A French overseas department in the Indian Ocean, Reunion uses the euro (EUR), French law and French-language storefronts, yet it does not shop like mainland France. VAT is 8.5% instead of 20%, goods arriving on the island also pay the octroi de mer, a local tax, and parcels from the mainland travel by air or sea. Many mainland retailers therefore exclude the island from delivery, charge extra shipping or show different totals once a 974 postcode is entered, and Amazon.fr delivers only part of its catalogue there. Reunion Creole is widely spoken, but shopping and search stay in French.
Leboncoin, the national classifieds site, has a Reunion region for cars, housing and jobs, which makes it the main source for local asking prices. Clicanoo, the site of Le Journal de l'île de La Réunion, Zinfos974, Linfo.re and Réunion la 1ère, the public broadcaster's island channel, are the main local news sites. Air Austral, based on the island, and Corsair sell the long-haul fares to Paris, and Air Austral also flies to Mauritius and Mayotte.
Google (google.fr) dominates search, and local results for Saint-Denis, Saint-Pierre or Saint-Paul only make sense from an island connection, since a mainland French connection returns businesses thousands of kilometres away. Personal data falls under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and France's Law No. 78-17 of 6 January 1978 on information technology, data files and civil liberties (loi Informatique et Libertés), supervised by the CNIL.
The island's coasts behave like separate local markets. Saint-Denis in the north holds the prefecture and most offices; the west around Saint-Paul and Saint-Gilles-les-Bains is the beach and tourist strip; the south centres on Saint-Pierre; and the wetter east around Saint-Benoît and Saint-André is more rural. Inland, the cirques of Cilaos and Salazie are reached by winding mountain roads, while Mafate has no roads at all, so supplies arrive on foot or by helicopter. Delivery options, local business results and rental prices differ between these areas, and checks should set the commune rather than just the island.