It takes substantial effort to develop and maintain a brand identity. Part of it has to do with the price at which you are selling your products. Customers factor in price when making purchase decisions. Pricing has a direct impact on brand perception and value. A high price means the product is valuable while a lower price can mean that the product isn’t good enough. While this judgment may not always be correct, it shows how pricing can affect a brand’s value. If you are relying on resellers to sell your products, then monitoring them constantly is the only way to ensure your products are being sold at the right price.
But why is price consistency so important? Imagine reseller1 is selling product A for $60, reseller2 is selling it for $90, and reseller3 is selling it for $35. The price disparity is huge and the customer is going to perceive that the products are unreliable as there are big differences in the price. This can make all your brand identity related efforts go down the drain. Price alone can make or break your customers’ perception about your brand and lead to brand erosion. Allowing resellers to advertise prices as they wish will do more damage to your brand than anything else.
This is where MAP enforcement comes in. Creating MAP policies, monitoring resellers, and taking action against those violating MAP policies can help. With a carefully constructed MAP policy, brands have higher control of how their brand should be perceived. A MAP policy dictates the prices that your products can be advertised at. Although the reseller can sell at a lower price, the advertised price is set. This consistency can help customers have a high regard for your brand because of the consistent pricing throughout; whether in store or brick and mortar stores.
A MAP policy ensures all the resellers can compete fairly. If one reseller is selling at highly slashed prices, then other resellers are likely to follow suit. This is particularly true in marketplaces such as Amazon where there is fierce competition. MAP policies ensure this doesn’t happen so your products can be sold at fair prices across different marketplaces; whether online or offline. MAP policies help to ensure products are not underpriced because then they will eat up the profit margins. MAP helps to protect profit margins and helps the brand stay afloat in the long run.
Ensuring that you and your resellers are on the same page is mutually beneficial. And a MAP policy helps to ensure that. If you have no way of efficiently monitoring your resellers then you can land in trouble and your brand will take the hit. Violations can continuously start to occur and they can get out of hand before you know it. Having a MAP policy in place and taking steps to decrease violations ensures your brand is safe from all this. It can help maintain customer loyalty and help you have a good brand position at all times. It is more important now than ever because of the increased competition especially on the online front.
Monitoring resellers is a vital and continual process to ensure your brand is consistently being portrayed as you envisioned. Creating a MAP policy is an essential component of your brand’s success. You can ensure and implement MAP enforcement by choosing an automated AI-driven solution such as Intelligence Node. Intelligence Node offers MAP monitoring and compliance so that your brand can stay protected in the competitive landscape. It helps you get notifications so you are always aware of any violations, resellers who are selling counterfeits, and those who are likely to violate MAP policy.
