Most MAP enforcement fails for the same reason: the brand sends letters while the arbitrage that makes reselling profitable is still wide open. Often the brand is the one holding it open, through its own DTC discounting.
Here is the sequence that works, with numbers from an account where we ran it.
Start by finding out what is actually happening
Not a count. A map: every seller, on every listing, at what price, tracked over time.
On a hardlines account we took over, that exercise found 74 third-party resellers across 90 listings. A single listing might carry anywhere from ten to forty sellers, all at different prices, none at MAP. Several were buying product straight off the brand's own DTC site at a deep discount and reselling it at a markup.
That last detail is the important one, and you only find it by looking at prices rather than counting sellers.
Close your own arbitrage before enforcing anyone else's
If a reseller can buy from you at 40% off and sell at 20% off, they have a business. No letter will persuade them out of it, because you are the one funding it.
This is usually the least popular finding in the audit and the most important. Bringing DTC pricing in line with MAP across every channel is what makes everything downstream possible.
Then write the policy and distribute it properly
A MAP policy that nobody has received is not a policy. It needs to go to every seller and every distributor, in writing, with the terms stated plainly and the consequences of violation spelled out.
Then it needs to be monitored, and violations escalated as far as each case warrants. Most cases stop well before anything formal — but only if the monitoring is real and the escalations actually happen.
What the numbers looked like
Once MAP was in place across every channel and the DTC discounting was under control, the arbitrage stopped working. We went back to the same reseller listings we had mapped at the start. Of the 82 where we had a price both before and after:
Reseller price response after MAP enforcement
What 82 tracked reseller listings did
- Raised price76%
- Lowered price16%
- Held price flat8%
| Segment | Share |
|---|---|
| Raised price | 76% |
| Lowered price | 16% |
| Held price flat | 8% |
Most of them had to raise prices to avoid selling at a loss. Nobody was sued.
Why this matters for advertising
This is not a legal project. It is the precondition for spending anything.
With the buy box changing hands constantly and reseller margins as thin as they were, there was no reason for the brand — or anyone else — to advertise. Whoever paid for the click was as likely as not sending the sale to a competitor sitting on the same listing.
Once the buy box was back on every hero product and the content had been rebuilt, ads were finally worth running. Modelling that October with and without ad support, paid media was adding 37% to daily revenue and 32% to daily units. Over the four months to December, total revenue grew 274% and organic revenue grew 187%, with net margin never dropping below 32%.
The advertising did not become effective because the bidding improved. It became effective because the channel was finally worth advertising into.
The order that matters
- 01
Map
Every seller, every listing, every price, tracked over time. This is the baseline everything else is measured against.
- 02
Close your own leak
DTC and distributor pricing brought in line with MAP. Until this happens, enforcement is pushing against your own supply.
- 03
Publish and monitor
Policy distributed to every seller and distributor, then genuinely monitored with violations escalated as far as each case needs.
- 04
Then spend
With the buy box held and content rebuilt, advertising finally compounds instead of subsidising someone else's margin.
Full detail on this account, including the phased catalogue rollout and the operational side, is in the MagLite case study.
Common questions
Can we just remove resellers with Brand Registry?
Brand Registry handles counterfeit and clear IP infringement well. It does not remove someone reselling genuine product they bought legitimately — that is the first-sale doctrine, and it is why pricing economics matter more than takedown notices.
How long does enforcement take to show results?
On the account described here, the price response was measurable within the first enforcement cycle. Getting there took a full reseller mapping exercise and fixing the brand's own DTC discounting first.
Do we need a lawyer?
For drafting and distributing the MAP policy, legal review is sensible. For the enforcement itself, most of the work is monitoring, evidence and persistence rather than litigation.
What if our own distributors are the ones selling?
Common, and it is a commercial conversation rather than an enforcement one. Map who is selling what before assuming the sellers are strangers — quite often they are not.