Looking out for your online store is perfect. You must protect it from all dangers and risks. One of the ways to protect your store is by looking out for minimum advertised price (MAP) violations. MAP is the lowest price a reseller can publicize your products (not sell). The resellers and buyers establish the selling price.
MAP breaches frequently happen in eCommerce, and most of the time, you find out about these after the damage is done and when you do not have a program monitoring your MAP. Many manufacturers freak out when they encounter a MAP infringement and do not know how to react. These are the most common mistakes companies make when enforcing a MAP policy.
1- Being inconsistent with tracking
Constantly tracking all your resellers’ prices is a complicated and tedious task if you do not have a program that does this. Manually reviewing the websites of hundreds or thousands of retailers and resellers every day and several times a day takes ages! That leaves the door open for many violations to go through unnoticed!
Also, some companies rely on sellers to tell them about violations. While leaving that responsibility to them might work and helps build confidence, we do not recommend that. Some brands might forget to inform you, or in the worst-case scenario, they might not be interested in telling you. Failing to enforce your MAP policy means you do not take it seriously, and resellers will learn to ignore it.
That is why you need software to monitor your resellers. You will know everything about the prices your resellers are advertising in seconds and understand what is happening to your products. No more MAP infractions will slip through!
2- Manually tracking
As we briefly mentioned, manual work and MAP monitoring do not work together. It is impossible to keep track of everything because you or your team will take too long to monitor prices and find out about potential infringements. Discovering those violations late means a significant loss of money for your company. Use an automated system like the one PriceTweakers offers your business to have automated work in your company and more time to focus on other tasks.
3- Overreactions and panicking
In some cases, manufacturers panic when they see that one reseller conducted a MAP violation for the first time. Sometimes, resellers forget about the policy and have no bad intentions (some of them might do). Also, and it frequently happens, the retailers have new employees that do not know about the MAP policy you have with them.
For first-time offenders, do not panic and don't overreact. Send the first-warning message on a positive note, reminding them about the MAP policy and notifying them to adjust their prices according to the agreed policy. Coming out with a strict or confrontational message can frighten the reseller, and they might reconsider their partnership with your business.
Conclusion
These are the most common mistakes companies make when they enforce their MAP policy. But with PriceTweakers, all of these problems go away! Our MAP Monitoring module tracks all your products, even those that sell in other countries. In a few seconds, you will know everything about them. Also, you will receive notifications every time one of your resellers breaks your MAP agreement. But that is not all! Directly from our software, you can contact resellers to tell them to change the price. Contact us if you are interested and for more information.
