The MAP Traps

To start with, let’s define MAP.

MAP stands for the minimum advertised price. This means that resellers and retailers are not allowed to sell your product below the MAP price. For example, you sound notebooks, and you have set your MAP price at $10. This means that resellers and retailers can only price your product at $10 plus, never lower.

But when it comes to creating your MAP policy, there are some traps that people can fall into let’s take a look at them so that you can avoid them.

Templates

Well, templates can be very, very handy. You aren’t likely to find your ideal MAP policy online. You need to understand your relationship with retailers, the business realities of retailer setting your products, the relationships between the customers and the retailers, and where your brand fits in. 

It would be best if you tailored your MAP policy, with all of those things in mind. If you choose a template or copy and paste another company’s policy, it will not maximize the value of a MAP policy to your business. And it also exposes you to legal issues because you might not understand everything that you have included.

Enforcing

Once you have a minimum advertised price policy, you have to make sure that you are in forcing it. That is MAP software that can help you make sure that your MAP policy is always being adhered to. One of the worst things that you can do is be inconsistent 24th and your MAP policy.

If your policy is unclear, you have wasted your time creating it. You might potentially be risking it with resellers who have a bevy of lawyers at their disposal. One of the most common goals of a MAP policy is to ensure that retailers provide a very low high level of service when presenting your products. You do not want to fail to take any steps that can support that relationship while keeping you protected.

The best way to ensure consistency across your enforcement is going to be a web-based service that monitors the prices for you.

Price agreement

You require your retailers in resellers to all sign and MAP policy. But it is imperative that you remember that this is an agreement and is not necessarily as sturdy as a written contract. Even lengthy verbal negotiations on price can be called an agreement, this is without anybody signing anything at all. 

Create a MAP policy that clearly states your stance on pricing, and this will help avoid potential losses and any reseller or retailer complaints later down the line.

Even when you have a clear and well laid out MAP policy in place, you may find that you have non-compliant status. Instead of engaging in extensive communications with a non-compliant retailer, you need to decide how important the relationship with the retailer is. 

If other retailers discover that you are flexible in your MAP policy, because you are communicating with a non-compliant reseller, they may want the same benefits. Take a hard stance with non-compliant retailers.

You can avoid the problems above by consistently enforcing your MAP policy and creating ones that adhere to the values of your business. Keep it clear and concise and right where required speak to a lawyer to make sure that you have everything under control.