Decoding MAP Violations: Understanding the Root Causes and Solutions

A listing below MAP does not establish the cause. A feed error, an old file and a deliberate discount can look alike. The four situations below are checks to make, not an exhaustive diagnosis or a measure of seller intent.

Honest feed errors

A dealer takes price files from several wholesale distributors and from you. Those get pushed to a website and two or three marketplaces, each with its own feed format. Somewhere in that chain a cost field gets read as a sale price. The listing goes out below policy, at a loss to the dealer.

Send the captured offer and expected figure, then ask the dealer to check its feed. Recheck the listing after the reported correction before closing the case.

Stale price files from a distributor

The dealer says the violation is not valid because the file came straight from its distributor. Sometimes that is true.

Compare the received file with the manufacturer’s current file and its effective date. Investigate any mismatch with the distributor and dealer. A corrected file still needs a check of the live listing.

Sellers who have never seen the policy

New sellers appear constantly. A seller who never received the policy is not refusing it.

A report of newly seen sellers, delivered as they appear, turns this into an onboarding job. Onboarding is cheaper than enforcement and it does not start the relationship with a threat.

Sellers testing whether anyone is still watching

A seller may knowingly advertise below policy. Review the repeated offers, notices and replies before reaching that conclusion. A single captured price does not tell you why it appeared.

If the seller reports a system error, ask which file or setting produced it and check whether the correction holds.

Keep a documented monitoring and follow-up schedule. Recheck the listing after contact and record whether it changed. Decide escalation from the evidence and the approved policy.

How the enforcement sequence runs.

Correction, 23 September 2026: the earlier version asserted recurrence timing and seller intent without evidence. The checklist now separates possible causes from observed facts.