joko review of Black Week 2025 (in French)
• AlixPartners, Global Consumer Outlook 2026 France (in French)
• The Media Leader, Klaviyo Black Friday study (in French)
• Republik Retail, ShopFully and OpinionWay 2024 study (in French)
• BPCE L’Observatoire, Black Friday 2025 (in French)
• Modern Retail, stockouts in the UK
• Internet Retailing, the cost of stockouts on Black Friday
• Skai, Black Friday 2024 analysis
• Europe 1, DGCCRF inspections of discounts (in French)
• info.gouv.fr, reference price rule (in French)
• Deloitte Société d’Avocats, DGCCRF penalty against Shein (in French)

Hugo, Marketing at Click2Buy

“On Black Friday, a brand’s fate is decided at its retailers: the stock shown there decides the sale.”

The post Product availability Black Friday 2026: what’s at stake appeared first on Mr..

Rakuten France ceased all activity connecting buyers and sellers on September 30 at 11:59 p.m. With no buyer deemed satisfactory, the marketplace founded in 2000 as PriceMinister is gone, along with roughly 180 jobs. According to Pixmania, an unsuccessful bidder for the business, it still represented more than 2,500 professional sellers and more than €400 million in transaction volume.

As this marketplace was winding down, retail media, the sale of advertising space on retailers’ sites and apps, was crossing a threshold. WARC forecasts global spend of $196.7 billion in 2026, around 16% of worldwide advertising investment, and expects it to overtake linear and connected TV combined. Rakuten France, historically one of the French players in the sector, did not survive the shift.

A decade of decline, an exit with no buyer

The Japanese group acquired PriceMinister in 2010 for about €200 million, with the ambition of making it its European base against Amazon. At the time, the site claimed nearly 11 million monthly visitors, more than Amazon France at around 9 million. The subsidiary’s value had been written down to €65 million by 2016, and the PriceMinister brand disappeared in 2018.

According to Rakuten France’s management, the customer base shrank by 33% over ten years and traffic by 42%. In the third quarter of 2025 the site still drew 9.5 million unique visitors a month, against 15.5 million for Cdiscount and 38.8 million for Amazon, according to figures relayed by Journal du Geek. The sale process, run by Carlsquare, began in the spring. Rakuten accepted none of the offers it received, including Pixmania’s, and announced the closure in mid-July. On July 28, its terms of use were amended to bar new seller registrations.

The group cites a rapidly changing market, marked by the rise of foreign platforms. It is refocusing on Kobo, Viber, Rakuten TV and Rakuten Advertising, its affiliate network, which continues to operate. Seller support runs until November 30; balances in seller e-wallets are to be paid out by November 10.

Media economics versus commission economics

The difference starts with the revenue base. A marketplace earns a commission of roughly 10 to 15% on its sellers’ transaction volume. A retail media network sells access to a qualified audience, with gross margins the industry puts between 60 and 80%. LSA cites levels above 80% once technology investments are amortized. The two figures are not directly comparable, one being a take rate and the other a margin, but the gap in unit economics explains retailers’ interest.

Walmart provides the clearest illustration. Its global advertising business reached nearly $6.4 billion in fiscal 2026, which ended in January, up 46%, including the Vizio acquisition. Advertising and membership together accounted for close to a third of operating income in the latest quarter. This is no longer a side revenue stream: it is a pillar of the model.

Margins and rates: industry estimates, unaudited.

A game of scale, not just monetization

Monetizing is not enough, and Rakuten shows it. LSA already ranked it among the main French retail media sellers. But the sector is heavily concentrated: Amazon captured 78% of US spend in 2025, ahead of Walmart (7.5%), and accounts for more than two-thirds of investment in several large European markets, including France, according to WARC.

In France, e-retail media revenue reached €1.38 billion in 2025, up 13%, or 11% of a €12.4 billion digital advertising market. The momentum is real, but WARC expects European growth to slow to single digits. Mordor Intelligence, for its part, uses a much narrower scope: $25.53 billion in 2026 and $34.73 billion in 2031, a 6.35% annual rate. The eightfold gap with WARC illustrates the absence of a common market definition; the two series agree on direction, not on magnitude.

Outlook: who can realistically launch a network

Closed networks, Persistence Market Research observes, suit mainly platforms with hundreds of millions of active shoppers; hybrid models open a path for mid-sized players. Mordor notes for its part that third-party aggregators are growing 9.07% a year through 2031, faster than the market, and identifies a shortage of media skills inside retailers as a brake.

