You’ve spent a lot of time and energy building your brand. You’ve cultivated seller and customer trust, set competitive prices, and worked hard to ensure your business is viable now and into the future. But how are you protecting that brand?
Building a brand without implementing a brand protection strategy is like owning a beautiful house filled with expensive furnishings and not locking your doors at night. You’re just asking for trouble.
Unauthorized sellers and those who refuse to comply with your minimum advertised price (MAP) policy can erode your relationships with reseller partners, damage customer trust and loyalty, impact brand integrity, and hurt your revenue.
The benefits of brand protection
At a minimum, you can expect to know precisely who’s selling your products, for what price, and whether they’re in compliance with your resale policies. But the benefits don’t end there. With a strong brand protection plan, you can expect:
- An increase in average unit of retail (AUR) across the internet
- More buy box ownership across your authorized dealers
- An increase in consumer confidence and satisfaction
So, how do you protect your brand? You need a plan.
Step 1: Create your policies
Every brand should have policies for how retailers become authorized sellers and abide by MAP for your products, as well as the process you will use to enforce those policies. Check out this article for more on MAP policy.
MAP policies can be complicated and confusing if you’re new to them. But that’s ok! If you’re not sure where to start, TrackStreet’s team of experts can help you craft a tailor-made policy for your brand and your unique situation. Just ask us!
Step 2: Implement your policies
Let your authorized partners know about your new policies. This will give them time to make adjustments as necessary before enforcement begins. You may get some pushback, but most of your partners will welcome the opportunity to level the playing field.
When everyone plays by the same rules, everyone can trust that no one is getting special treatment.
Step 3: Enforce your policies
This is where the rubber meets the road. Once you’ve notified your partners about your new policies, you’re ready to ensure everyone follows them.
But how do you do that? What does enforcement look like?
Essentially, enforcement entails identifying those who are not in compliance with your policies, notifying them of their non-compliance, outlining how they can return to compliance, and detailing the consequences of continued violations of your policies.
The final step in enforcement is following through with those consequences, which may include cease and desist letters, remediation, and additional legal action such as lawsuits.
Many brands start out trying to track their sellers and their product prices manually. They quickly discover it’s not that simple.
Even if you only have a few products, keeping track of every online seller at every retailer or marketplace, which can change in real time, is overwhelming and time-consuming. It can quickly become a full-time position, and that doesn’t even include enforcing what you find.
That’s why you need a brand protection partner like TrackStreet.
TrackStreet’s price policy and unauthorized reseller enforcement solutions are based on accurate and vast market data. Our unrivaled customer support and service ensure your solution works for you from day one. While other solutions overpromise, TrackStreet overdelivers.
TrackStreet also offers a wide range of enforcement options. You can choose to fully automate your enforcement or take a more hands-on approach with approvals. It’s totally up to you.
You don’t have to do it alone
Brand protection may sound like a lot of work – and it certainly can be without the right solution! But TrackStreet is here to help be your partner in brand protection.
We’re ready to help you get started immediately! We’ll support you every step of the way to ensure your brand protection program is successful and that your customers’ money is going to trusted partners who believe in your brand.
Ready to find out more? Book a demo today!
