Selling on aubaine.ca: The Quebec Merchant's Guide

Published July 31, 2026 · Updated July 31, 2026 · ⏱ 21 min read

Want to know how to sell on aubaine.ca without locking yourself into a complicated system before you've seen what it actually delivers? In 2026, Quebec merchants — a shop on rue Wellington in Sherbrooke, a hardware store in Matane, a corner store in Saint-Jérôme, a furniture dealer in Drummondville — almost always ask the same thing: where does it start, how much work does it take, and what can I leave shut off until I actually need it? This guide answers in the exact order things happen.

The short answer: it starts with a free listing in the directory, not with a promotion. Everything else — banner, flyers, coupons, classified ads, online store — comes after, and only if you decide to turn it on.

The long answer is in the sections below. They're written for a merchant who doesn't have a marketing team behind them and who wants to know what they're signing before they sign it.

Step zero: the business directory, free and open

Before we talk flyers, coupons or online stores, we have to talk about the Quebec business directory. It's the front door to the whole platform, and it's free. Not a time-limited trial, not a stripped-down listing you unlock later: a complete listing.

That changes how you approach the question. You don't have to decide today whether you want to publish a flyer or sell online. You only have to decide whether you want your business to be there, properly described, in a place where people are already looking.

What "complete listing" means

A directory listing answers the basic questions a customer asks before getting in the car: who you are, what you sell, where you are, how to reach you. It's the information people look for at 7 p.m. on a Tuesday, wondering whether it's worth driving across town before closing.

For an independent business, it's often the first place the information is laid out in a structured way, in the same template as a big chain. A hardware dealer in Rimouski and a big-box store end up in the same listing format, with the same fields to fill in.

That detail matters more than it looks. When a customer compares two businesses, they're also comparing the quality of the information available. An empty listing next to a filled-out one loses the comparison before price even enters the picture.

Indexed by Google and readable by AI assistants

Two things count today: being findable in search engines, and being readable by the AI assistants that increasingly answer in place of those engines. They're two different technical audiences, but they need the same thing.

When someone asks an assistant "which stores sell wood stoves near Saint-Georges," the machine needs clear, structured pages where the name, address, category and offering are explicit. A well-built page can be cited; a vague one can't.

The directory listing is designed for exactly that. It's also why it's worth filling out properly even if you never activate anything else. A well-completed free listing works all year long without you touching it.

Why start there instead of with a promotion

A lot of merchants want to start with the offer: a discount, an end-of-season sale, a coupon. That makes commercial sense, but it's the reverse of the order that actually works.

A deal with no listing behind it is a price floating in a vacuum. The customer sees the discount, wants to know where it is, what time you open, whether you're in Lévis or in Charny — and if the information isn't there, they move on to the next store.

• The listing answers "who, where, when."
• The modules answer "what, at what price, until when."
• The second is worth nothing without the first.

Claiming your listing (or creating it)

Second step: the merchant claims their listing. If the business isn't in the directory yet, they create it. That's the move that turns a business that's merely listed into a business that manages its own information.

Case 1: your business is already in the directory

Sometimes a listing already exists, with partial or several-year-old information: an old phone number, an address from before the move, a rough category. It's common for businesses that have changed locations or owners.

In that case, you claim the existing listing instead of creating a second one. That matters: two listings for the same business dilutes the information and leaves customers unsure which one is right.

Case 2: your business isn't there yet

If nothing exists, you create the listing. Same form, same structure, same result: a complete, free listing. A hair salon in Rouyn-Noranda that opened last month starts from exactly the same place as a merchant who's been in Trois-Rivières for thirty years.

Have on hand your legal name and your operating name, your exact address, your hours, a description of what you sell, and something to illustrate the listing with. We'll come back to this, because how well you fill it out determines everything else.

What claiming triggers

This is where the mechanics get interesting. Claiming the listing creates the merchant account, and that merchant account IS your micro-site. There aren't two things to manage: a profile on one side and a public page on the other.

