Are Private Label Rights A Dead Duck?

I remember many years ago, not too long after I first began marketing online, private label rights (PLR) were a big deal. Many marketers would salivate at the opportunity to get a hold of a great product that they could sell as their own and keep 100% of the profits. These days, it seems that PLR has run its course. The demand certainly isn’t there like it used to be. The question is, why? what’s the problem? How did something that was once so attractive become a white elephant? This article is going to take a look at the PLR situation, see what the problem is and then look for a solution, if one exists.

First of all, a big problem with PLR material is that the rights seem to get very muddy these days. One of the reasons for that is because of the way many past PLR products have been abused. The chief abuser has been the sale of these products on auction sites like Ebay. If you’ve seen this yourself, then you know what I’m talking about. Products that originally sold for $97 being given away for pennies.

In fact, the problem with the selling of PLR goes way beyond Ebay and other auction sites. The truth is, even those marketers selling PLR through their own sales pages have been selling them at ridiculous prices, which is actually understandable. You buy something for $97, plan to sell it for $47 and then see another site selling it for $17. How do you compete with that? You can’t. And thus, the downward spiral begins. It’s a bottomless pit that nobody recovers from.

Because of these problems, PLR creators have been forced to put limitations on what you can do with the product such as stating that it can’t be sold at auction sites and can’t be sold for less than a certain amount. That leads to two problems.

Problem number one, which is the more obvious one, is that the product itself becomes less desirable to the person buying it. Why buy something that has limitations? I know I wouldn’t unless the limitations weren’t going to be too restrictive and I could still sell the product.

Problem number two, which is not as obvious and something only lawyers think about is that by stipulating a minimum price, you are, in essence, price fixing. And that is against the law any way you look at it. Sure, enforcement may vary from place to place and you may get lucky and get away with it, but it’s still a risky proposition.

Another big problem with PLR is that because PLR makers know that there are problems and that most likely they won’t make a lot of sales of one particular product, in order to generate a significant income, they have to crank out a lot of products. To do that, they have to sacrifice quality because you just can’t crank out 20 or 30 products a month and put any real effort into them. So the quality suffers and the buying public sees that…thus lowering sales.

Finally, and this is really becoming a serious issue, there is the actual authenticity of the PLR product itself. There is a lot of PLR out that that, quite honestly, is stolen. I’m talking about products that didn’t come with rights that product creators steal and pass off as a PLR product.

What happens is that somebody buys the product in good faith, sells it, gets an email from an irate product creator claiming that the product they’re selling has no rights and the person who bought it has to stop selling it or face legal hassles.

With all of this, it is no wonder that PLR products have taken a huge hit over the years.

Question is, what can we do about it? Can we salvage the PLR industry? If so, how?

That question is going to be answered in the next installment.

See you then.

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim
Tired of creating products that nobody wants and don’t sell? Check out my Complete Guide To Product Creation at http://www.stevewagenheim.com/productcreation.html and create products that actually sell.

Similar Posts:

• What is Private Label Rights (PLR)?
• Create a Bonus Report & Stay on Top of Your Competitors
• Affiliate Marketing Journal: Product Selection