5 MAP Enforcement Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

5 MAP Enforcement mistakes

Don't Require Your Resellers To Sign A Two-Agreement Resale Pricing Policy. Make Your Policy A Stand-alone Statement

If you’re creating a Minimum Resale Price (MRP) policy to affect all reseller pricing, including both stated and actual resale prices, you’ll need to make it unilateral.

The US Supreme Court declared that unilateral pricing practices are completely legitimate as long as both the maker and the reseller are independent actors allowed to make their own pricing judgments. (Unilateral price policies are commonly referred to as “Colgate policies” because of this.)

The Court reasoned as follows: The manufacturer is free to create its own reseller pricing standards and to inform all retail partners of those guidelines as well as the repercussions for breaking them. All resellers are then free to choose whether or not to follow the price recommendations or risk facing the repercussions if they do not. These unilateral practices are entirely legal as long as both parties have that independence and haven’t reached an agreement on price setting.

But, here’s the thing..

Although the law allows businesses a little more flexibility with MAP policies (Looking for a Map enforcement company?) than it does with MRPs, this is because MAP addresses only advertised pricing, never the actual sales price. Even if you create a MAP policy enforcement program based on a two-way agreement that your resellers sign, you may still be subject to antitrust scrutiny. To be safe, even your MAP policy should be structured as a unilateral collection of instructions rather than an agreement.

When Communicating With Resellers Who Have Broken Your Rules, Avoid Using The Word Price In Your Messages

When speaking with a retail partner who has broken your policy, refer to the transgression as a violation of your branding rules rather than a price violation. This may appear to be a minor legal detail, but it may persuade an antitrust regulator or court to consider your policy enforcement in a more favourable light.

When you say in your message to a policy violator that they’ve disobeyed your pricing guidelines and that they’ll need to take the following steps to get back into your company’s good graces as a good retailer, the law might interpret that as establishing a pricing agreement that’s a little too close to the line. That’s a dangerous legal region to be in. Much safer and better, then, to refer to infractions against your MAP or MRP as branding-guideline violations or violations of your store policy guidelines, even if they are clearly price-related.

When Designing Your MRP Or MAP Policy, Don't Consult With Your Resale Channel

The federal Sherman Antitrust Act which, amazingly, is still in existence despite though it was passed in 1890, defines such acts as a conspiracy in restraint of trade.

And, while the US Supreme Court has weakened the statute by holding, for example, that not every trade constraint is illegal on its face, only unreasonable regulators have the authority to determine what constitutes a conspiracy.

The simple act of discussing where to set your MRP or MAP policy minimum prices with your big retailers before creating your policy could be considered an antitrust violation.

Don't Just Copy And Paste A MAP Policy Template From The Web And Change The Company Name

When it comes to reseller pricing, this is one of the most prevalent blunders made by manufacturers and brand owners. When a company needs an MRP, for example, some companies grab the wrong template to duplicate a MAP policy.

Others utilize legalese that is improper for their company’s position, or even unlawful, because they don’t know where the legal lines are drawn and neither did the company whose MAP template they copied.

Although you can find plenty of existing reseller policy documents online, and while much of the language in these policies may read like standard legal boilerplate, implementing one for your business requires a thorough understanding of both the legal and business nuances of attempting to influence your resale channel’s advertising and selling practices.

For this reason, and a thousand more we’d be pleased to discuss with you but can’t fit into this article, we strongly advise you to create and implement your MAP or MRP strategy with the help of brand protection experts and/or antitrust counsel.

Don't Apply Your Policies In A Haphazard Manner

One of the easiest traps for a manufacturer to slip into is this one. It can occur absolutely unintentionally. Consider the possibility that one of your key retail partners is once again displaying your products below your MAP-approved rates.

Let’s look into this further..

Your MAP policy on such infractions is extremely clear: The first offence results in a warning, while the second results in a sanction, such as the withholding of inventory from the offender for a period of time. Your employer has already issued a warning to this merchant, but when your colleague calls this time, the retailer’s representative begs forgiveness and vows not to do it again.

Your employer may have unwittingly undertaken an illegal act if your colleague agrees and lets the second infraction go with a second warning. One of the main fundamental foundations of antitrust law is to prevent corporations from banding together to regulate prices and restrict other companies’ trade. An antitrust court could interpret your behavior as price-fixing if you give one store preferential treatment over another when enforcing your pricing policy.

It could be absolutely innocent, merely a case of a sales representative at your organization not wanting to punish a repentant retail partner too harshly. However, you must exercise caution because it may still be prohibited.

Thank you for reading our post, “MAP Enforcement Mistakes and How to Avoid Them.” We hope you found it helpful.

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Let us Take Care of Your Monitoring & Enforcement

The first step in removing the different types of unauthorized sellers is spotting them on your listings and that is exactly what the Brand Alignment Monitoring Dashboard will do for you. With price updates every 3 hours and inventory totals for every seller on every listing, you will get the most complete picture possible of your brand on every major online marketplace.

Of course, the most important step in removing unauthorized sellers is prevention and enforcement. This is where Brand Alignment is leagues above the competition.

Clear over 80% of unauthorized sellers: Brand Alignment will make a custom strategy for your brand to ensure the highest rates of removal.