In other words, you don't fill out a form and then "request a page." You claim your listing, and your management space appears, with the public page that goes with it. It's the same object seen from two sides: the customer side and the merchant side.

Practical consequence: every change you make in your space is a change to your public presence. Updating your holiday hours isn't filing a request, it's directly changing what people in Granby or Baie-Comeau are going to read.

The micro-site: every tab is there, greyed out

Once inside your micro-site, you see all the tabs: banner, flyers, discount coupons, classified ads, online store. They're all displayed — and all greyed out and inaccessible until you activate them.

Why show what you're not using yet

That's an architecture decision, not an oversight. You see at a glance everything the platform can do for a business, without having to read a sales page or call someone to ask "wait, that's a thing?"

The merchant keeps control of the pace. A butcher in Joliette can live six months with just the listing, then activate coupons before barbecue season, then nothing else for a year. The tabs stay there, grey, asking for nothing.

Activate à la carte, in whatever order you like

There's no mandatory path. You're not required to activate the banner before the flyers, or the store after the classified ads. Each module activates independently, based on what your business actually does.

That's what sets this apart from a bundled package. A package sells you a set you use a third of. Here, the tab you don't activate stays grey and does nothing — not on your screen, and not on your public page.

Free or paid: depends on the tab

Let's be clear about one thing: some tabs are free, others are paid. The terms for each are shown in your micro-site, at the moment you click to activate. No prices are quoted in this article, and you should be wary of any blog that claims to quote them.

What's established and doesn't change: the directory is free, and classified ads are capped at 3 free ads maximum. For the rest, the rule is simple: you see before you activate, and nothing activates on its own.

The modules, one by one, and what they're for

Here's the heart of the guide. Each module answers a different business need. The classic mistake is activating the one that looks most impressive rather than the one that fits your inventory and the way you sell.

The banner: the visual identity of your presence

The banner is what gives your space a look instead of leaving a generic listing. It's the digital equivalent of the sign above the door: it doesn't sell anything on its own, but it's the difference between "a business" and "your business."

It's worth it for businesses where image is part of the offering: clothing boutique, coffee roaster, microbrewery, furniture showroom, florist. When the customer chooses as much by affinity as by price, how the page looks counts.

It counts less for a purely functional service business, where the customer is looking for an address and a phone number. A small-engine repair shop in Val-d'Or doesn't need a polished brand image to get picked: it needs to be found and to have up-to-date hours.

Flyers: for those who already have a promo cycle

The flyer module lets you publish your recurring promotions in the same place as the ones people already check. It's a deeply ingrained habit in Quebec: you look at this week's flyers before writing Thursday's grocery list.

This module makes sense if you already have a cycle: an independent grocer, a butcher shop, a hardware store, an affiliated pharmacy, an appliance dealer running monthly promotions. You're already producing the document; this is about putting it where people look for it.

Watch the rhythm, though. In the mind of the Quebec shopper, flyers change every Thursday, and an expired promotion left up does more damage than no promotion at all. If you can't keep the pace, this isn't the right module for you this year.

Also worth noting: for food retailers, offers get compared item by item in the grocery price comparison tool. That's not a module to activate, it's the context your prices will be read in. Better to know before you publish.

Discount coupons: one specific offer, one date, one action

A coupon does something different from a flyer. The flyer presents a set of prices for the week; the coupon isolates one offer and triggers a visit. It's a foot-traffic tool, not a comparison tool.

It works for businesses that want to bring people in at a specific moment: a restaurant on a weeknight, an esthetics salon in January, a garden centre on the Patriots' Day weekend, a car wash in April. People browsing discount coupons from Quebec businesses are already in "I'm heading out and buying" mode.

Two rules before activating: write conditions your staff understands the first time they read them, and set a realistic end date. A poorly worded coupon turns into an argument at the cash on Saturday afternoon, and it's the customer who leaves unhappy.

