Brand Registry, MAP & resellers
A minimum advertised price policy is a statement by a brand of the lowest price at which its products may be advertised. It governs the advertised price, not the price a reseller may charge at the register, and Amazon is not a party to it and will not enforce it for you. Enforcement happens through your own commercial relationships: who you supply, on what terms, and what you do when the terms are broken.
Those three sentences cover the misunderstanding that costs Amazon brands the most time. Sellers discover an offer below their price, look for the button in Seller Central that makes it stop, and there is no button. Understanding why, and what replaces the button, is the difference between a policy that shapes your channel and a document nobody reads.
Advertised price is not sale price
The distinction is legal and it is the reason MAP policies exist in the form they do.
A brand telling a reseller what price they must sell at is agreeing on resale price, which is treated with suspicion in competition law in most jurisdictions and is outright unlawful in some. A brand stating the price below which it will not permit its products to be advertised is narrower, and it is a common practice.
The practical consequence is in how the policy is written and how you behave around it. It must be unilateral: your policy, announced by you, not negotiated, not agreed to, not discussed. You do not ask a reseller to accept it. You do not bargain over exceptions. You state it, you apply it consistently, and the only decision you make is whether to keep supplying a company that does not follow it.
The moment you start negotiating the terms, you may have converted a policy into an agreement, which is a different legal animal. This is the single most important reason to have a lawyer review the document before it goes out. Nothing here is legal advice, and the cost of getting a real review is small next to the exposure.
Why Amazon will not enforce it
Amazon is not your reseller in the marketplace model. Sellers on your ASIN set their own prices, and Amazon's systems compare your price against references elsewhere, including other retailers and your own other channels.
This produces an effect that surprises brands. If your product is advertised somewhere at a lower price, Amazon may treat your listing as uncompetitively priced and the featured offer can disappear. So a distributor who lists your product cheaply on a comparison site can damage your Amazon listing without ever selling on Amazon.
That is worth restating, because it inverts the usual worry. A MAP policy is not only about protecting a retail partner's margin. It is also about protecting the price signals that keep your own listing healthy.
Amazon's own pricing rules are separate from your policy and change over time. Your policy has no standing with them. It has standing with the companies you sell to.
What to put in the policy
Keep it short and specific. A long document is less likely to be read and no more enforceable.
Scope. Which products, by SKU, and which channels count as advertising. Be explicit that this includes marketplace listing prices, comparison sites, email campaigns, social posts and printed circulars.
The number. Per SKU. Not a formula, not a discount off a list price that nobody can find. A number, with an effective date. Where that number should sit relative to your wholesale price and your own Amazon price is the subject of MAP pricing on Amazon.
Exclusions. Standard ones are clearance of discontinued lines with prior written consent, genuine damaged goods, and defined promotional windows you announce. Write them in, because unwritten exceptions become precedent.
The advertised-versus-sold distinction. State plainly that the policy concerns advertised price and does not restrict the price at which the reseller chooses to sell.
Consequences. What happens on a first, second and third instance. The only consequence that is really yours is supply: warning, suspension of supply, termination. Say so.
No-negotiation language. State that the policy is unilateral, is not an agreement, and that you neither seek nor accept assent to it.
How enforcement actually happens
The mechanism is supply, and supply needs evidence.
Start with monitoring you can keep up with. Checking your main ASINs and a handful of comparison sites weekly is worth more than a sophisticated system you stop paying for. Screenshot with a date whenever something is off policy.
Then trace the units. Serialization is what turns an anonymous offer into a named customer, because the code on the unit maps to a production run and, if you keep the record, to a purchase order. The Transparency program explains the mechanics. Without it you are asking a distributor whether they sold to someone and accepting the answer.
Then act consistently. The value of a policy is almost entirely in its consistency. A brand that enforces against a small account and looks away for a large one has no policy, and the market works this out quickly.
And write the supporting clauses into the supply terms themselves: a channel restriction saying which channels the customer may sell into, an obligation to identify the source of units found elsewhere, and a right to stop supplying. The policy states the price. The terms give you the mechanism. For what else belongs in those terms, working with distributors covers the wider agreement.
A worked example
A brand sells a $42 tool on Amazon. Wholesale to distributors is $21. A retailer buying at $21 and marking up conventionally lands near $42, which is where the brand wants the market.
The brand sets MAP at $39.99 rather than $42, giving accounts a small amount of promotional room without breaking the shelf price, and states two annual promotional windows where $34.99 is permitted.
Six weeks after a 500-unit order, an offer appears on Amazon at $31.50. The brand buys a unit, checks the code, matches the run to that purchase order, and calls the distributor. The distributor sold 120 units to a regional account that resold them online. The brand cites the channel clause, the distributor stops supplying that account, and the offer sells through and disappears.
Note what did not happen. No intellectual property complaint, because the goods were genuine. No appeal to Amazon, because Amazon has no role in the policy. What worked was the code on the unit, the clause in the terms and a willingness to have an uncomfortable call with a paying customer.
The mistakes that do damage
Filing infringement complaints against genuine goods. The complaint fails and it can rebound. What does work against a genuine reseller is in unauthorized sellers on Amazon.
Negotiating the policy. The moment it becomes a negotiation, it may stop being a unilateral policy.
Setting MAP without doing the arithmetic. A number that leaves a retailer no margin after their own costs will be broken by every account you have, and a policy everyone breaks teaches your channel that your policies are decorative.
Announcing it after the fact. A policy that arrives after a distributor has already bought 600 units at terms that did not mention it is an argument waiting to happen. It goes in the first order documents.
Enforcing selectively. Consistency is the whole asset.
Getting the policy in place before the first order
The sequence for a brand about to open a wholesale channel: decide the number, have the document reviewed, include it with the first price list, get the channel clause into the terms, and get serialization onto the next production run. All of that is cheaper and faster than the cleanup when a contested offer is already live.
It also helps to start with accounts that fit, because most price problems trace back to a customer who was never right for the product. Paste your listing into WholesalePilot and the preview shows the distributors and retailers that plausibly stock products like yours, which is a better filter than an inbound inbox.
Questions brands ask about MAP
Is MAP legal? Unilateral advertised-price policies are a common practice in many jurisdictions, while agreements on resale price are treated very differently and can be unlawful. Rules vary by country and this is exactly where you want a lawyer rather than an article.
Does MAP apply to my own Amazon price? Your own price is yours to set, but it is the reference everyone else works from. Undercutting your own stated policy is the fastest way to lose the argument with a retail account.
Can I set MAP for marketplace sellers I do not supply? You cannot bind a company you have no relationship with. Your leverage there is upstream, in finding out who supplied them.
Do I need software to monitor it? Not at first. A weekly check of your main ASINs and a few comparison sites is enough for a small range.
What if a reseller sells below MAP but does not advertise it? That is generally outside an advertised price policy, and it is why the advertised-versus-sold distinction belongs in the document.