What Counts as an Advertised Price, and Where It Stops
A price is advertised when a retailer has spread it widely. A shelf tag usually is not. A flyer, a PA announcement and an online ad usually are. The hard cases are markdowns and…
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MAP Strategies for Preventing Violations Before They Start
Whole categories of MAP violation are preventable upstream. A machine-readable price file. Scheduled changes with notice. Catching new sellers in week one. Auditing your own…
MAP and MRP Together: Who Sets Which Number
MAP sets the lowest advertised price. MRP sets the lowest price a reseller may actually sell at, and it is the heavier legal question. What each one controls, the moves resellers…
What a MAP policy has to say before a reseller can follow it
A reseller who wants to comply needs four things from your policy. Which products it covers, the current figure for each of them, what counts as advertising, and what happens…
Essential Guidelines to Avoid Pitfalls When Establishing MAP Price Levels
The hard part of setting a MAP level is who you ask. Working the number out with your resellers is the version that creates a legal problem. Set it independently from observed…
MAP Policy: The Ultimate Guide for Brand Commerce Pros
Four signs a MAP policy is overdue, and the order to build one in. Write and distribute it, monitor and record a baseline before enforcing anything, escalate in tiers, then widen…
Why a Brand Needs a MAP Pricing Policy Online
The reason to write a MAP policy is that you cannot see who is advertising your parts. Where storefronts you never approved come from. Why manual checking fails on timing and part…
What is Minimum Advertised Price (MAP), and What Goes in a MAP Policy
MAP is the lowest price a reseller may advertise your product at. It says nothing about the price they may sell at. What the difference means, how MAP sits against MSRP, and the…
What a MAP Policy Does for a Brand, and Where It Stops
A MAP policy gives you a written floor your resellers have been given and a documented consequence for advertising below it. What that is worth, the four situations it cannot…
MAP and MSRP are not the same thing
MAP governs the advertised price. MSRP is a suggestion about the selling price. Confusing them is how brands end up with a policy that is unenforceable, or one that creates legal…
Calculating MAP Pricing: the Gap to Wholesale Is the Real Decision
A MAP figure holds or fails on its distance from your wholesale price. That gap is the reseller margin, and it decides whether the policy is easy to follow or profitable to break…
What a MAP Policy Does to How Buyers See Your Brand
A MAP policy stops your own distribution advertising below a floor you set. It does nothing about counterfeits, first party marketplace pricing, or sellers who never bought from…