The French market has already answered with pooling: Unlimitail, born from the alliance of Carrefour and Publicis, and Infinity Advertising, the joint ad sales house of Casino and Intermarché. LSA points out that the main obstacle remains the fragmentation of supply for advertisers. For mid-sized retailers, the choice will come down to building, joining a pooled network or relying on an aggregator.

That leaves the 2,500 sellers. Most will fall back on Amazon, Cdiscount or foreign platforms that, according to Ecommerce Nation, have become near-mandatory gateways for keeping volume. Greater concentration of marketplaces would mechanically increase the weight of the advertising budgets these sellers will have to spend there to stay visible. The effect on acquisition costs remains to be measured.

Sources

• WARC Media, The Future of Commerce Media 2025
• CB News, WARC Media, The Future of Commerce Media 2026 (in French)
• Mordor Intelligence, Retail Media Networks Market
• Siècle Digital, Observatoire de l’e-pub (in French)
• PPC Land, Walmart advertising results, fiscal 2026
• Ecommerce Nation, Pixmania and the closure of Rakuten France (in French)
• Ecommerce Nation, the end of Rakuten France (in French)
• Journal du Geek, Rakuten France seeks a buyer (in French)
• MacGeneration, final hours for Rakuten France (in French)
• Next, Rakuten France closes its doors (in French)
• LSA, Why retail media will boom in France (in French)
• Persistence Market Research, Retail Media Networks

Hugo, Marketing at Click2Buy

“Rakuten is a reminder that an audience is only worth what you can monetize at scale: retail media is won on network size.”

The post Rakuten Closes: Retailers Adopt the Retail Media Network appeared first on Mr..

What a store locator actually is

No need to overcomplicate it: a store locator is a map linked to a list of points of sale. The user types in their address or city, and the tool shows them the closest points of sale. That’s it. The mechanics are deliberately simple, which is exactly why it has become standard on most brand websites. In practice, a good store locator lets you:

• Find the closest point of sale to you
• See which retailers carry the product you’re looking for
• Get directions or contact details for the shop
• Spot the points of sale offering click and collect, when the retailer provides it
• Move from the brand’s website to a purchase intent in just a few clicks

Why this matters for a brand today

The store locator usually shows up right at the end of the journey, just before the in-store purchase. It’s a real store proximity issue: the customer is looking for the closest point of sale, not the farthest one. This step is a core part of the retail customer experience, even though it’s often the least polished part of the journey. Google data shows that 76% of people who search “near me” on their phone visit a point of sale within 24 hours, and 28% of those visits end in a purchase. If the locator doesn’t respond, or responds poorly, the customer doesn’t look any further, they drop off. We cover this in more detail in our article What your where to buy should really tell your marketing teams: this last link matters just as much as the rest of the funnel, even though it’s rarely given the same level of attention.

The store locator by the numbers

Rather than piling up statistics, here are the numbers that genuinely justify paying attention to this now: the size and growth of the global store locator software market, and how much of “where to buy” search happens on mobile.

A market that doubles in under ten years is no longer just a nice-looking website gadget tacked onto an omnichannel strategy. And search behavior being largely mobile means a slow or poorly designed store locator loses customers before it even shows a result.

What changes when the store locator only covers part of the network

A brand that has no store locator, or that only lists a handful of selected distributors, limits its retail visibility to a fraction of where it’s actually sold. In every other area, the customer sees nothing, or worse, assumes the product isn’t sold anywhere near them. That’s exactly the kind of drop-off you see with drive-to-store campaigns, covered in more detail in our article Drive to store: why your campaigns do not convert and how to fix it: the intent is there, but the journey stops dead for lack of a clear answer. A store locator that covers the entire distribution network, with real retail network coverage and full geographic reach, changes that outcome directly, without changing anything about the tool’s basic mechanics.

The same pattern shows up at market level: our article Where to buy 2026: who really covers the ground in Europe shows that real network coverage often makes more of a difference than the widget’s design or usability. At Click2Buy, our Where-to-Buy solution has let us build up an already-referenced distributor network over time, which we put directly to use in the store locator for the brands that use it. In practice, a brand doesn’t need to rebuild its network point of sale by point of sale: it activates what already exists, then adds its own shops on top. The store locator principle doesn’t change, a map and points of sale. What changes is what it’s able to show from day one.

