Monitoring
Observations
One offer, seen once: what an observation records, the six outcomes an evaluation can have, and what coverage means for what you can conclude.
Last revised
An observation is the product’s unit of fact: one offer on one listing, seen by one scan at one instant. Everything above it — a candidate, a case, an evidence package, a notice — points back at observations, and an observation is never edited after it is written.
What an observation records
| Field | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Seller | The storefront name and the seller identifier the marketplace reported. An offer whose seller the source did not identify is still recorded, and says so. |
| Item | The ASIN and the external item identifier. |
| Price | The advertised price and its currency, exactly as shown. A hidden or cart-only price is recorded as Price not shown, never as zero. |
| Condition | New, Used or Refurbished, as listed. |
| Fulfillment | Who ships the item, and whether the offer held the Buy Box when it was observed. |
| Coverage | How much of the listing the scan could see: sufficient, partial, insufficient or unknown. |
| Evaluation | The outcome of measuring the price against the policy in force, and the policy version that was used. |
| Observed | The instant, in UTC. |
The six outcomes
Every observation carries one evaluation outcome. The product never collapses an outcome it could not reach into a compliant one.
| Outcome | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Below policy | The price, after tolerance and the treatment rules, is under the effective MAP. Eligible observations become violation candidates. |
| Compliant | The price is at or above the effective MAP, or inside the tolerance. |
| Indeterminate | The rules could not conclude: shipping required by the policy but not shown, a couponed offer flagged for review, a cart-only price under the default rule. |
| Not applicable | An exception exempted this seller or scope from the policy. The seller was not judged — which is not the same as compliant. |
| Not evaluated | No MAP policy was in force for this product at the instant of observation. |
| Price not shown | The marketplace did not display a price the scan could read. |
Coverage, and what an absence means
A scan reports how much of the listing it could see. Coverage decides what you may conclude from what was not seen; it does not change what was seen.
- Sufficient — the source returned the offer list and said it was complete. A seller absent from it was, as far as the source can tell, not offering the item.
- Partial — offers were returned, but the source said its list was incomplete or could not say. A seller seen below policy in a partial response was still seen below policy; an absent seller proves nothing.
- Insufficient or unknown — too little came back to support a conclusion. Nothing from this observation reaches the review queue.
Reading the page
Monitoring › Observations lists observations newest first, one line each. Prices are shown with their currency and never abbreviated; a below-policy row shows the gap in money and in percent. The evaluation column names the outcome; an indeterminate or not-evaluated row explains why on hover.