France's summer sales start on 24 June and run until 21 July. In the windows, you'll see "−40%" splashed across gold jewellery, "slashed prices", "last pieces". And the everyday shopper in me — the one who compares price per kilo at the supermarket — has a simple reflex: if gold is a world price, how can a shop knock 40% off it? The answer is that it can't. It's discounting something else. Here's exactly what.
What the price of a gold piece is made of
When you pay for a gold piece, your money splits into three clearly distinct parts:
- The metal. The gold itself: its weight × its fineness (18 carat = 75% gold) × the day's world price. This part is set by the market, not by the shop. As of 24 June 2026, pure gold sits around €125/g, which puts the metal in an 18-carat piece near €94/g (re-check on the day you read this).
- The making. The labour: melting, casting, setting, polishing. That has a real cost and varies from workshop to workshop.
- The markup. What the shop adds to stay in business. At the big chains, the displayed price per gram can climb to two or three times the official rate — you're no longer paying for gold, you're paying for the brand.
Hold onto that boundary: the metal is set by the whole world, the making and markup are set by the shop. A discount can only bite into what the shop controls.
Gold is a world price. No shop will knock 40% off it — what gets discounted is the labour and the markup, never the metal.
What the "−40%" really touches
Take an 18-carat ring weighing 5 grams. The metal is worth 5 × €94 = €470. It's the same everywhere, sale or no sale. Say a chain lists it at €900: that's €430 of making + markup on top of the metal.
A "−40%" brings the price down to €540. Pretty on the tag. But look where the discount went: the €470 of metal didn't move a cent — the making + markup dropped from €430 to €70. The shop trimmed its labour and its margin, not your gold. Which is fair enough: that's what a genuine sale is.
The trouble is that not everyone plays fair.
The real sales trap: the inflated reference price
The classic sales scam — across all products, and jewellery is no exception — is the inflated reference price. The rule is meant to be simple: the crossed-out price must be one actually charged before. Except some shops nudge the price up a few weeks ahead of the sales, then flash a "discount" that brings you back… to the normal price. The "−40%" starts from a €900 that never really existed, when the piece was selling for €700 the month before. Your real discount isn't 40%, it's 23% — and sometimes zero.
Consumer-protection bodies and watchdog associations warn about this every season, on top of a wave of fake sites peddling "artisan jewellery at slashed prices" that bloom during the sales. The defence is always the same, and it's exactly what I do: I don't look at the crossed-out percentage, I look at the price per gram. If I know the weight and the fineness, I know what the metal is worth. Everything else — making, markup, sales, crossed-out price — becomes readable at once.
Second-hand: the only "discount" that lasts all year
Here's my conviction, and it's the whole spirit of OrOGramme. Sales give you a cut on making and markup twice a year, for a few weeks, on the pieces a chain wants to clear. Second-hand gives you that discount permanently — because a pre-owned piece already lost its making and markup the day the first owner bought it. You pay again for the gold, barely for the rest.
That's why, when my goal is to park money in a piece of jewellery rather than fall for something pretty, I don't wait for the sales: I buy second-hand, solid 18-carat, from official shops that certify. The metal is the same as in the discounted window next door — but I don't pay the markup, not at full price, and not as a fake "−40%".
Gold-for-pleasure plays by other rules: if you fall in love with a new piece and the sales make it reachable, go for it, that's perfectly fine. Just buy it with your eyes open, knowing the discount is on the labour, not on the metal.
How to check before you cave
Before believing a sales "bargain", do the one calculation that matters: displayed price ÷ weight = your real price per gram. Compare it to the day's rate. If it's more than twice the buyback, you're mostly paying markup, sale or not. That's precisely what OrOGramme does for you on the second-hand market: eleven 18-carat gold shops, all normalised per gram, so you see the real price at a glance.
Eleven second-hand 18-carat gold shops, normalised per gram.
To wrap up
I'm not saying sales are a scam — there are real promotions, and trimming the making is an honest move. I'm just saying no discount will ever touch your gold: the metal is set by the whole world, not by a red sticker. So look at the gram, not the percentage. I'm telling you what I do — your choices are yours to make, with your own situation in mind.
Sources for the figures cited:
- Official 2026 French summer-sales dates (24/06→21/07): economie.gouv.fr, re-check on the publication day
- Inflated reference-price scam during sales: avocotes.com, re-check
- Fake "artisan jewellery at slashed prices" sites: quechoisir.org, alerts Dec 2025 + Apr 2026, re-check
- 18-carat gold price per gram (France, mid-June 2026): leguidedubijou.fr, re-verify on the day you read