French for Online Selling: Vocabulary, Message Templates, and Live Shopping

You sell Vietnamese spices and tea to customers in France, and a direct message pops up on the shop’s Instagram: 「Bonjour, est-ce que votre mélange d'épices contient des arachides ? Mon fils y est allergique.」 This is the kind of question with no room for guessing. You need to understand arachides and allergique exactly, and reply with a sentence that is polite enough, clear enough, and does not promise what you are not sure of.

French in sales has two layers. The first is commercial vocabulary, fairly regular and with many words close to English so easy to remember. The second is forms of address and how soft the sentence is: vous instead of tu, the conditional for politeness (pourriez-vous), and a few verb conjugations that immediately show the writer is a beginner. Vietnamese speakers may find the second layer harder, because Vietnamese does not conjugate verbs and shows politeness through pronouns and particles.

This article is for Vietnamese sellers selling to French customers via marketplaces, personal pages, or their own shop, including those planning to try live shopping. You will get vocabulary tables from product page to livestream, five grammar points, three real exchanges, and how to practice while the shop is running.

• The voice of a shop selling to French customers
• Vocabulary, from product page to live shopping
• Five grammar points for email and messages
• Three real exchanges
• Practice while the shop is running
• Questions sellers often ask
• Do this now

The voice of a shop selling to French customers

Same shop, you use three different voices depending on context. What ruins a professional feel fastest is mixing voices: writing to a stranger by email in live-room tone, or reading formal announcements during a live session.

One thing to watch from the start is tu and vous. With new customers, vous is the default in correspondence, and many brands aimed at young people use tu or informal vous on social media. If you are not sure, use vous and let the customer suggest switching to tu.

Product pages in French are usually very compact. You will see livraison offerte, en stock, fabriqué à la main, rarely a full subject–verb sentence. Learning to read these phrases first helps you write faster, and it is something a beginner can do from the first week.

Vocabulary, from product page to live shopping

The tables go from listing products to selling live. Gender (masculine or feminine) is noted for every noun, because the difference shows up again in adjectives and past participles. The set of 40 words in the game fits in five tables, plus very French terms like point relais, TVA, and délai de rétractation.

Product page and shop

The phrase mettre en vente is used for sellers; customers see en vente or à vendre. Vendeur has the feminine form vendeuse, and many customers will address you as Madame or Monsieur rather than by name, so it is worth preparing replies.

Price, promotions, stock, and payment

The phrase en rupture de stock means temporarily out of stock, and you usually follow it with a restock date: de retour le 15. If you do not know when it will be back, saying straight out plus disponible or épuisé is more trustworthy than a vague promised date. On tax, obligations depend on your scale and business form, so ask your accountant instead of inferring from another shop.

Customer, order, and shipping

The two words livraison and expédition are often confused. Expédition is when you send it out; livraison is when it reaches the customer. 「Votre commande a été expédiée」 means you have shipped; 「Votre colis a été livré」 means the customer received it. Delivery times depend on the carrier and customs, so use real tracking information instead of promising a date.

Returns, reviews, and warranty

The word avis is used for customer reviews and also means opinion, so 「À mon avis」 is “in my opinion”. With réclamation, in French this word is a customer request to fix a fault or service issue. The length of délai de rétractation is set by law and varies by case, so do not copy numbers from another shop; check current sources.

Live shopping

Five grammar points for email and messages

1. Vouvoiement and opening and closing letters

With customers, use vous, conjugate verbs accordingly, and open with Bonjour plus Madame or Monsieur. Close with Cordialement or Bien cordialement. If you do not know the writer’s gender, you can use Bonjour plus their name.

• Bonjour Madame, merci pour votre message.
• Je vous remercie de votre patience.
• Cordialement, Linh

Vietnamese speakers often turn “bạn” into tu, or open with Salut out of chat habit. With a stranger, both sound casual. Also remember vous in second-person plural forms like vous avez, vous pouvez, even when speaking to one person.

2. Conditionnel de politesse: pourriez-vous, je voudrais

To ask a customer to do something, use the present conditional: pourriez-vous, auriez-vous, je voudrais. This is much softer than vous pouvez or je veux and is standard in customer service.

• Pourriez-vous m'envoyer une photo du colis ?
• Auriez-vous votre numéro de commande ?
• Je voudrais vous proposer un échange.

