Your brand price is set by the market, not by you

You set an RRP. You communicate it to your distributors. You brief your retailers. You build it into your promotional calendar. And then the market does something else entirely.

This is not a new problem. It is an old problem that has become significantly harder to manage as the number of channels where your product appears has multiplied. A decade ago, you could have a meaningful conversation with three or four major retail partners and have reasonable confidence that your pricing was being respected. Today, those same products appear across dozens of online marketplaces, hundreds of third-party sellers, and markets you never intended to enter.

The gap between policy and reality

Most brands have a price policy. Far fewer brands have a clear picture of what price their products are actually trading at, across all channels, on any given day. The gap between those two things is where commercial damage accumulates.

Price erosion rarely looks dramatic at the start. A distributor discounts marginally to move end-of-line stock. A retailer runs a promotion that breaches the agreed floor. A cross-border seller lists at a price that made sense in their home market but undercuts the intended price in yours. Each event is small. The cumulative effect over months is a market price that has drifted substantially below your intended position, and an authorised channel that feels unable to compete.

Why the market price matters more than your list price

Your RRP is the price you intend your product to trade at. The market price is the price it actually trades at, across all the places it appears. For most brands, those two numbers diverge more than they realise.

The market price matters for several reasons beyond the obvious margin impact. It influences how traditional retail partners negotiate with you. If your product is widely available at a lower price online, a retail buyer will reference that price in their next commercial conversation. It influences consumer perception of what your brand is worth. Products that consistently trade below their stated price train customers to wait for a deal rather than buy at full price. And it influences your marketplace performance, since algorithmic pricing on major platforms responds to the market price, not your list price.

The distribution chain is usually where it starts

Price erosion almost always has a source. It does not emerge spontaneously. A distributor who is moving stock through an unauthorised channel, a retailer whose promotional terms were not tightly defined, a market where you have distribution without clear pricing controls — these are the common origins.

Identifying the source requires visibility at the seller level. Knowing that your product is being discounted on a marketplace is useful. Knowing which seller is doing it, at what volume, and being able to trace that back to a specific distribution relationship is what enables you to fix it structurally rather than chase individual listings indefinitely.

The brands that hold their price

The brands that maintain pricing integrity across their channels are not the ones with the most detailed policies or the most aggressive legal programmes. They are the ones with the clearest picture of what is happening to their brand in the market, at a seller and channel level, on a consistent basis.

That visibility is what makes every other part of the commercial programme work better. Distributor conversations have specificity. Retailer relationships have accountability. Enforcement effort is directed at the sellers causing the most damage, not spread across every listing that appears. And the market price stays close enough to the intended price that authorised partners feel they are operating on a level playing field.