Classified ads: 3 free, no more

The classified ads module lets you post individual ads, with a maximum of 3 free ads. That's deliberately limited: it's not a catalogue, it's a display case for a few items at a time.

Three ads is perfect for what doesn't fit anywhere else: a display unit you no longer need, a commercial vehicle, a discontinued lot, a machine you've replaced. It's the "let's clear this out and move on" module.

It's not the right module if you have seventy items to move. There, what you want is an online store. The three-ad cap is precisely there to keep you from building a full inventory in a tool that wasn't made for it.

The online store: selling your goods online

The last module lets you sell your goods in the online store. That's the shift from "here's what I have" to "the customer buys it." Your items then appear in the same online store of Quebec merchants as other businesses.

It's relevant for anything that ships, describes clearly and doesn't need to be tried on: tools, parts, accessories, processed goods, sporting goods, refurbished used equipment. A Beauce merchant selling trailer accessories doesn't need the customer to drive over.

It's trickier for custom work, perishables, or anything that requires a long consultation. A bedding shop in Gatineau will sell sheets online easily, and a mattress the customer wants to lie on for twenty minutes before signing much less so.

Before activating, ask yourself the three questions of online retail: who packs the order, how it ships, and who answers when the customer calls back. The module handles the storefront; the back room stays yours.

Which module for which type of business

Here's the table most merchants are looking for when they arrive. It doesn't replace your judgment, but it gives the most common starting point by type of business.

Food retailers

For an independent grocer or a neighbourhood market, the flyer remains the central tool, because grocery shoppers shop by weekly comparison. The coupon plays a supporting role, for one specific counter: Friday's rotisserie, Thursday's fish counter.

The grocery comparison tool adds useful pressure: your prices are read next to others'. That pushes you to publish real offers rather than cosmetic discounts, and that's for the best — grocery shoppers spot the difference in two seconds.

Durable goods retailers

Hardware, furniture, appliances, sporting goods: here the customer does a long search before buying. They compare, they come back, they wait for a price drop. Flyers and the online store complement each other well, because they cover two moments: discovering the price and making the purchase.

Classified ads play a particular role in this sector: they're for discontinued items, floor models and refurbished returns. Three well-made ads often move what a salesperson can't place in store.

Service businesses

A service doesn't ship and doesn't come in a box. For a salon, a garage, a snow removal service on the Rive-Sud, everything happens in the listing: exact category, service area, hours, how to book an appointment.

The coupon is the only module that's genuinely useful on top of that, and only if it lines up with a slow stretch in the calendar. The rest can stay grey without you losing a thing.

Artisans and small producers

For a soap maker in Charlevoix, a maple farm in the Montérégie or a ceramics studio in Saguenay, the logic flips: no flyer, no promo cycle, but products that photograph well and ship easily. The online store comes first, the banner second.

These businesses also benefit from appearing in the list of Quebec merchants on the platform, because some shoppers browse by business rather than by product — especially when they're looking for local.

Fill it out properly before activating anything

No module makes up for a badly filled-out listing. A flyer in a space where the address is wrong sends people to the wrong door. Here's the minimum to settle before you activate the first tab.

The information customers actually check

• The operating name, the one on the storefront, not just the legal name.
• The full address, with the unit number if you're in a shopping centre.
• Your real hours, including the days you close early.
• A phone number that rings somewhere a person answers.
• A concrete description: what you sell, in the words your customers use.

On the description, the habit to build is simple: write "winter tires, alignment and storage" rather than "integrated solutions for your vehicle." Search engines and AI assistants alike look for concrete words, and so do your customers.

Categories and photos: the invisible work that pays

Your category determines which lists you show up in. A mistake here is costly: a building supply store filed under "general renovation" when it mostly sells doors and windows ends up next to the wrong competitors.

Photos, for their part, do the trust-building. A recognizable storefront helps the customer find the entrance; an interior shot tells them what to expect. That beats three generic images pulled off a stock photo site.

