CeraCoat Unlimited Review: Second attempt at US market
BehindMLM first reviewed CeraCoat Direct back in early 2013. Decent enough compensation plan and product, but a major problem with the opportunity was a lack of retail.
At the time, only affiliates were able to purchase products from CeraCoat Direct.
In late 2014 we reviewed Globally Positioned Partners, who at the time were the exclusive distributor of CeraCoat Direct products in the US.
CEO Ken Howard claimed that in its first year, Globally Positioned Partners ‘could easily grow to $100 Million Dollars‘.
GPP could easily achieve and sustain triple digit annualized growth of over 100% per year for the next ten years, which could potentially see GPP grow up to $50 Billion Dollars in annualized sales in just 10 years!
That didn’t happen.
Globally Positioned Partners followed CeraCoat Direct’s problematic compensation plan, with affiliates required to purchase products in order to qualify for MLM commissions.
A few months after our review, Globally Positioned Partners changed their compensation plan.
Retail commissions were finally clarified, with residuals paid out via a unilevel compensation structure. Unfortunately it was still entirely possible for an affiliate to self-fund commission qualification, and then focus solely on recruiting others who did the same.
A few months later in mid 2015, CeraCoat Direct severed all ties with Globally Positioned Partners.
Commenting on the split, CeraCoat Direct Founder Elio Keller lamented:
Ken was not successful and did create a lot of negative image, so we had to stop with him.
I did choose the wrong person, but it’s my fault, because I listened to his “crazy plans” and when he told me he was an MLM expert, I trusted him.
Big mistake, but we have our worldwide business and exist for over 20 years, so Ken was just a “lost of time and money” and now we are looking to the future.
A lot of persons warned me about Ken, but it was too late. Now I saw they were all right. . .
Around the same time CeraCoat Direct announced a new partnership with CeraCoat Unlimited, who were to take over distribution of CeraCoat Direct products in the US.
Unfortunately there is no information on the CeraCoat Unlimited website revealing who owns or runs the company.
The CeraCoat Unlimited website domain (“ceracoatunlimited.com”) was registered on February 9th 2016, with “Owen Greeson” listed as the owner.
The address used to register the domain is a residential address in the US state of Georgia, which matches the CeraCoat Unlimited corporate address provided on their website.
A Google search on the address reveals several results tying the address to Greeson.
Nothing much comes up with respect to Greeson’s prior involvement in the MLM industry, with his history and credentials unknown.
Read on for a full review of the CeraCoat Unlimited MLM business opportunity.
The CeraCoat Unlimited Product Line
Being their distributor for the US, CeraCoat Unlimited market CeraCoat Direct’s “nano technology” products.
With CeraCoat nano technology we are able to create very thin coatings, like a thin protection “film” on any surface, to protect these surfaces all exterior influences (liquid, dirt, temperature, scratching, fire, odor, wear).
By molecular self-organization, the nano-metric building blocks of Ceracoat form an invisible layer / coating on any surfaces. This nano-structuring process works downwards, sideways and upwards resulting in a 3-dimensional protective network.
At the same time, the positive characteristics like breathing activity and touch of the surface are retained completely.
Ceracoat Ceramic Unlimited has about 100 applications for consumers and about 250 for industry with a total or about 350 different applications.
- CeraCoat Wonder Cleaner (100ml) – $32.50
- CeraCoat Anti Fire (200ml) – $56.99
- CeraCoat Textile Care (200ml) – $43.99
- CeraCoat Glass Care (200ml) – $56.99
- CeraCoat Vehicle Care (200ml) – $59.99
- CeraCoat Leather Care (200ml) – $56.99
- CeraCoat Windshield Care (200ml) – $15.99
- CeraCoat Screen Care (200ml) – $18.99
- CeraCoat Engine Care (100ml) – $74.99
- CeraCoat Motorbike Care (200ml) – $59.99
- CeraCoat Anti Bacteria (200ml) – $77.99
- CeraCoat Anti Odor (200ml) – $43.99
- CeraCoat Demo Set (four 100 ml bottles of Ceracoat Vehicle Care, Ceracoat Glass Care, Ceracoat Leather Care and Ceracoat Textile Care) – $115
The CeraCoat Unlimited Compensation Plan
The CeraCoat Unlimited compensation plan pays out direct retail commissions, with residuals paid out via an eight-level deep unilevel compensation structure.