Control Your Authorized Channels: Daily emails informing you of authorized channel violations and price cascading events.

Risk-Free Guarantee: Brand Alignment is so confident in their removal rates, that we will create a custom guarantee for every brand. We will remove x% of sellers or you have the option to terminate the contract early.

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Will Enforcement Solutions Work for My Brand?

In short, the answer is Yes.

We have had our 80%-90%+ enforcement rates in every single industry we have worked in. That includes the following:

Consumer Electronics
Apparel and Shoes
Pharmaceuticals
Health & Beauty
Sports & Outdoors
Mobile Phone Accessories
And More

As you are already aware, each industry has their own bells and whistles. Please contact us if you have any specific questions about enforcement in your industry.

Are There Any Risks Involved With Enforcement?

Brand Alignment gives the brand the option of using their own personal cease & desist letters or the option to customize Brand Alignment’s proven high performance Cease & Desist letters. These letters were crafted by Intellectual Property lawyers with a full focus on minimizing liability.

Any infringement complaints filed by Brand Alignment are done with the utmost care and transparency. We do not file counterfeit complaints without test buys and approval from the brand. Our trademark complaints are done with caution and all bases covered.

Finally, in this world, anybody can sue anybody for anything. But it does not mean it will stand up in court. There is nothing we can do to prevent frivolous lawsuits from disgruntled sellers. However, we do everything we can to prepare you to have any case against you quickly dismissed. Since 2018, we are proud to say that neither us or any of our brands have had any legal issues of any kind related to our service.

Brand Alignment vs The Competition

If you are new to shopping for a brand protection agency provider, it might be confusing to tell the difference between companies. It might sound like everybody offers the same type of monitoring and enforcement. This could not be further from the truth.

Crawls marketplaces for pricing changes every 3 hours or 8x a day
Markets monitored for price cascading are crawled every hour or 24x a day
Sends a Cease & Desist letter to every unauthorized seller on Amazon
Since 100% of all unauthorized sellers are contacted, Brand Alignment averages an 80%-90%+ Removal Rate
Uses hundreds of proprietary investigative techniques to identify personal information of sellers and supply chain sources

The Competition

Crawls marketplaces for pricing only 1x-4x a day
Markets monitored for price cascading are crawled every 3 hours or 8x a day
Requires YOU to send a Cease & Desist letter only if YOU have the email of the unauthorized seller
Since only a small percentage of unauthorized sellers are contacted, the competition averages a 10%-30% removal rate
Uses basic investigative techniques like Google searches or buying low quality lists in hopes of finding emails to send letters

How Much Money Are You Losing By NOT Switching to Brand Alignment?

What is your current Buy Box Loss percentage? How much unsold inventory do you or your authorized channels have due to Buy Box loss?
How much are you charged by Vendors for chargebacks related to price matching MAP violators?
What effect do unauthorized sellers have on your Brand Integrity when they violate MAP policy or sell refurbished, returned, or used items as New?

Are you dealing with unhappy authorized channels who have difficulty obtaining the Buy Box? Are you being turned down by potential authorized channels for not having better control of your MAP policy?
Did you know that data shows that less sales are made from 3rd party sellers having the Buy Box than from Amazon having the Buy Box?
What are your storage and warehousing costs from unsold inventory due to unauthorized sellers?

How Much Money In Sales Are You Losing Each Year Due to a Lack of Quality Brand Protection?

100% Satisfaction Guarantee

You are fully protected by our “Brand Alignment Enforcement Guarantee”. If we don’t reach the custom benchmarks that we agree upon during negotiation, we will give you the option to terminate the contract and you will not be charged any further.

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Useful information

Frequently Asked Questions

How Long Does It Take to Get Started?

Our on-boarding period takes between 1-2 weeks depending on the amount of custom work required.

I Have More of a Counterfeit Problem Than a Grey Market Problem. Can You Help?

Currently, our specialty is grey market sales. If you are dealing primarily with counterfeits or knockoffs, we recommend speaking to a IP Takedown service instead. If you are interested in both, our services compliment IP Takedown software very well.

Do You Work With Third Party Vendors or Only Directly With Brands?

In the past we worked with 3rd party vendors, however due to liability concerns we now only work directly with brands. We do offer a referral commission so please feel free to contact us if a brand you work with needs help with brand protection.

What Are Your Enforcement Rates on Other Marketplaces Besides Amazon?

We do not offer removal guarantees for other marketplaces, however it is not uncommon to see removal rates on Walmart or Rakuten in the range of 50%-90%

My Grey Market Problem Extends Outside the USA. What Can You Offer?

We LOVE investigating international grey market trade. Contact us about the countries you would like to monitor and enforce, and we will be glad to help.

I Had a Bad Experience With My Last Brand Protection Provider, Why Will You Be Any Different?

We understand your concerns. We are aware of many unhappy brands who have worked in the past with our competitors.

We can talk all day about how we are different, but instead we would like to show you with our Brand Alignment Enforcement Guarantee. Contact us to learn more.

P.S. Due to the constant changing nature of online marketplaces, our Enforcement Guarantee is a limited time offer.

Please contact us now to ensure you are locked in with your guarantee.

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October 22, 2024 by Brand Alignment

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