What a MAP policy protects, and what it does not

A MAP policy protects one number, the price your product is advertised at. That number is what comparison pages, marketplace listings and your own dealers read when they decide what to charge. It is not the price your customer finally pays, and a policy sold internally as protection for anything wider will disappoint whoever signed it off.

A brand can publish a unilateral MAP policy or use terms that create an agreement with resellers. The FTC treats unilateral manufacturer decisions and price agreements differently. Counsel should review the design. Our legal overview explains the distinction.

How an advertised price falls

The mechanism is worth watching because it is mechanical. One reseller advertises under the floor. Comparison engines and marketplace listings surface the lowest advertised figure, so that number is now the first one a shopper sees. Your other dealers see it too. A dealer who matches it stops covering the costs that made them worth having. A dealer who does not match it explains the difference to every customer arriving with the lower price on a phone screen.

Once the advertised price has settled at the lower number it does not come back on its own. Nobody wants to be the first to move up. That is what the policy is holding shut. The cost of leaving it open shows up in the dealers who stop stocking you, long after it shows up in margin.

Where the policy needs separate review

The transaction price. A reseller can advertise at your floor and sell under it in a phone call or an emailed quote. That is the design, and it is what keeps a MAP policy distinct from an agreement about selling prices.

A marketplace selling as the retailer of record needs an account review. Check the supply agreement and ask counsel which policy terms apply. Treat this separately from a third-party seller investigation.

Sellers outside your network need a supply investigation. Identify the source where the evidence allows it. Ask counsel which restrictions are available, then check whether the response changes the listings.

Demand. If the product is not selling, holding the advertised price up will not fix that. Enforcing harder reads to your dealers as pressure applied in the wrong direction.

What to measure

The compliance rate across every listing found, starting from a number you recorded before you enforced anything. Then the sellers you could identify against the ones you could not, because an unidentified seller is what a supply leak hides behind.

Correction, 23 September 2026: the earlier version treated first-party marketplace retail as beyond MAP enforcement. The account and applicable terms need review.