France Is Quietly Learning to Buy Straight From Its Feeds
TL;DR: The second Colissimo x Ifop social-commerce barometer, published on 19 October 2026, found 15% of French shoppers have bought by paying directly on a social network — up from 9% in late 2025 and rising to 39% among under-25s.
A habit forming, fast
The second wave of the Colissimo x Ifop social-commerce barometer, fielded between 29 June and 10 July 2026 among 2,180 French people aged 15 and over and published on 19 October 2026, captures a behaviour shifting from curiosity to routine. The share of shoppers who have paid directly inside a social network has jumped to 15%, up from 9% in late 2025.
The generational gap is the real story. Among under-25s, that figure hits 39% — more than double the national average. When nearly four in ten young shoppers have already completed a purchase without leaving the app, in-feed commerce stops being an experiment and starts being a default for the next decade of consumers.
Awareness is catching up to behaviour
Behaviour follows awareness, and awareness is climbing. 46% of French shoppers now know that buying inside a feed is even possible, rising to 78% of under-25s. That awareness gap is the leading indicator: the people who know the option exists are the pool from which the next wave of buyers is drawn, and the young are almost fully aware already.
Crucially, the experience is not putting people off. 87% of those who have bought this way say they were satisfied. High satisfaction is what turns a one-off trial into repeat behaviour — and it removes the usual brake on new commerce channels, which is the fear that convenience comes at the cost of a bad delivery or a painful return.
The AI agent is already on the horizon
The barometer contains a figure that should reset a few roadmaps: 51% of online buyers say they would use an AI agent that searches, compares and completes a purchase on their behalf, payment included. Among under-25s, that rises to 68%. The willingness to hand the entire buying journey to software is no longer fringe.
That is a profound shift in who the brand is actually selling to. If an agent does the searching and comparing, the customer you must win over is partly a machine — one that reads structured data, prices and availability rather than a glossy campaign. Brands optimising only for human persuasion risk being invisible to the software increasingly doing the shopping.
What French brands should do now
The immediate priority is to make in-feed purchase genuinely frictionless, because the under-25 cohort will punish any brand that forces them back out to a clunky website. Satisfaction is high today precisely because the smooth journeys are winning; protect that and the channel compounds.
The longer game is to prepare for agentic commerce: clean product data, transparent pricing, real stock information and fast fulfilment. The brands that treat the feed as a full sales channel — and ready themselves to be chosen by an algorithm as well as a human — will own the generation that has already decided buying and browsing are the same thing.
It is worth sitting with the pace of change. Social buying roughly doubled from 9% to 15% in under a year, and the under-25 figure is already approaching four in ten. Curves like that rarely flatten quietly; they tend to pull the rest of the population along as the habit normalises and the friction keeps falling. A channel treated as experimental in 2025 is becoming mainstream commerce in 2026.
The role for fulfilment partners like Colissimo is the quiet enabler in all this. The reason 87% satisfaction holds is that the delivery and returns experience behind an in-feed purchase has matured. That is a reminder that social commerce is not just a front-end trick — the logistics have to be invisible and reliable, or the slick buy button simply accelerates the journey to a disappointed customer.
Quick FAQ
How many French shoppers buy directly on social networks?
The Colissimo x Ifop barometer found 15% have bought by paying directly on a social network, up from 9% in late 2025, rising to 39% among under-25s.
Are shoppers happy with social commerce?
Yes — 87% of those who have bought this way reported being satisfied, which supports repeat use of the channel.
Would French shoppers use an AI buying agent?
51% of online buyers say they would use an AI agent that searches, compares and completes a purchase including payment, rising to 68% of under-25s.
The number that should keep marketers up at night isn't the 15% buying in-feed today — it's the half who'd let an AI agent do the whole purchase. We're entering a market where you're selling to software as much as to people. Clean data and fair pricing are about to matter more than a clever campaign. — Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing
In-feed buying is becoming the default for young France — and the next customer to win over might be an algorithm.
If an AI agent compared your product on data and price alone, would it still pick you?
If you would like to know more about this topic, please contact us on danieln@merxmarketing.co.uk
Sources: CB News, Ecommerce Nation
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Written by Daniel Nikolla, Founder of Merx Marketing Ltd and Marketing Minute
