Turning MAP violations into a process your team can run

A spreadsheet of MAP violations cannot answer the question you actually have. Who is doing this repeatedly, and where are they getting the parts. It records incidents. The questions worth answering are about patterns. The same operator behind four storefront names. The dealer who drops under policy every Friday evening and comes back on Monday. The seller who is not in your dealer list at all.

Getting to those is a data problem first and a process problem second.

Record enough per violation that a pattern can show up

Each entry needs the URL, the time it was seen, the SKU, the price seen, the seller as the storefront presents itself, and a screenshot. Add where in the buying flow the price appeared. A listing at policy with an in cart price below it is a different violation from one that is plainly under. The two get handled differently. Shipping used as a discount goes in the same field.

Record the compliant listings too. Without them there is no compliance rate, and without a rate you are reporting activity.

Decide who does what before the first notice

Write down four things and you have a process:

• what triggers a notice, and who sends it
• what the second step is when a notice is ignored, and how long it waits
• who may hold an order or cut a supply line, and who they tell
• where the evidence lives, and who can retrieve it a year later

Escalation with no named owner stalls at the first person who is busy. That is how a violation from March is still open in September.

Consequences your team will actually apply

A workable ladder runs from a warning to something operational: adjusting an inventory feed, holding orders until the listing is corrected, then ending supply. Pick the steps you are willing to carry out and take the rest off the list. A threat you will not follow through on teaches the seller exactly what the policy is worth.

The part the software does not do

Detection software finds listings and flags them. What it does not do is work out that four storefronts are one company. Or write a notice in the language of your own policy. Or phone the dealer who ignored it, and get a do not sell list into your distributors’ hands. That work is people, and it is where a programme either runs or quietly stops.

If yours has stopped there, that is the half our MAP monitoring and enforcement service takes over.