Sources: StoreRocket

12 reviews

 

Maxence Antao, Communications Officer at Click2Buy

“Our role at Click2Buy is to guide our clients through every step of the buying journey and improve their marketing ROI using real-time retailer stock data.”

The post Store locator: the shortcut to covering your entire distribution network appeared first on Mr..

The tyre market in France: stable in terms of volume, undergoing a major restructuring in terms of value

According to Xerfi, turnover for tyre manufacturers and retreaders in France reached 7.5 billion euros in 2023. The French Tyre Trade Association estimates that around 25 million passenger car tyres are sold each year, two-thirds of which are replacement tyres. Volumes show little change from one year to the next: they are driven by the size of the vehicle fleet and the number of kilometres travelled, two figures that change only slowly.

What is changing, however, is the way motorists shop. The average age of vehicles has risen to 11.6 years, whilst the average annual mileage has fallen by 9.6 per cent since 2016. As a result, people are changing their tyres less often, and when they do, they are paying closer attention to price. The ‘budget’ segment has doubled in size over the last ten years and now accounts for 21 per cent of the market. Meanwhile, all-season tyres are growing by more than 10 per cent a year, driven by drivers who simply want less hassle.

Why the all-online model isn’t catching on in this market

Pure players saw their sales fall by 8.7 per cent in 2023, whilst specialist tyre retailers maintained their market share, which remained stable at around 25 per cent. It is not a question of price or the convenience of online shopping. The fact is that tyres, unlike many other products, require a service to go with them: fitting, balancing and, sometimes, wheel alignment. An e-commerce site can sell the product, but it doesn’t fit the wheel.

Globally, over 31 per cent of shoppers start their search online, but only 13 to 20 per cent actually make a purchase via a digital channel. This gap is a classic example of ‘webrooming’: people research thoroughly online, then visit a specialist retailer to complete the purchase. There are no precise equivalent figures for France, but the underlying trend (a decline in pure e-commerce, a stable share for tyre retailers) clearly points in the same direction.

What this means for a tyre brand

The key question is no longer ‘how to sell online’, but ‘how to redirect effectively’. Three things naturally follow from this.

Firstly, product details (dimensions, compatibility, price) must be consistent across the board, at all retailers and tyre specialists within the network: a discrepancy between what is shown on the brand’s website and what is actually available in-store undermines trust at the worst possible moment. Secondly, simply redirecting a visitor to the right retail outlet is not enough if they cannot book a fitting slot there straight away. And finally, it must be possible to track this search even when the sale is completed elsewhere; otherwise, you never really know which campaigns have brought customers to the workshop.

This is the role of the Click2Buy ‘Where to Buy’ feature: to link a product listing or a campaign to the right retailer, without leaving the motorist to search for a suitable sales outlet on their own. In a market where online product availability varies greatly from one retailer to another, this is often what makes the difference between a successful purchase and a abandoned transaction.

In summary

Tyres clearly illustrate a principle that extends beyond this market alone: the more a product requires a service to be fitted, the wider the gap between online research and the final purchase becomes. The performance of a tyre brand is no longer measured solely by traffic to its website, but by its ability to direct the right people to the right place, where the right product is available.

Hugo, Marketing at Click2Buy

“Tyres clearly illustrate the limitations of an all-e-commerce model: you can sell a product online which, ultimately, is still purchased from a specialist retailer.”

The post The tyre market in France appeared first on Mr..

Why Click2Buy Will Be at Global Pool & Wellness

The pool and wellness industry shares a common characteristic with many durable goods markets: the buying decision begins online, but the purchase is almost always completed through a retailer or installer. Buyers compare products, read reviews, and explore technical specifications before deciding where—and from whom—to buy. Between these two stages, many brands lose visibility into what is actually happening.

This is exactly the challenge Click2Buy helps brands solve every day: connecting a brand’s digital touchpoints with its retail network, backed by reliable product availability data and actionable insights into the customer buying journey. Global Pool & Wellness is the ideal place to discuss these topics with industry professionals, from brands to retailers.

