Frozen food on a clock
Exostar sells frozen seafood, fish, ready meals, vegetables and desserts. The logo reads Paris, since 1998. The storefront is French, a banner promises delivery across France in controlled cold at minus 18 degrees, and shipping is free from 99 euros. A professional area sits in the top bar beside the contact link.
Once a box leaves the warehouse the cold chain starts counting, and the paperwork has to keep pace with it from the first scan to the customer's freezer.
The 5.5% question
Most foodstuffs in France carry the reduced VAT rate of 5.5%, where clothing or candles take the standard 20%. An invoice for prawns, salmon fillets and prepared dishes therefore shows a different rate from the one a clothing brand prints. Alcohol and a few other items stay at 20%, so a merchant with a mixed catalogue has to watch which rate lands on which line.
The remaining content follows the usual French list. A sequential number and the date open the document, then the seller's SIRET and VAT number and the buyer's details. Each line gives a quantity and a unit price, and the totals appear with and without tax. All of it in French, for a French customer, whatever sits in the box or how cold it is.
Business buyers raise a further point. If the professional area leads to trade orders, those invoices also need the payment terms, the late-payment penalty rate and the 40 euro recovery fee. French companies keep invoices for ten years, so each document has to say the same thing in five years that it says today.
Setup since 2021
Exostar has used Avada PDF Invoice since 2021. The Blue Invoice template produces its French invoices, with headings such as Facture, Adresse de paiement and Total général. VAT and tax fields are switched on, amounts follow the store currency, and each invoice is emailed to the customer as soon as the order comes in.
Beside the invoice, the account holds templates for orders, quotes and refunds. The professional area on the storefront points to business buyers, and the order and quote documents give them something more formal than a receipt.
We rendered the sample on this page from the same template. Only the brand name is real. The address, the SIRET and VAT numbers, the customer, the products and the prices are invented. It shows four frozen-food lines, 98 euros before tax, 5.39 euros of TVA at 5.5% and a total of 103.39 euros. The total clears the free-shipping threshold, so there is no shipping line, and the footer states the reduced rate in words.
Eleven thousand documents and one review
The app has sent more than 11,000 documents since 2021. A reviewer from the store left five stars on the Shopify App Store, and the review sits below this article. Roughly translated from French, it calls the app very practical and says the support agents answer quickly and are friendly.
Try it on your store
Selling food in France means checking the VAT rate on each product before you look at the template. Once the rates are right, Avada PDF Invoice can print them on a French invoice and email it as soon as the order arrives.