Compliance: what applies to your discounts

The moment you publish a price, a promotion or a coupon, you're in the scope of Quebec's rules on advertising and price display. The Office de la protection du consommateur spells out the obligations tied to representations made to consumers, including advertised discounts.

Federally, misleading price claims fall under the Competition Bureau, whose guidelines are published on canada.ca. Plainly put: a "regular price" has to have been a real regular price, and an advertised duration has to be honoured.

None of this is theoretical for a merchant. The vast majority of consumer complaints about promotions come down to three things: a posted price that doesn't scan at the cash, a discount whose conditions weren't visible, and an out-of-stock situation nobody mentioned.

Three mistakes that come up often

Mistake 1: activating three modules the same week

The enthusiastic instinct is to open everything at once. The problem isn't the activation, it's the upkeep: three modules means three things to keep current, and the first thing you forget is visible to the public.

Better one module maintained flawlessly for two months than a full space abandoned in three weeks. Start with the one that matches what you're already doing with no extra effort.

Mistake 2: treating the listing as a form you fill out once

Listings age. Summer hours, a new number, a service added, a move to another unit in the same shopping centre: each of those makes part of your listing wrong.

Get in the habit of rereading it two or three times a year, at the change of seasons for instance. It takes five minutes and it spares the customer who shows up at a locked door on a holiday Monday.

Mistake 3: borrowing the big chains' vocabulary

An independent business that writes like a national chain loses exactly what makes it interesting. The customer in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield or Baie-Comeau looking for a local business wants to know what you have in stock, not read a slogan.

Name the brands you carry, the services you provide, the territory you cover. It's more useful for the customer, and it's also what search engines and assistants retain.

The path, recapped

The full path is five steps, in this order, with no way to skip the first one.

Note that nothing in this path commits you to the next step. A business can stop at step 4 and get the essentials out of it: being findable, with the right information, at no cost.

How to decide when to activate your first paid module

A common-sense rule: only activate a paid tab when it replaces work you're already doing, or when it solves a problem you can name in one sentence. "I have a monthly flyer nobody sees" is a valid sentence. "We should be more visible" isn't.

Second rule: give yourself a reasonable window to judge — a full season, for example. A pool retailer and a heating retailer don't run on the same calendar, and judging a module out of season tells you nothing.

Third rule: look at what other merchants in your sector are doing before you jump in. The featured deals from Quebec businesses give a good sense of the level of offer shoppers are used to right now.

Frequently asked questions

Do I have to pay to be in the business directory?

No. The directory is free, with a complete listing, indexed by Google and readable by AI assistants. It's the front door to the platform and it stays independent of whichever modules you choose to activate later.

How do I claim my listing if it already exists?

You find your business in the directory and request ownership of it rather than creating a second listing. Avoid duplicates at all costs: two listings for the same business split the information and confuse customers who can't tell which one is current.

What if my business doesn't appear anywhere in the directory?

You create the listing yourself. The result is identical to a claimed listing: creating it generates your merchant account, which is also your micro-site. A business that opened last month starts from the same place as one established thirty years ago.

How many classified ads can I post for free?

The maximum is three free ads. It's meant for moving a few items one at a time — a display unit, a vehicle, a discontinued line — not for building a catalogue. If you have a lot of items, the online store is what to look at.

Am I required to activate every tab?

No. In your micro-site, all the tabs are visible but greyed out and inaccessible until you activate them. You activate one, two, or none, in whatever order you like, and you can perfectly well go months with just the listing.

How much do the paid modules cost?

Some tabs are free, others are paid, and the terms are shown in your micro-site at the moment of activation. No prices are quoted here, and no figure circulating elsewhere should be taken at face value.

Is it worth it if I don't have a flyer?

Yes, because the flyer is only one module out of five. Plenty of businesses — services, artisans, workshops — never produce one and get most of their value from the free listing, with at most an occasional coupon or an online store.