What Click2Buy Is Showcasing at the Event

Our team will be available throughout the two-day event to showcase the platform’s four solutions, tailored to the specific needs of the pool and spa industry:

• Where to Buy: Connect your product pages, marketing campaigns, and social media directly to the right retailers and points of sale, ensuring shoppers are seamlessly directed to the right product at the right retailer.
• Retail Media: Manage and measure the performance of your retail media campaigns across your retail partners, going beyond traffic to track real business impact.
• Digital Shelf: Monitor product availability, pricing, and the quality of your product listings across all your retail partners in real time.
• Landing Page Builder: Quickly create high-converting product and campaign landing pages that drive shoppers to your retail partners—without relying on lengthy development cycles.

For brands managing large and often complex distribution networks—including specialist retailers, mass merchants, and e-commerce partners—these solutions address a common challenge: maintaining control over product data from the very first customer touchpoint through to the final sale.

Who Should Attend?

The Click2Buy team will meet with brands and manufacturers selling through networks of distributors, retailers, or installers, who want to better measure and optimize their digital customer journey. Whether you have already started exploring your online visibility strategy or are just beginning to look into the topic, the discussion requires no prior preparation.

Book a Meeting at the Event

To avoid busy time slots during the event, you can schedule a meeting in advance with the Click2Buy team. It’s a simple way to prepare a discussion around your specific challenges (retailer coverage, product availability, and purchase intent measurement), rather than discovering the solution in just a few minutes between booth visits.

In summary

Global Piscine & Bien-être remains the leading trade show for the industry in France. Click2Buy will be there to connect with brands looking to regain control of their digital customer journey, from the initial online search all the way through to the sale at their retailers. See you on November 18 and 19 at Eurexpo Lyon.

Hugo, Marketing at Click2Buy

“We’ll be at the trade show to have concrete discussions with pool and spa brands about their purchasing journey, from the first click all the way through to the sale at their retailers.”

The post Click2Buy at Global Pool & Wellness 2026 – Eurexpo Lyon appeared first on Mr..

In practice, this question often comes up when a brand wants to connect its campaigns, website, product pages and retailers more effectively. The traffic is there. Product interest is there. Retail partners are in place. But the brand does not always know what happens between the click, the retailer selection and the final purchase. This is exactly where drive-to-retail becomes a serious issue: the goal is no longer simply to send traffic, but to understand whether that traffic creates real commercial value.

What PriceSpider generally provides

PriceSpider is one of the established players in the market. Brands often associate it with use cases such as digital shelf monitoring, retailer redirection, price tracking, product availability and certain shoppable activations. For a brand looking to improve retail visibility and structure links to resellers, this type of approach can address a genuine need.

The logic is clear: help brands make their products easier to find and buy across a fragmented retail ecosystem. That is useful. But in 2026, many teams want to go further. They no longer want to know only whether a product is visible or whether a user clicks through to a retailer. They want to understand what intent is created, which channel generated it, which product performs best, which retailer captures demand and how the setup can be improved.

This is where the PriceSpider vs Click2Buy comparison becomes relevant. The point is not to oppose two tools in an oversimplified way, but to distinguish between two different levels of expectation.

What Click2Buy brings to the purchase journey

Click2Buy is positioned more as a Where-to-Buy platform focused on activation and performance management. The solution connects a brand’s digital touchpoints with the most relevant online or physical retailers. The goal is not simply to display a list of retailers. It is to guide each shopper toward the most appropriate purchase option while providing actionable data to marketing, retail and digital teams.

In practical terms, brands can identify which products generate intent, which retailers shoppers select, which campaigns create the most qualified click-outs and which journeys need improvement. This is an important distinction. A Where-to-Buy solution should not be a simple button. It should become a tool for analysis and optimization.

Within this model, Where-to-Buy becomes a central part of drive-to-retail, especially for brands that do not sell exclusively through direct-to-consumer channels.

The real question: monitoring or performance management?

The choice mainly depends on what you are trying to improve. If your main challenge is monitoring product presence across retailers, tracking prices or observing your digital shelf, a monitoring-focused approach may be relevant. If your challenge is turning marketing traffic into measurable purchase intent, you need a solution that is more focused on the customer journey.

The distinction is simple. Monitoring tells you what exists. Performance management helps you decide what to do next. Consumer brands increasingly need that decision-making layer: which retailers to highlight, which campaigns to strengthen, which products to prioritize, which markets to optimize and which out-of-stock issues to address quickly.

