MAP Policy Rollout Checklist

A MAP policy that cannot be configured line for line in a monitoring tool is a policy that will be argued about instead of applied. This checklist walks the rollout in order: the decisions, the configuration, the people, and the first month. It follows the order the MapProtector set-up checklist uses — connect, load, set the floor, declare the network, start monitoring — and it applies to any program with the same shape.

For the background on what a policy is and is not, see What Is a MAP Policy?.

Part 1 — Decide the policy

Do these on paper before touching a tool. Each is a question a reseller or a reviewer will ask.

Scope

• Which products, named by identifier (SKU and ASIN), not by description.
• Which marketplaces. A policy for Amazon.com is not a policy for Amazon.ca unless it says so.
• Which conditions: new only, or used and refurbished too.
• Whether the floor is brand-wide with exceptions, or per product family, or per product. Narrower scopes win over wider ones; decide the baseline and the exceptions to it.

The floor

• The MAP for each scope, in the marketplace's currency.
• Confirmed against the price list as the advertised minimum — not the MSRP, not the brand's own selling price.

Effective date

• From when the floor applies. If this is a change from a previous floor, the previous floor's dates as well; history will be measured against it.

Tolerance

• None, a fixed amount, or a percentage. If the written policy is silent, the answer is none.

Treatment rules — the source of most disputes

• Shipping: is the landed price or the item price measured? Under "item plus shipping", an offer whose shipping cannot be read is indeterminate, not assumed free.
• Coupons: ignored, applied to the price, or routed to a person for review?
• Cart-only prices: not advertised (indeterminate), or admissible?
• Out-of-stock offers: judged, or not?

Promotions

• How the brand authorizes a lower advertised price for a window, and who approves.
• Any sale currently running or planned in the next thirty days, with dates.

Consequences

• The escalation sequence the program intends: how many stages, the wait after each, whether later stages need fresh evidence or fresh approval. This can wait until enforcement is switched on, but resellers ask about it first.

Part 2 — Prepare the people

• A Brand Admin identified, with a second factor enrolled. Policies are activated, evidence sealed and notices approved by this role.
• A Compliance Manager for review decisions, seller classification, promotions and exceptions.
• Analysts for the catalog and the queue.
• Counsel, if involved, as a Legal Reviewer: reads everything, changes nothing.
• The reply-to mailbox for enforcement mail decided, if the program will send notices — a mailbox a person reads.

Roles and what each may do are on Team roles.

Part 3 — Configure, in this order

The order is dependency order: each step needs the one before.

1. Connect Amazon. Authorize the tool from the brand's Seller Central account. Confirm the marketplaces the authorization covers match the ones in scope. Test the connection.
2. Load the catalog. SKU, title, product group, marketplace, ASIN, condition, MAP amount and currency — by CSV for anything beyond a handful. Validate, read the row report, correct, apply. Confirm the MAP column is the MAP.
3. Create the policy. Scope, version 1 with the floor, the effective date, tolerance and the treatment rules from Part 1. Narrower policies for the scopes that need them.
4. Approve current promotions. Any sale running or starting soon, as an approved promotion with its window, so the queue does not open full of sanctioned prices.
5. Declare the Authorized Network. Partners with their Amazon seller ids and terms. The brand's own storefront as brand internal. Optional for a brand that sells direct; essential for one that sells through distributors. See the Authorized Reseller Management Guide.
6. Create standing exceptions. Any relationship the program measures but does not enforce — with reasons and end dates.
7. Confirm monitoring is on. Products added with monitoring on are scanned from their next slot. Check the scan page for never scanned and disabled targets.

In MapProtector the Overview checklist tracks steps 1, 2, 3, 5 and 7 and marks the network step optional. See Getting started.

Part 4 — The first thirty days

Days 1–3. Observations arrive. Check that products read as evaluated rather than not evaluated (a policy gap) or never scanned (a marketplace or target problem).

Week 1. Read the queue's dismissal reasons as diagnostics before working the queue as a queue. Wrong product mapping → fix the catalog. Authorized promotion → a sale that should have been step 4. Not actually below policy → the configured treatment rules disagree with the written policy.

Week 2. Work the unknown sellers. Add partners to the network; classify the rest with reasons; leave what you do not know as unknown.

Week 3. Confirm real findings. Partners below the floor get a call from the account manager. Sellers the brand has decided are unauthorized get evidence sealed.

Week 4. Decide whether the enforcement stage is ready: templates reviewed against the brand's own policy, sender identity verified, sequence configured and set as default. If it is, the first notice goes through the full workflow — see the MAP Enforcement Workflow Guide.

Part 5 — Keep it true

• Every MAP change is a new policy version with an effective date. Never edit the floor in place.
• Every sale is a promotion approved before it starts.
• Every "do not enforce" is an exception with a reason and an end date.
• Every partner change is a network entry updated the same day.
• The unknown list is reviewed weekly.
• The compliance figure counts only offers that were actually judged.

A policy rolled out this way is one the tool can apply exactly as written — and one a reseller cannot argue with by pointing at a gap.