Selection or test: what we really do
We do not test the products in our guides. We select them using published specifications, availability at identified retailers, and their suitability for the budget and intended recipient.
A test involves having the product in hand, with a protocol, photos and a duration of use. We have no protocol or test bench, and we do not say what we cannot prove: our guides therefore do not tell us any experience of use.
The information on a sheet comes from the manufacturer's page and from the merchant's page: exact name of the model, generation, advertised characteristics, price. When a number comes from the manufacturer (autonomy, power, recommended age), we present it as such.
We don't rate out of 5 or 10 and we don't compile customer reviews: it would be like a rating we didn't make.
Our five selection criteria
An idea enters into a guide if it meets five criteria: a realistic budget, a person to whom to offer it, an accurate and up-to-date product, a verified availability in France and a concrete reason to recommend it.
The commission that a merchant can pay is not one of these criteria: we first choose the idea, then only where to buy it. An idea without affiliation can be included in a guide, and a partner merchant does not gain any place in it.
| Criterion | What We Check | What rules an idea out |
|---|---|---|
| Budget | The price, checked at the merchant on the day of the statement, corresponds to the budget targeted (30 € or less for the small Christmas prices; 5, 10, 15 or 20 € for the Secret Santa) | A price "from" without a precise model |
| Intended recipient | The idea fits a profile named: child of a given age, teen, parent, colleague... | An idea "for everyone" that does not meet any profile |
| Accuracy | The name, generation and link are the same product | A link to another model or an outdated generation |
| Availability | The product is on sale at least one merchant who delivers in France (or Belgium, for the Belgian heading) on the day of the survey | A durable stock shortage or a sale only abroad |
| Utility | One or two factual sentences say for whom and why | No arguments except popularity or promotion of the moment |
Budgets based on real Christmas lists
Our price brackets reflect the gifts people actually request. In Listopia's 2025 Christmas lists, 78% of gifts with a usable price cost €50 or less, with a median price of €25.99.
Our Christmas 2026 guide devotes a section to gifts at less than € 30 and sets in a table, per slice, ideas whose price is displayed (30 € or less, more than € 100); the ideas sold on Amazon do not have any prices on the page. Our Secret Santa selection, it, follows the budgets of the exchange, from 5 to 20 €.
Calculation basis: lists created on Listopia between 1 October and 24 December 2025 (Paris time) whose name contains a word starting with “Noël” or “Noel”. The filter also accepted “Christmas” and “Xmas”, and excluded names containing a word starting with “test”; no lists met that exclusion. Only gifts added before 25 December 2025 count, and among those, only usable prices. The table below details each exclusion.
The median and shares by price bracket published on our Christmas wishlist page are based on the 1,933 retained prices; shares are rounded to whole percentages. If the 41 prices ending with a full stop were included, the median would be €25 and none of the rounded shares would change. These figures describe users of the service during the 2025 season, not the entire French population.
| Calculation step | Number |
|---|---|
| Christmas lists created from 1 October to 24 December 2025 | 287 |
| ... of which lists with at least one gift | 170 |
| Gifts added to these lists before December 25 2025 | 3 224 |
| Excluded: gifts without a price | 1 233 |
| Excluded: prices ending with a full stop and no cents (“15.”, “26.”), which the calculation could not read | 41 |
| Excluded: amounts above €5,000, including cars, a house, cash requests and clearly misread prices | 11 |
| Excluded: prices of €0 | 4 |
| Excluded: price ranges (‘10-120’, ‘40-100’) | 2 |
| Retained prices, across 150 lists | 1 933 |
Prices dated, recorded at a merchant named
In our guides, a price displayed is accompanied by the date of the statement and the name of the merchant, in the form of "price recorded on the DD/MM/YYYY at a merchant" : a price without date does not say anything, because it often changes during the season.
The statement is made on the merchant's product sheet, or in the product catalogue which he sends to his affiliate partners when his card refuses to read automatically: price incl. VAT of that day, excluding shipping costs and no promo code. Each sheet gives the price recorded by a merchant, the one which it names: the same product is often sold elsewhere, sometimes less expensive, then compare before buying.
Between two statements, the price can move, especially around Black Friday (Friday, November 27, 2026). The price that counts is always the price displayed at the merchant's place when you purchase.
Exception: Amazon. Amazon's Partner Program allows only prices provided by Amazon and updated at least every 24 hours, so we do not copy any Amazon prices. On these cards, the "View Price on Amazon" button leads to the price of the day.
Affiliate Links: What They Change, and What They Don't Change
Free for you: no fees or commission are deducted from your gifts. Some retailer links are affiliate links: the retailer may pay us a commission, at no extra cost to you.
- A banner indicates affiliation before the trade links of our guides, and these links are marked as sponsored for search engines.
- Our affiliate partners are the Partner Program of Amazon, Awin and Effinity. As a Partner Amazon, Listopia makes a profit on qualifying purchases.
- The commission does not change the price you pay, the order of ideas, or their presence in the guide.
- No merchant pays to be included in a guide. If a content was ever made for remuneration, it would be marked "commercial collaboration".
Updates and corrections
Each error reported is verified and corrected if confirmed. The date of updating a guide only changes if its content changes.
A product replaced by a new generation, a broken link, a price that has become false: report it from the contact page, specifying the page and the idea concerned. We also review each guide before its season; the one at Christmas is revised in the fall, before the Black Friday.
In autumn 2026, we removed references to tests, ratings and periods of use that we could not document from our Christmas guide, and corrected links leading to the wrong products. Publishing this method helps prevent those mistakes from recurring.
Who is writing our guides
Our guides are written and signed by Steven Dieu, founder of Listopia, without intervention by merchants. The site is edited by Stedi Consulting.
No merchant reads or validates our selections before publication. For items that are subject to a specialist, such as the recommended age or safety instructions of a toy, we take the manufacturer's instructions rather than give a notice that we could not support.