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Checklist de integridade comercial para o Natal: como garantir que sua marca feche o ano sem perdas
BranddiIP Team ·
Retail's most profitable season is also the one that puts commercial integrity the most to the test, and the numbers leave no doubt.
Recent data from TransUnion reveals that during the holiday shopping period (including Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas) around 4.6% of online transactions were classified as “suspected digital scams”.
The best way to avoid this is to ensure that the entire commercial network is aligned, protected and monitored before the Christmas rush begins.
If you want to close the year with cash and a preserved reputation, check out the commercial integrity checklist for Christmas below and see how to apply each strategy!
1. Updated channel and authorized resale policy
The basis of commercial integrity is knowing who can sell your brand, where and how. Keeping the channel and authorized resale policy updated means having formalized rules about:
- Which resellers are authorized;
- In which channels they can operate (physical store, own e-commerce, marketplaces, wholesale, etc.);
- What commercial conditions need to be respected.
In practice, this involves reviewing contracts and terms of membership before Christmas, reinforcing points such as:
- How much each partner can lower the pricein end-of-year campaigns, avoiding price wars between channels and non-aligned resellers;
- How the brand should appearon banners, shop windows, category pages, product names and descriptions;
- Guide about logos, colors, slogans, claims and permitted images, to avoid misrepresentations and promises that the brand does not support.
With the channel policy, you can reduce conflicts between resellers, avoid “outside” agreements and take action against partners who insist on not complying with the agreed conditions.
2. PMA rules in force
The PMA (Minimum Advertised Price) is one of the main tools to avoid margin erosion and price wars between channels.
If each reseller defines the own price without any goalpost, the classic Christmas scenario appears: one drops too much, the others follow so as not to “be left behind” and, in a few days, your margin is gone.
Having PMA rules in force means two things at the same time:
- Communication of the rules to all resellers;
- Active monitoring to identify violations and act quickly.
Before the Christmas, you must:
- Update the PMA table with a focus on the end-of-year scenario: promotional lots, special kits, campaign deadlines and any temporarily reduced prices;
- Resend the PMA policy to the entire network, reinforcing: minimum values, validity period, products that cannot be discounted aggressively, rules for displaying prices in advertisements and marketplaces;
- Explain what the consequences of non-compliance (warning, loss of special conditions, suspension of cooperative campaigns, etc.).
The second pillar is intelligent monitoring:
- Regularly monitor prices charged on marketplaces, resale sites and advertisements paid;
- Create alerts or internal routines to quickly identify any price below the PMA;Act quickly: contact the reseller, request an immediate price adjustment and record the incident.
3. Revised catalog and SKUs
No commercial integrity strategy can be sustained if the product catalog is messy.
Christmas is the time when they most often appear: duplicate ads, products with old photos, wrong descriptions, changed codes, outdated packaging and, sometimes, even Update official images: ensure that resellers are using new photos, with good quality, according to the brand's standard;Correct inconsistencies between channels: the same SKU cannot have a different title, “strange” price, incomplete description or photo of another package depending on the place where it is being sold;Reduce duplicity of ads: on the same channel or marketplace, the ideal is to have an organized catalog tree, with fewer duplicate ads competing with each other.At Christmas, this review ensures that seasonal kits and combos (gifts, special packaging and gift boxes) are correctly registered as specific SKUs.
4. Well-marked official channels
At Christmas, many people search for “flash promotions”, “exclusive discounts” and “last minute offers”. The search for special conditions opens up space for enormous confusion between the brand's official channels, parallel resales and even well-organized scams.
Therefore, a commercial integrity strategy is to make it very clear to the consumer where the brand really is and where it is not.
Make it visible on the official website, on social networks and in media campaigns which are the official purchasing channels. This includes: own website, verified profiles, official store on marketplaces and, when it makes sense, list of official partners.
In campaigns, it is worth reinforcing phrases such as “Buy only through our official channels” and directing to a page that explains where the consumer can buy safely.
Well-marked official channels reduce the risk of scams associated with the brand name and reduce consumer confusion between “official” prices and unauthorized resale prices.
5. Active digital monitoring (24/7)
The digital market moves quickly: an irregular ad goes live, a marketplace triggers an aggressive coupon, a competitor does brand bidding on your behalf
And if no one is watching, the loss escalates mercilessly. Therefore, the ideal for Christmas is to operate with continuous monitoring:
- Monitor marketplaces and e-commerces to identify PMA violations, discontinued products being sold, duplicate ads and unauthorized resellers;
- Monitor paid ads and traffic, quickly detecting brand bidding practices and traffic diversion: when someone buys your own brand as a keyword to capture customers who should come straight to you;
- Observe misuse of name, slogan or visual identity on social networks and websites;
- Generate automatic alerts and have immediate action plans for corrections and notifications.
In summary: Christmas is the time when everything happens at the same time, everywhere. If the brand does not invest in commercial protection, someone will take advantage of this space: be it a scammer or an opportunistic reseller.