Commission Qualification
All CeraCoat Unlimited affiliates are required to generate $40 in sales volume each month.
This volume can be generated either by an affiliate’s own purchase of product or retail sales.
Retail Commissions
CeraCoat Unlimited affiliates earn a 35% commission on products sold to retail customers.
Recruitment Commissions
When a CeraCoat Unlimited affiliate recruits a new affiliate who purchases a “trial pack”, they are paid a $20 commission.
There’s no clarification as to what a trial pack is on the CeraCoat Unlimited website. This rules out it being a retail product which means it’s probably only something CeraCoat Unlimited affiliates can purchase (hence it being a recruitment commission).
Residual Commissions
Residual commissions in CeraCoat Unlimited are paid out via a unilevel compensation structure.
A unilevel compensation structure places an affiliate at the top of a unilevel team, with every personally recruited affiliate placed directly under them (level 1):
If any level 1 affiliates go on to recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 2 of the original affiliates unilevel team.
If any level 2 affiliates recruit new affiliates, they are placed on level 3 and so on and so forth down a theoretical infinite number of levels.
CeraCoat Unlimited cap payable unilevel levels at eight, with commissions paid out as a percentage of sales volume (including affiliate purchases) generated within the unilevel team.
How much of a percentage is paid out is determined by what level of the unilevel team volume is generated:
- level 1 – 15%
- level 2- 13%
- level 3 – 11%
- level 4 – 10%
- levels 5 and 6 – 5%
- level 7 – 4%
- level 8 – 7%
Joining CeraCoat Unlimited
Affiliate membership with CeraCoat Unlimited is free.
If an affiliate self-funds commission qualification however, the minimum cost of CeraCoat Unlimited membership is effectively $40 a month.
Conclusion
The legitimacy test for CeraCoat Unlimited’s MLM offering lies with the percentage of affiliates qualifying for commissions via retail orders, versus that of affiliate’s self-qualifying via a product purchase.
As with CeraCoat Direct and Globally Positions Partners, only allowing affiliates to qualify via retail volume would eliminate this grey area. Unfortunately however, in this respect CeraCoat Unlimited’s compensation plan isn’t all that different from its predecessor.
The problem with affiliates qualifying for commissions with a monthly product purchase, is that they are likely to focus on recruiting other affiliates who do the same.
If the majority of CeraCoat Unlimited affiliates are thus qualifying for commissions in this manner, you’re looking at chain-recruitment (of the product-based pyramid scheme variety).
The good news is that establishing whether or not this is the case, at least with respect to your potential upline), is relatively easy.
Before you sign up as a CeraCoat Unlimited affiliate, ask your upline whether they qualify for commissions each month via retail sales. Make sure you ask to see proof, as some uplines may claim they resell product they themselves purchase, which is still an affiliate purchase from the company.
If you want to be extra diligent, ask how many affiliate’s they’ve recruited are qualifying for commissions via retail sales each month.
This isn’t really proprietary or competitive information, so if anyone gives you the run around, assume they’re qualifying by self-purchases and simply don’t want to admit it.
On the product side of things, CeraCoat Direct’s offerings are definitely something you want to try first as a consumer.
CeraCoat Unlimited advise that the sale of CeraCoat Direct products come with a “100% Money Back Guarantee Return Policy Return”, so there shouldn’t be any issues with returning products you’re not happy with (be aware that buyer pays return shipping though).
All in all if CeraCoat Unlimited eliminated affiliate-purchases qualifying for commissions, they’d have a pretty solid opportunity on their hands. Its inclusion however casts a grey shadow over the offering, with prospective affiliates left to establish whether chain-recruitment is an issue themselves.
