Wednesday, March 27, 2024

The Complete Beginner’s Guide to MAP Monitoring Software

Manufacturers use MAP monitoring to ensure that vendors adhere to their minimum advertised price (MAP) guidelines. Brands manage their SKUs across many online shops and marketplaces, monitor pricing, and interact with sellers to enforce their policies and protect their customers.

You can’t enforce MAPs until you have MAP monitoring in place. Furthermore, without MAP enforcement, your pricing strategy is rendered ineffective.

While the term “MAP monitoring” refers to a particular pricing strategy, the term “price monitoring” is more or less synonymous. Although maximum allowable prices (MAP) rules are the most prevalent pricing policies, the monitoring procedure is essentially the same for all other pricing policies.

What is the strategy of MAP monitoring?

MAP Monitoring is a continuous effort. It is not the same as a quarterly evaluation or a completed project in a single day. Keeping track of your pricing regularly and following up with vendors who do not adhere to your policy are essential components of successful MAP monitoring.

Check your price regularly.

Real-time price data is the benchmark for MAP monitoring since it is the most accurate. By manually verifying your prices or utilizing map monitoring software that only collects data several times per day (or worse, just on specific days of the week), you are leaving enormous opportunities for merchants to break your pricing policy undiscovered and unchecked.

Good retail partners will adhere to your policy because they value their working relationships and understand that their success depends on your long-term performance. However, not every vendor makes a suitable business partner. Some may even put your MAP monitoring skills to the test to see how far they can get away with anything. They may utilize software to design pricing adjustments and sneak in temporary price reductions while remaining undetected.

Make sure your policy is implemented.

Keeping track of your pricing is just half of the fight. The fact that you detect hundreds of MAP violations yet do nothing about them does nothing.

In your MAP policy, you should spell out precisely what will happen if a seller breaches the terms of the agreement. Hopefully, you’ve collaborated with an antitrust attorney to develop penalties that are appropriate for your objectives and circumstances. This establishes realistic boundaries for sellers and helps to ensure that your policy is applied consistently across the board, regardless of who is responsible for checking with sellers.

Allow your attorney to handle any appeals.

Some vendors will almost certainly file an appeal against your MAP violation notifications. They’ll claim that somebody else violated your pricing first and that they’re right. Alternatively, it might have been a glitch. Alternatively, it may be a clerical mistake. Alternatively, it may be a misunderstanding on your part. Whatever their motivation, it makes no difference. Please refer them to your attorney.

Streamlining the process by automating it

FrigginYeah, a MAP monitoring software program, was created by a brand for brands specifically for this purpose. The FrigginYeah application automatically scrapes product price information from various marketplaces and retailers and compares that scraped data to the information in your MAP policy. If there is a MAP violation then FrigginYeah automatically notifies you of the violation, the seller information, and other details needed for MAP enforcement.

What are the advantages of using a MAP monitor?

When done correctly, MAP monitoring may provide many advantages to your company. You can remedy the harm already done to both you and your sellers and thus minimize the possibility of more harm in the future.

Margin protection is provided via MAP monitoring.

Sellers that break your minimum advertising price guideline are often seeking a short-term competitive edge. They’re attempting to win Amazon’s purchase box, or at the very least, to get ahead of vendors that provide superior service.

MAP monitoring helps to keep your brand’s identity intact.

When you have a high number of MAP violations, it may harm your brand’s credibility. Your brand will not build coherent experiences if customers see drastically varied pricing based on where they encounter your goods.

Sellers gain confidence as a result of MAP monitoring.

Believe it or not, your sellers want you to keep an eye on your pricing and make sure your rules are followed. Your best partners are making every effort to respect you and adhere to your policies. Therefore it is irritating for them when their rivals break your rules and get away with it, as is the case with their competitors in the first place.

abubakarbilal
abubakarbilal
Abubakar is a writer and digital marketing expert. Who has founded multiple blogs and successful businesses in the fields of digital marketing, software development. A full-service digital media agency that partners with clients to boost their business outcomes.
RELATED ARTICLES

Most Popular

Recent Comments