Unauthorized Retailer Problems and How To Solve Them

Brand owners often seek for different channels to sell their product in wide range e-market. However, it doesn’t mean that they abide with uncontrolled or unauthorized sellers online. Even though making extra sales from different retailers may sound nice, it can be really devastating when it comes to the sales strategies and MAP policies. Unauthorized sellers or retailers can cause so many to your brand in general.

How To Find Unauthorized Sellers?

Unauthorized sellers or retailers who didn’t sign any MAP policy or dealer agreement with your brand can create a threat to your business’ image, integrity and trustworthiness. It also can cause a problem with your long-term or trusted online sellers or retailers as well. If unauthorized sellers are establishing a sale in places like Amazon and trying to get into the Buy Box, they can cut the prices for competition with no enforcement comes from MAP policies or dealer agreements. In websites like Amazon, buy box section can be tempting enough for any retailer for better sales, however if there is an unauthorized seller who is cutting the prices lower than the MAP can create more troubles for your brand. When trusted and MAP policy follower retailers are abiding the rules of your MAP policies to evade any problems in general, unauthorized sellers do not care. And this situation can create an unjust sale point for all of your retailers. Unauthorized sellers who enter a price war to cut the margins can create a trouble for manufacturer and the retailers at the same time.

How To Know Who Is Selling Your Products?

Knowing who is selling your product for which price can be life changing in the e-commerce. Seeing if there is any unauthorized seller for your product can be established by monitoring. Price or retailer monitoring software like PriceRest can provide a great monitoring process for the manufacturer to see their retailers’ actions. With the most advanced technology of PriceRest, manufacturers or brand owners can see the changes in the price tags and retailer policies hourly. PriceRest provides updated data to its users to monitor. And understanding who is selling your product online in a short term can help you to enforce your rules to protect your brand.

Taking action against those unauthorized retailers or sellers can be necessary to stop trademark infringement, unjust competitions, trademark problems, unfair trade practices and wrongfully made price changes in general. Unauthorized retailers may think of upgrading their sales with cutting the price and avoiding the customer support and warranties for your product. To prevent false or wrong shopping experiences that includes the name of your brand, seeking legal action can be important.

Sending Letters To Unauthorized Sellers

To prevent such sales, brand owners can send a well written cease and desist letters to those unauthorized sellers. A good cease and desist letter which is written by an antitrust lawyer can create a great difference in the behaviors of unauthorized sellers. Sending such letters to the biggest and largest unauthorized letters can create help your brand to establish a strong position to the smaller ones.

For a brand owner or a manufacturer, seeing who is selling their products for which price can be tricky situation without monitoring. However, with the right price monitoring software like PriceRest, they can see the general view when it comes to the sales. And it can create a better and regulated sales which is shaped by their own MAP policies. Establishing a monitoring system to prevent unauthorized sales can be tricky. Understanding how those unauthorized sellers received your products and closing those back doors to prevent these sales requires a strong monitoring system.

Keeping a strong monitoring process for MAP violations and unauthorized retailers is a never-ending process. To keep up with updated information regarding such cases, monitoring should continue full time. Seeing the unauthorized and authorized retailers’ action when it comes to your own MAP policies, and proceeding with necessary enforcements can be made with price and competition monitoring software.

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