18 Feb 2008 10:20:20 | Gary Durkin
What the heck am I talking about?
Let me tell you that this will be one of my ‘Chilli Pepper’
articles, it’s HOT and very controversial.
If you’ve spent anything more than 5 minutes in the Internet
Marketing world, you will most probably come across something
called ‘Resale Rights’ / or often called Reprint Rights.
This is where the creator / owner of the product, which could be
an ebook, course, script or software, gives you permission to
sell the product -and typically to keep all the proceeds - i.e.
100% profit to you.
Sounds good?
Hold on…….. it gets better (or worse depending on your point of
view).
Often, if buying Resale Rights, you are granted ‘Master Rights’
- this is the right to pass on the resale rights to other
people. You could a step further, and often you can get the
right to pass on the Master Rights to others.
This can be a Catch-22 situation. Whilst selling to someone the
‘right’ to sell to others the right to sell a product may sound
good, and indeed there are many out there in cyber-land who love
to buy resale rights and master rights, it can also cause a few
problems.
If YOU are selling master resale rights, which in turn allow
others to sell master rights, which then allow their customer to
sell rights, and so on…… before long, the market is saturated
with your product - and it can no longer be sold.
Here it will end up in the bargain-bin, or piled together with a
load of bonuses to sell something else. If your product really
is any good, it will soon be devalued, as many people look at
bonuses or freebies as worthless. While some try to sell it,
others are simply giving it away for free.
Hmmmmm……
That’s how things USED to be.
Resale Rights were often sold by the creator(s) of products,
after they had been selling the product for quite some time,
made a bucket-load of cash, saw that the sales were dropping
off, and have created a new product to replace it.
So, they decided to cash-in one final time on their product, and
allow others to sell - for it a license fee. The creator has
already moved on from this product - but he/she now makes
another little pot of gold by selling X-hundred resale licenses
at $xxx each.
The ‘market’ was becoming very wary and wise to this, so now the
flavour of the month is to sell ‘White Label’, or ‘Private
Label’ or fully rebrandable rights to products.
In theory, this is GREAT! You take a fully (or very nearly)
completed product. Finish it off, perhaps add a little here and
there, give it a name, create some graphics -and off you go!
It’s the guts of a great product - for you to take away and
create your very own product. Very often, as we have seen more
and more of these recently, you are given the ‘source-code’
files, to do with as you please.
The ‘source code’ is the engine of the product - usually
everything you need to develop your own version.
Sounds good?
In theory - YES.
In practice - it can be disappointing. Not because the product
is poor - NO. Usually the products are very good. But because of
how others abuse the rights and the source code.
Herein lies the problem. Whilst you could easily fork out $197,
$297, $397, $497 and much more for the ‘Source Code Master
Resale Rights’ of a product - or even a bunch of products,
within a matter of minutes, I GUARANTEE you that someone else is
already selling the complete, entire package elsewhere for a
fraction of the price.
Rather than taking the product, creating something with it,
selling it, and then trying to use the Master Resale Source Code
Rights as an ‘upsell’ - they are simply selling the entire
package, untouched for silly prices.
This really does belittle and devalue the main package. And of
course, will annoy the hell out of all those who paid full price
for the package in order to set up some good products of their
own.
Somewhere, there is some rule, or Law or something, which
legally means that the original seller of the package (Master
Rights, Resale Rights, Source Code etc) - CANNOT legally enforce
a minimum selling price for these items.
Where that emanates from, I have no idea. But many internet
marketers know they cannot force anyone to sell their resale
rights product, for a set minimum amount.
So, they buy the resale rights, which the seller *indicates* a
minimum resale price - but they ignore this, and resell it for
1/10th of that price. Which makes it look cheap and nasty.
What’s the point of the article?
1. To make you aware of the problems that this little sector is
facing, and how you could be feeling rather sick within hours of
splashing out hundreds of dollars on Rights to something you
believed would be a good product for you.
2. The internet is a BIG place - so although there are a few
that spoil things, they certainly haven’t got the market
sewn-up, and there are likely to be many other people out there
willing to pay a *fair price* for your product.
3. If you are thinking about issuing Resale Rights, Master
Rights, Source Code rights to YOUR product(s) - just think of
everything mentioned above.
4. If you buy these Rights, and soon see lots of others
promoting the very same product or package for a stupidly low
price - be different. NO - don’t undercut their price, just make
YOUR package irresistible by adding more features, more support,
more bonuses - or even better, simply IMPROVE the product and
then sell it.
5. The best way to avoid this ever-growing problem, is to create
your own product. That way, it’s YOURS, your OWN it, you control
it. And there’s not hundreds of others trying to give it away
for (next to) nothing!
Don’t necessarily jump in to buy the latest Master Rights /
Source Code offer. If you pay full price, someone will be
offering the same package for pennies on the dollar, before
you’ve even downloaded yours!
Wait and see!
About Author :
An article by Gary Durkin Founder of the Internet Advice Center®
http://www.InternetAdviceCenter.com