A quick head’s up on buying resell rights
Thursday, August 21st, 2008Many product creators follow a very predictable marketing strategy… They normally start by selling the product without any rights, i.e. “personal rights only”. As is often the case, especially as far as ‘how to make money online’ products are concerned, sales start to drop after a period of time.
Note: The ‘shelf life’ of a ‘how to make money online’ product is often limited. A new report that may be selling like hot cakes today will probably be outdated or old news by next year…
So what do these marketers do to revive their floundering fortunes? Yes, they offer Resell Rights, often followed by Master Resell Rights and last but not least Private Label Rights.
It’s not a bad strategy! Many top marketers swear by it!
However, it can present a problem for the buyers of these rights and this is what this head’s up is all about…
Let me explain by giving you a practical example of something that happened to me today and made me decide to quickly write this post…
I received an email this morning from a marketer offering a limited number of resell rights to a software product he has developed. The name of the marketer is not important…
It’s a great product, he will only sell a very limited number of resell rights and the product may not be sold below a certain price level (I reserve my judgement on the enforceability of this), may not be given away for free, may not be offered as a bonus to another product and may not be added to a membership site.
Sounds like a good deal right? Yes, it is except for one thing… On his main site (from where he is currently selling the software) he states that all buyers of Version 1.0 will get a free upgrade to Version 2.0 when it’s released. However, on his sales letter where he is selling the resell rights he only states that all resell right buyers will receive free updates of Version 1.0.
I contacted him and asked him if resell right buyers will also get a free upgrade to Version 2.0 when it’s released to which he replied that this won’t be possible as he has invested a lot of money into Version 1.0 and developing Version 2.0 has been very expensive.
My dilemma? Should I buy resell rights to Version 1.0 knowing that my customers will not receive a free upgrade to Version 2.0 when it’s released? By the way, if you buy the product from his site it will only cost you $10 more and you will get a free upgrade to Version 2.0 when it’s released.
I don’t think so…
Don’t get me wrong… I am not saying this marketer is doing anything wrong. He has sold many copies of Version 1.0 and with the imminent release of Version 2.0 he is trying to make some very nice additional income by offering resell rights to Version 1.0. In fact, he will fully recoup all of his development costs of Version 1.0 by selling the resell rights to it!
If I was allowed to offer the software as a bonus to another product or use it as an incentive for people to join my list I would not have hesitated in buying it. But, I realized that I would not really be helping my buyers by selling them a product that is soon to be upgraded and where the product creator is in effect penalizing them by allowing me to sell the product to them. Makes no sense…
Bottom line…
Always be diligent when buying the resell rights to a product, especially a great product! Why is the product owner selling resell rights? Why doesn’t he or she simply offer an affiliate program?
Most importantly…
Don’t make assumptions! If you are not sure about anything ask the seller!
You should always have a good idea what you intend on doing with the product once you have bought the resell rights. You may want to offer it as a stand-alone product, burn it onto a CD and sell it on eBay, offer it as a bonus to another product, list it on Clickbank, give it away to your list, offer it as an opt-in bonus, etc.
One of the biggest mistakes I made when I just started online was to buy resell rights to products without a clear strategy in mind. Most of these products just ended up gathering digital dust on my hard drive and when I finally had a closer look at them they were often really bad, completely outdated, and full of affiliate links. Very often I couldn’t even find my “rights” meaning that I didn’t want to do anything with them because I simply could not remember what rights I bought!
If you are not sure about your rights send the seller an email. For example, “I understand that I may not offer my buyers resell rights but I assume I am allowed to sell it through affiliates. I also assume that there is no restriction on the commission rate I can offer affiliates. Please confirm.”
Tip: When buying resell rights to a software product or script always ask the seller if you and customers will get future upgrades at the same terms and conditions (if any) as his own buyers.
Make sure that you always save the resell rights license as well as any correspondence you had with the seller.
Oh, and by the way, always read a report or ebook, for which you have acquired resell rights, cover to cover. By the same token, always test software or scripts that you bought resell rights for. Your name may not be mentioned as the author of a report or the creator of a software product but if you promote it you have a duty towards your customers to ensure that it lives up to its expectations!
Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading your comments.
To YOUR Online Marketing Success!
Francois du Toit
Your Host Francois du Toit