Why measurement has become decisive

The core challenge in drive-to-retail is measurement. A brand can generate a high volume of clicks to retailers without understanding the real value of those clicks. Not all click-outs are equal. A click to an available product at a relevant retailer after a well-targeted campaign is much more valuable than a click to a generic page or an out-of-stock item.

This is why teams should not compare only the visible features. They also need to assess the quality of the signals collected. A strong solution should make it possible to understand intent, availability, retailer performance, campaign contribution and friction across the journey. In many existing setups, this is precisely where older Where-to-Buy models reach their limits.

Intent-focused Where-to-Buy KPIs help teams move beyond an overly limited view of drive-to-retail performance.

What brands should compare before choosing

Before choosing between PriceSpider and Click2Buy, avoid a surface-level comparison. A meaningful benchmark should start with concrete use cases. A brand selling across several countries, through multiple retailers and with several local teams does not have the same needs as a brand that simply wants to display a few purchase options.

• Retailer coverage: are the right retailers connected in your priority markets?
• Redirection quality: does the shopper reach the correct product rather than a broad category page?
• Available data: can you identify the products, retailers, campaigns and channels that perform best?
• Product availability: can you avoid sending traffic to a dead end?
• Support: does the provider help you optimize performance over time?

These criteria are often more revealing than a simple feature list. They show whether the platform only helps execute a setup or genuinely supports ongoing performance management. Another useful comparison can also help clarify the differences between shopper activation platforms.

When Click2Buy is a better fit

Click2Buy becomes particularly relevant when the need goes beyond redirection. This is the case when teams want to turn their website, campaigns, newsletters, social media and product pages into measurable entry points toward retailers.

The platform also helps brands deliver more value to retail partners. Retailers receive qualified and measurable traffic generated by brand-owned touchpoints. For sales teams, this provides a concrete argument in retailer discussions. For marketing teams, it connects digital investment with a purchase action. For retail teams, it provides a more detailed view of the partners capturing demand.

Measuring the real impact of campaigns therefore becomes essential when the final transaction takes place through retailers.

Our practical recommendation

If your main need is digital shelf monitoring or retail tracking, a solution such as PriceSpider may cover part of the requirement. If your goal is to orchestrate a complete journey across media, brand websites, products and retailers, Click2Buy deserves closer consideration.

The right decision starts with one simple question: do you mainly want to observe your retail presence, or do you want to manage purchase intent toward your retailers? In the first case, monitoring is central. In the second, Where-to-Buy capabilities, analytics and operational support become decisive.

The reality is straightforward. Modern drive-to-retail is no longer limited to sending traffic. It must help brands understand that traffic, guide it more effectively and prove its value. This is where the difference between a redirection feature and a true brand and retailer performance management solution becomes clear.

19 reviews

 

Maxence Antao, Communications Officer at Click2Buy

Our role at Click2Buy is to guide clients throughout the purchase journey and optimize their marketing ROI using real-time retailer stock data.

The post PriceSpider vs Click2Buy: which drive-to-retail solution should you choose? appeared first on Mr..

In practice, the confusion often comes from an oversimplification. A brand launches a campaign, adds a shoppable mechanism, displays retailers and measures click-outs. That is a start, but it is not proof of conversion. A shopper can click without buying. They may land on an overly broad page. They may find that the product is unavailable. They may choose an irrelevant retailer. They may also show strong intent that the brand does not know how to use. This is where the MikMak vs Click2Buy comparison becomes relevant.

What MikMak brings to the shopper journey

MikMak is often associated with shoppable media, commerce intelligence and digital retail activation. For a brand looking to make campaigns more transactional, shorten the journey between content and retailer or analyze selected ecommerce signals, this approach can make sense.

The strength of this type of platform is clear: it follows an activation-driven model. Marketing touchpoints become more actionable. An ad, video, landing page or social media asset can move the user closer to a purchase destination. This is useful, especially when brands want to move beyond a purely brand-focused approach. This related analysis explores the limits of that model in greater detail.

But the more demanding question is what actually gets measured after activation. Does the platform help the brand understand the quality of intent, or only the volume of interactions? This is often where the difference between a shoppable mechanism and a true shopper marketing platform becomes clear.

What Click2Buy brings to Where-to-Buy

Click2Buy operates at a very practical stage of the journey: the moment when the consumer wants to know where to buy. The platform connects a brand’s digital touchpoints with relevant online or physical retailers through availability, redirection and purchase intent measurement.

