Like any ecommerce retailer that sells brand-name merchandise bought directly from the manufacturer, we have to learn to live with Minimum Advertised Price (MAP) policies. For the uninformed, a MAP policy prevents retailers from advertising a price below that which the policy dictates. Many times, a retailer cannot even advertise under MSRP, or the retail price.
Of course, this doesn’t mean the price the customer is charged is going to be MSRP. You’ve certainly see some websites have “Add to Cart to See Price”, “Click to See Price” or “Login to See Price” listed instead of the actual price. That’s to get around the MAP policies of manufacturers.
There are multiple views on this. Manufacturers don’t want to see their brand marketing just go to naught with deep discounting. So this levels the playing field, somewhat. However, it just irritates retailers to no end when competitors do not play by the rules. In a perfect world, manufacturers would punish those that violate MAP policies by raising the price or not selling to that retailer any more.
However, in my time at my company, I have seen many violations which very little changes. So, the retailer that follows the policies is stuck in a quandary. Lower prices to stay competitive, or continue following the MAP policy and risk losing sales? It happens to retailers everywhere. What is a retailer to do?
