Policies vs. prices
A MAP policy is the document for a brand. It contains many MAP prices — one per product identifier — that state the minimum advertised price. Policies are versioned: when a brand issues a new one and it is approved, it supersedes the previous active policy for that brand. Each policy carries a status:| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
pending_review | Extracted and awaiting a governance decision. |
accepted | Approved and active for the brand. |
rejected | Declined; preserved but filtered out of default views. |
superseded | Replaced by a newer approved policy for the same brand. |
archived | Retired from active use. |
MAP policies are usually ingested from a brand’s uploaded file. A per-brand parser
template maps that file’s columns and date format so future uploads for the brand
extract consistently.
Sharing is off by default
MerchantOps is multi-tenant, and most reference data (brands, product knowledge) is shared across organizations. MAP policies are the exception. Because a MAP policy is a legal agreement between a specific brand and a specific reseller, sharing it across organizations carries legal and compliance risk. So MAP-policy sharing is off by default: a policy you contribute stays private to your organization unless sharing is explicitly enabled.Governance
MAP policies follow a review workflow with roles and organization-scoped rules:Approving or rejecting a policy requires the MAP approval permission. Approving
a policy supersedes the brand’s previously active policy. Rejecting requires a
reason; rejected data is preserved and flagged, and the contributing
organization can fix and resubmit or delete it.
Only policies in
pending_review, rejected, or draft states can be deleted —
an approved (active) policy cannot. Only the organization that contributed a
policy can delete it. Deleting a policy removes its prices but never touches
your products.Detecting changes
When a brand issues a new policy, you can compare it against the brand’s currently active policy to see exactly which prices were added, changed, or removed before you approve. Once you accept a new policy, run a comparison to find where your catalog prices now fall out of line and generate proposals to fix them.Comparison & proposals
Compare a policy against your catalog and review changes.
Price records
MAP as a per-variant price record.