Crafting a Winning MAP Policy: A 4-Step Guide to Success

A MAP policy is a document, and four things decide whether it holds up when a seller argues with it. An exact price for every part number. A written definition of what counts as advertising. A stated sequence of what happens after a violation. And wording that reads as your own statement instead of an agreement someone signed.

Step 1: the number, per part number, and what counts as advertising

Give an exact figure for each SKU. A policy expressed as a percentage off MSRP makes every reseller do the arithmetic. A reseller who gets it wrong has a ready answer when you write to them.

Then define the advertised price, because that is where the argument actually happens. Four things move the figure a shopper sees. A stacked coupon, a bundle that hides the discount, free shipping quoted as a saving. And the add-to-cart gate that exists so the price is never displayed at all. Say in writing which of those you treat as advertising and which you do not. A policy that is silent on coupon stacking will be tested on coupon stacking.

If you run promotions, publish the promotional windows and their floors with dates. Sellers who know a sale is coming in six weeks are less likely to invent one now.

Step 2: what happens after a violation, in order

State the sequence, the timing, and who decides.

A workable sequence starts with a first notice in the language of your own policy. Then repeat contact by phone, and a mailed letter where email is ignored. Then the supply route. Cutting resupply is the step that ends a habitual violator. The earlier steps usually move the violation somewhere else.

Say how long a seller has to correct a listing before the next step, and say what proof of correction you accept. A cure window in writing is what stops every violation becoming a negotiation.

Step 3: write it as a policy, not as a contract

This is the part worth slowing down for, and we are not your lawyers.

Section 1 of the Sherman Act reaches contracts, combinations and conspiracies in restraint of trade. That is why the distinction between a policy you announce and an agreement you reach matters. A manufacturer’s unilateral decision about whom it will keep supplying has been treated differently from an agreement on price. That treatment dates from United States v. Colgate and Co., 250 U.S. 300 (1919). Resale price maintenance has been judged under the rule of reason since Leegin Creative Leather Products v. PSKS, 551 U.S. 877 (2007). Several states are stricter than federal law.

In practice that means a one-way statement from your company to your resellers. No signature block, no countersigning, no wording that has the seller agreeing to anything. Your counsel decides the final language.

Step 4: counsel reviews it, then every seller gets a copy

Distribution is the step that gets skipped. Send the policy to every authorised seller, record when it went and to whom, and resend on every revision. Enforcement against a seller you cannot show received the policy is the weakest version of the conversation.

Revisit the document when something changes. A new MSRP, a new product line, a promotional window that ended, or a distributor added. A calendar review that changes nothing is a meeting.

Once it is written and distributed, the work becomes monitoring and enforcement, which is what we run for automotive and powersports brands.