Click2Buy does not simply display retailer logos. It helps guide shoppers toward the right purchase options, strengthen retail partnerships and collect useful data, including the product viewed, retailer selected, source channel, campaign, market and engagement level.

For a brand using indirect distribution, this visibility is essential. The brand does not always control the final transaction at the retailer. It therefore needs strong intermediate signals to understand whether campaigns and product pages are creating genuine purchase intent.

The key difference: activation or performance management

The difference between MikMak and Click2Buy should not be oversimplified. Both solutions can address related needs, but they do not always focus on the same part of the journey. MikMak often appeals to brands that want to make activations more shoppable. Click2Buy is more relevant to brands that want to manage a complete Where-to-Buy journey, from the website or campaign to the selected retailer.

In practical terms, a shoppable media solution can be relevant when the priority is activating a media format. When the priority is understanding where intent goes, which retailers capture demand and how to optimize indirect sales, the depth of the journey and analytics becomes more important. A similar comparison shows why connecting media and retail requires more than a simple outbound link.

Why availability changes conversion

A shopper does not convert simply because they clicked. They convert because the product is easy to find, available, correctly linked and aligned with their intent. This is basic, but it is still too often overlooked. A campaign can generate strong engagement and lose the sale immediately afterwards if the retailer does not stock the product, the URL leads to a generic page or the mobile journey performs poorly.

This is why retailer redirection should not be treated as a simple outbound link. It must be managed. The user should reach the right destination with as little friction as possible. Otherwise, the brand funds purchase intent that the journey fails to convert effectively.

Product availability therefore becomes a conversion criterion that is just as important as the media creative. In some existing setups, older Where-to-Buy systems struggle to provide this level of reliability.

Why analytics make the difference

The decisive criterion is ultimately the data. A platform can generate traffic without providing useful enough insight. Marketing teams no longer want to know only how many users clicked. They want to know which products attract interest, which retailers shoppers select, which channels generate intent and which campaigns create value.

This is where Where-to-Buy analytics change the perspective. They allow brands to move from activity tracking to performance management. A brand can identify what works, correct what blocks conversion and prioritize its efforts with retail partners.

Purchase intent measurement provides a more detailed view than a basic click-out rate.

What to compare before choosing

The right choice should not be based on a generic feature grid. It should be based on your real use cases: your products, retailers, markets, campaigns and data constraints. A single-market FMCG brand running a few shoppable campaigns does not have the same needs as an international brand working with multiple retailers and seeking to measure indirect sales.

• Check retailer coverage in your key markets
• Test the quality of product redirections
• Review availability and alternatives for out-of-stock products
• Analyze the data collected after the click
• Assess the support provided for continuous optimization

Within this framework, Click2Buy becomes particularly relevant for brands that want to move beyond one-off activations. The platform can turn every digital touchpoint into a measurable sales driver for retail partners while maintaining a clear view of the journey.

Our practical recommendation

If your primary need is to make campaigns shoppable, MikMak may belong on your shortlist. If your priority is building a robust Where-to-Buy journey connected to availability, retailers and intent measurement, Click2Buy deserves closer consideration.

There is no universal answer to the question of which platform truly converts shoppers. A platform converts more effectively when it matches the brand’s distribution model. For a brand selling through retailers, conversion is not won through media alone. It is won through the quality of the transition between interest, retailer selection and purchase action.

This is where the real difference lies: a strong platform should not simply activate the shopper. It should help the brand understand, guide and improve the journey that turns intent into retail value.

8 reviews

 

Maxence Antao, Communications Officer at Click2Buy

Our role at Click2Buy is to guide clients throughout the purchase journey and optimize their marketing ROI using real-time retailer stock data.

The post MikMak vs Click2Buy: which one truly converts shoppers? appeared first on Mr..

In practice, CPG brands often confuse a shorter conversion path with a more valuable conversion path. A click to a cart may look efficient. But if the product is unavailable, the retailer is not relevant, the cart does not fit local shopping habits or the brand receives no actionable data, performance remains difficult to manage. This is where the SmartCommerce vs Click2Buy comparison becomes useful: it forces teams to examine what happens after activation.

What SmartCommerce brings to the retail journey

SmartCommerce addresses a clear need: shortening the path to purchase. For a shoppable campaign, social content, an inspirational page or a media activation, a direct-to-cart approach can make sense. The shopper sees a product, clicks and is sent to a faster purchase option.

