Seller discovery

Every offer a scan reads names the seller behind it. MapProtector resolves that to a seller identity — the marketplace’s own seller identifier, on that marketplace — and records the storefront name it was seen under as an alias. A seller that has never been seen before is created on first sight and immediately matched against your Authorized Network.

The identity is the marketplace’s id

Nothing in the product decides that two sellers are one by comparing names, addresses or storefront titles. The channel’s seller identifier is the identity; a storefront that renames itself keeps its history, and the old name is kept as an alias so a reviewer — and a notice — can say what the storefront used to be called.

What happens on first sight

1. The scan records the observation with the seller’s id and storefront name.
2. The seller identity is created for the marketplace and linked to the observation.
3. The identity is matched against the Authorized Network for the brand. A network entry with the same seller id on the same marketplace links to it and, if the entry is authorized and inside its dates, the seller’s standing becomes Authorized with the entry as the recorded reason.
4. A seller with no match is Unknown. It appears on Monitoring › Sellers and, if your plan includes the Authorized Network, in the observed sellers to decide about list on the network page.

Unresolved sellers

Occasionally the source reports an offer without identifying its seller. The observation is still recorded — with the source did not identify this seller in place of a name — and it is counted in the scan’s offer total. It is not counted as a distinct seller, and it cannot become a violation candidate, because a candidate names a seller and nothing here can honestly name one.

What you see per seller

Each seller’s page shows the identity (the seller id, every name it has been seen under, the marketplace, first and last seen), what your brand has said about it, and what has been observed: products, open and historical cases, confirmed and dismissed candidates, and recurrence. See Seller history.