A common mistake is mixing pourriez (conditional) with pourrez (future) and writing 「Pourrez-vous m'envoyer」, which asks about future ability, no longer soft. Another mistake is je veux, which sounds demanding. With customers, je voudrais is safer.

3. Passé composé, passive, and en cours de: reporting order status

Announce what you have done with passé composé with avoir, or passive a été plus past participle. Ongoing actions use être en cours de plus noun or infinitive. With passive, the participle agrees in gender and number with the subject.

• Nous avons bien reçu votre paiement.
• Votre commande a été expédiée ce matin.
• Votre colis est en cours de livraison.

A common mistake is forgetting agreement, writing 「Votre commande a été expédié」 instead of expédiée, and using the wrong auxiliary like nous sommes expédié. Just remember commande is feminine so the participle gets an e; colis is masculine so it does not.

4. Si plus présent, futur: promising what you will do

Conditional promises use si plus présent in the if-clause and futur in the result clause. This is the pattern for returns, refunds, or replacements.

• Si vous nous retournez l'article, nous vous rembourserons dès réception.
• Si vous ajoutez un sachet, la remise s'appliquera.
• Si le produit présente un défaut, nous le remplacerons.

The common mistake is putting futur after si, writing 「Si vous retournerez」. In French, si goes with présent, then futur in the next clause. A small tip to remember: treat the si clause as present information, and only the result clause looks forward.

5. Live voice: impératif and il n'en reste que

In the live room, use short friendly imperatives like regardez, dites-moi, ajoutez. When stating how many are left, the familiar pattern is il n'en reste que, with en standing in for the item just mentioned.

• Regardez la couleur du thé.
• Dites-moi en commentaire ce que vous préférez.
• Il n'en reste que douze coffrets.

A common mistake is dropping en and writing 「Il reste que douze」, or placing the pronoun wrong in affirmative imperatives, like 「Les ajoutez」 instead of ajoutez-les. In affirmative imperatives, the pronoun goes after the verb, linked with a hyphen. Keeping friendly vous throughout the session is the safe choice if you are not sure.

Three real exchanges

Customer asks about allergenic ingredients

This section is a direct message. What matters is not hard vocabulary but not promising what you are not sure of. Read both roles aloud.

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Live session introducing tea

Practice while the shop is running

Play the online selling vocabulary deck in Falling Stars or Pop It to load words, then come back to the tables and read each example sentence aloud with its article. With French, reading aloud helps because it forces correct liaison and silent final sounds your eyes skip.

For listening, pick one episode from the French podcast, listen sentence by sentence and transcribe, then compare to the original. Transcription shows where you mishear endings like -é, -ée, and -er, which sound alike but spell differently. Courses give you a path; the vocabulary test shows where you stand.

One exercise that fits a small shop: each week pick one real question a customer asked you, write the answer in French, have a native speaker correct it, then save it in a template file. After a few weeks you have a reuse library and your ear for the right voice gets sharper.

Outside WELE: TV5Monde has a free Apprendre le français section with leveled listening, and dictionaries like WordReference or Reverso help you look up real examples. Machine translation is handy to understand messages, but read it over before sending, especially conditional forms and vous. When you want a benchmark, DELF mock tests on WELE give you one. For food or regulated goods, check current labeling requirements instead of copying another shop.

If you also handle sourcing or content, see French for sourcing and French for content creation. The full list is at French by profession, and online selling collects related articles.

Questions sellers often ask

What DELF level do you need to sell to French customers?

There is no universal level, because it depends whether you answer yourself or have support. What helps more is understanding customer questions and having a set of letter templates checked by a native speaker.

Livestream: tu or vous?

Both appear, depending on brand and audience. If you are not sure, use friendly vous and stay consistent for the whole session, then watch how shops in your niche address people.

Selling food: what must you state about ingredients and allergens?

Food items have specific labeling and allergen rules, and they change over time. Read current sources or ask someone who knows, and when customers ask, only say what you have verified.

What is délai de rétractation?

It is the period in which a buyer can cancel a distance sale under the law. Duration and exceptions depend on current rules, so this article does not give numbers.

What are marketplace fees and tax when selling to France?

This article does not give numbers because they change by marketplace, product type, and time. Read the marketplace’s current help pages and your carrier’s guidance.

Do this now

Open the fiche produit for your best seller, rewrite the description in short sentences, then play Pop It so the words you just used become familiar on your tongue.