Pricing level of the catalog

[Elaini]

Do you think that the general pricing level of creators' IMVU products is too high or too low? And what do you think we should do to make it normal?

In the old forums I read from a well known creator that the price level is too low...

[Seige]

It depends on the product I suppose. I do see a lot of low priced items but I think that's because of competition so every one is trying to get the sale including the copy cats, to be honest I believe they are the ones who set the low cost craze on it's path. There are some outrageous pricing out there too and that's due to the original Meshing cost Some Creators have set their Derivable Mesh up so high it's hard to get a good price set on them after deriving them. I came across one that the Mesh was 8000 credits, so after it being derived it set the sale cost on the product up to over 8800 credits ridiculous given that it was for a small room with no furniture included in it. So I guess it depends on the product. Out fits that cost 400 credits and are copy cat version of one price just a little higher , yes to low and rooms that cost way out there that are not worth the cost... To high.

[GuySBot]

Most of my stuff is basically set so I make a dollar or in many cases simply at 1000 credits .
A dollar really isn't much for my time doing this non-sense .
If everything cost a dollar then everyone and imvu would sell a lot more and profits would be record breaking
much alike those most popular again record breaking sales everything is basically a dollar facebook games .

Of course a lot of my stuff being derived the price is higher due to the original cost .
Saying all that prices are too low for the majority of the catalog being under a 1000 credits
but much too high for anything above that .

[Elaini]

Some catalogs do have an average cost of around 1.000-100.000 credits, but then again they're still popular for quality and something groundbreaking.

[Notorious Chicka]

I have no rhyme or reason for my pricing. It really depends on my mood and what the product is.

There are waaaaay too many creators in the site to attempt to change the temperature IMHO.

[SqkyC]

I'm pretty sure that we (the few users out of all of imvu that have the idea to try) could change the overall pricing in the catalog if we tried. There are just too many things, too many creators. Every one has their own idea/reasoning of how to price things.

Historically I price the average price of other derives, or a little higher/lower depending on difficulty, what the item is and whether I want it to be a promo lure. (I haven't been creating anything lately)

On my other accounts I defaulted to, on average, 100cr profit for simplicity. I get a lot of promo sales (and I'm fine with that) but the catalogs sell circles around this one and still earn enough credits to derive more items. I don't earn cash, it might be different pricing if I did.

[Nums]

EDITED in 2019 lul . Didn't want to leave the mis information out there as my graph was pretty flawed earlier.
The new graph is accurate down to the tenths place. I'm aware you can't purchase a product for decimals, but it's just easier/cleaner graph wise to leave it like that.


The Equations


60 is the dollar amount used to purchase the credits
100,000 is the credit amount purchased
x = product price
y = amount of money "kept"/earned
304 is the IMVU inc. charge (which can vary from derivation chain to chain)

It assumes you spent all your credits at exactly one product cost point (ie. spending all 100,000 credits on items worth exactly 774 credits)

The top equation represents IMVU because they slowly "lose" the money as the price goes up due to paying creators. The bottom starts at 0 because at a profit of 0, the creator obviously makes 0.

All the big portion of the equation is doing is calculating how much you as a creator are earning (in dollar amount) at those product cost intervals ( x ). Then it subtracts your earnings from IMVU's initial amount ( which in this case I just did $60 )

Here's the graph itself if you wanna mess around with it.
https://www.desmos.com/calculator/kbbtg0v9ek

On the 304, Sometimes there's not a 1 cr charge to the product randomly making it 303. I don't have enough enough to see how it's calculated really.


In my opinion... I do believe this points out that IMVU would prefer quantity sales over quality. The more , lower priced, sales they make, the more they will take home. Of course, if they make a lot of higher priced sales, then they can take home just as much, it's just The Creator will too.

[gaf210]

Very interesting info ^^ so the 344cr is the final price or product or just the profit ?

[Nums]

fixed my post above. was pretty flawed*

[Daise2]

Obviously the catalog is filled with a pricing structure that ranges from the ridiculously low to the unbelievably high. My observations are regarding the well known creators which most of us would recognise - I think the prices have dropped to a point where they are too low. I think the mesh factories and the 'recolour my map' creators are mainly to blame for this. They can afford to drop their profit to really low amounts, they sell and get derives by the 1000's. And its left the other creators in a position of dropping their prices to match or risk losing out. To be honest, those big clothing names can still afford to do that as they too sell in the hundreds if not thousands. But as you work down the chain to people like me, we too are having to drop our prices to remain competitive - but for me to sell hundreds of something may take a few years. I used to be able to set my room profits so that 2 or 3 sales and I was in profit. Now, I have to sell 5 or 6 to break even....sometimes, if the mesh was an expensive one, I may have to sell 12 rooms before I'm in profit.

I can't blame the meshers for valuing their work and asking more....I would love that every room mesh I use was 800 credits....unfortunately, many are 1200....or more. But I have the choice to derive off that mesh or not, and I can decide whether I am prepared to have to sell more to break even or not. I am lucky that my creating is purely a hobby but I feel for those who actually create for an income. The thing is no matter how cheap the shop becomes, some buyers will still insist the prices are too high. I'd love to see the prices rise a little - help support our wonderful creators