Pricing Inconsistencies Can Kill a Brand

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The increasingly digital home is undoubtedly changing the way consumers interact and purchase products. Manufacturers must focus on their Minimum Advertised Pricing (MAP) policies. As one of the most over-looked, yet most effective business initiatives, MAP helps manufacturers preserve seller relationship and ensure a consistent brand experience for consumers across channels.

Three ways brands can better protect against pricing inconsistencies:

  1. Start with the recipe: Log any and all violations and pricing changes – and keep a history of sellers who aren’t following the rules. Also log your conversations with those sellers so that you have a record of it in one place.
  2. Use all the ingredients: Don’t just focus on Amazon and Google Shopping – look at direct retailer websites, Walmart, eBay and other marketplaces. Amazon is often matching these sites and be aware that Walmart alone has quickly gone from 300 to more than seventeen thousand sellers to monitor.
  3. Know the special sauce: It’s critical to understand who started the pricing cascade, and that starts with catching violators in near real-time.  With ongoing monitoring, you’ll increase your chances of obtaining proof and timing of the violation, as well as catching any unknown sellers.  It’s often the unknown, unauthorized dealers that create more problems, largely because many times, manufacturers don’t know who they are or that they even exist.

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