Does Amazon Enforce MAP Pricing? (No. Here’s What Does.)

No. Amazon does not enforce minimum advertised price (MAP) policies. A MAP policy is an agreement between you and your resellers. Amazon isn’t a party to it, so it won’t police it, and there’s no “report MAP violation” button that gets a seller removed.

That surprises a lot of brand owners, especially ones who have spent decades enforcing pricing through distributors and trade relationships. On Amazon, the platform’s priority is the customer getting a low price. A seller undercutting your policy is, from Amazon’s point of view, doing exactly what Amazon wants.

What Amazon will act on

Amazon does take action on violations of its own rules and on intellectual property problems:

• Counterfeit products
• Trademark misuse, such as a seller using your brand name on a product that isn’t yours
• Copyright violations, such as copied product photos
• Items described as new that are used, damaged or materially different

If any of those apply, Brand Registry gives you the tools to report them. If none apply and the seller is simply cheaper than your MAP, reporting them to Amazon won’t work, and stretching a pricing dispute into an IP complaint can put your own account at risk.

Why Amazon can even lower your price for you

Amazon also runs price-matching logic. If your product shows up cheaper on another major website, Amazon may lower its price or suppress your Buy Box. So a MAP violation on some other site can end up hurting you on Amazon too. That’s one reason pricing control has to cover every channel, not just Amazon.

So who enforces MAP?

You do. Enforcement lives in three places, all outside Amazon:

1. A written, unilateral MAP policy. It states your minimum advertised prices and the consequence of violating them, usually that you’ll stop selling to that reseller. See how to write an Amazon MAP policy that holds up.
2. Reseller agreements. These cover where authorized dealers can sell, whether they can sell to other resellers, and what happens if they don’t comply. See authorized reseller agreements.
3. Following through. Monitoring prices, documenting violations, and actually cutting off accounts that keep violating. A policy you don’t enforce teaches everyone it doesn’t matter.

For sellers you never authorized, MAP alone won’t touch them because they never agreed to it. For those, the answer is finding where their inventory comes from. See how to remove unauthorized sellers on Amazon.

A note on the law

A unilateral MAP policy is a well-established practice in the US, and choosing not to sell to a reseller who ignores it is generally allowed. Brands get into trouble when they negotiate prices with resellers or coordinate between them. We cover this in is MAP pricing legal. We’re operators, not lawyers, so have your attorney review your policy.

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Written by

Troy Marchand, CEO

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