This model appeals to marketing teams looking to reduce friction. Fewer steps. Less hesitation. Less disruption between exposure and action. For highly transactional use cases, it can be effective. However, it assumes that the retailer cart is always the best destination. That is not always the case.

In many situations, shoppers want to choose their preferred retailer, check availability, compare options, purchase in store or buy through a trusted distributor. If the stack pushes them too quickly toward a single route, it may make the journey look simpler while reducing the real quality of the experience. This broader comparison helps clarify the trade-offs between these approaches.

What Click2Buy brings to Where-to-Buy

Click2Buy starts from a different principle: helping shoppers find where to buy from the right online or physical retailer. The platform is not limited to a cart mechanism. It connects a brand’s digital touchpoints with relevant retailers while providing useful signals to marketing, brand and retail teams.

Click2Buy can turn a brand website, campaign, newsletter, landing page or media asset into an entry point to a retail transaction. The difference lies in the data: which product triggered the action, which retailer was selected, which channel generated intent and which campaign actually performed.

For brands using indirect distribution, this is essential. They do not always control the final cart, so they need greater control over the journey leading to it.

The key difference: direct cart or retail performance management

The difference between SmartCommerce and Click2Buy should not be oversimplified. A click-to-cart solution can be highly useful in certain contexts. However, it does not always replace a broader Where-to-Buy strategy.

The real question is whether you want to reduce the journey to a cart or give shoppers the best available purchase options. In the first case, direct-to-cart can be relevant. In the second, you need more precise orchestration across retailers, availability, redirections, data, alternatives when products are unavailable and performance analysis.

Why availability changes conversion performance

A retail conversion does not depend only on the number of clicks. It depends primarily on the quality of the destination. A shopper sent to an unavailable product will not convert. A shopper sent to an overly broad page may get lost. A shopper sent to an irrelevant retailer may leave. It is a blunt reality, but it is common.

This is why retailer redirection must be connected to reliable data. The journey should account for availability, possible alternatives and consistency between the product, campaign and retailer.

Product availability therefore becomes a genuine performance factor rather than a technical detail. In many existing setups, this is also where older Where-to-Buy systems begin to show their limitations.

Why analytics should influence the decision

The real problem with many shopper stacks is not activation. It is the lack of insight after the click. A campaign can generate activity without producing useful data. Yet CMOs must justify budgets. Brand Managers need to understand which products generate interest. Retail Managers need to see which distributors capture demand.

Where-to-Buy analytics connect the key signals: traffic source, product, selected retailer, market, campaign, channel and intent level. This is what turns a digital retail activation mechanism into a genuine performance management system.

Measuring purchase intent is therefore more relevant than relying on basic click reporting alone.

What to compare before choosing

Before choosing between SmartCommerce and Click2Buy, test both platforms against real use cases. Do not rely only on a perfect demonstration. Use your own products, retailers, markets, campaigns and availability constraints.

• Check coverage of your key retailers
• Test the quality of product redirections
• Review how out-of-stock products and alternatives are handled
• Analyze the data available after the click
• Assess the level of support provided for continuous optimization

If your main requirement is a direct-to-cart model for CPG, SmartCommerce may belong on your shortlist. If your objective is to maximize retail conversions while maintaining a clear view of intent, retailers and channel performance, Click2Buy is likely to be a better fit. Another useful reference can help frame the wider shopper stack decision.

Our practical recommendation

Do not choose the solution that promises the shortest journey. Choose the one that creates the most reliable journey. One fewer click has no value if the redirection is poor, the product is unavailable or your teams cannot understand what worked.

Click2Buy stands out through its ability to turn digital touchpoints into drivers of measurable indirect sales. The platform helps brands guide shoppers toward the right retailers, strengthen retailer relationships, track intent signals and optimize campaigns over time.

The right question is therefore not simply SmartCommerce or Click2Buy. The real question is whether your priority is sending shoppers to a cart faster or managing the entire journey that leads to a retail conversion more effectively.

23 reviews

 

Maxence Antao, Communications Officer at Click2Buy

Our role at Click2Buy is to guide clients throughout the purchase journey and optimize their marketing ROI using real-time retailer stock data.

The post SmartCommerce vs Click2Buy: which one truly converts in retail? appeared first on Mr..