[Archived - Polystyrene] Drastic drop in sales

Posted by “lllAdrianalll” on May 14, 2022.

I feel like that there is a problem with promo credits (maybe I'm wrong) but when I look at a day of sales on my best-selling product at the moment, there are practically only purchases made in promo credits, does IMVU provide too many promo credits? where users have found a trick to stop paying real credits? I do not know...

Posted by “FemmeDraven” on May 14, 2022.

*Huge Applause*

Posted by “shopdaisylogo” on May 14, 2022.

Just noticed doing rewards you used to be given real credits, now its promo ones, another chunk taken, imvu if you keep this up you wont have anyone creating any more. This is like a sweat shop, you get the rewards from the investor's in advertising and surveys by them using this site and the developers then get the promo creds, obviously some kind of deal is struck.

Your sucking in all the cash while not given much away. The only tempter is the competition's or get selected for freebies. With so much in the shops are you really that bothered that many will pack up and go elsewhere.

Posted by “shopdaisylogo” on May 14, 2022.

Well my sales have gone up i switched to more credits, maybe the more sales might balance out the loss of cash. I put the slider to 30 percent instead of 10.

Posted by “Ahndante” on May 14, 2022.

@RigsK​ 

I'm going to be incredibly blunt here, and I mean no personal disrespect by any of it but it clearly needs to be said. I understand this is not your personal fault or responsibility to fix, but this kind of response from the staff on this platform is a part of the problem.

This response is unimaginably willfully ignorant and tone deaf. You cannot continually damage the hull of your own ship and then claim that the reason it's taking on water and sinking is because of "rising tides". It's a ship. It's literally designed to rise with the tide - if it isn't doing so it's because of internal damage, not changes in the sea level. IMVU is the same way.

Realistically speaking the pandemic should have been the best thing to happen to IMVU. Mass populations instructed to stay indoors for extended periods of time, desperate for something to do that makes them feel less isolated and more connected on top of government funded stimulus money to spend. IMVU should have peaked like a cheerleader in high school the last three years, and yet I feel like we're literally watching it shrivel up and die in front of us.

It is because of ill managed changes to the platform. It is not the economy. The economy isn't making it hard to navigate the shop or the new clients. The economy isn't making it harder to create or build a brand on the platform. The economy isn't making it more expensive and less worthwhile to use the platform, the ill-managed and designed changes to the platform are. The economy has not alienated and chased away the biggest community of shoppers and users of the site.

Simply put, the bad news is that it's no one else's fault that IMVU is suffering but IMVUs - y'all have been shooting yourselves in the foot for years and it's just starting to really pile up. The good news, however, is that none of it is unfixable. But until IMVU accepts what's wrong and starts listening to it's user base without feeding us paper thin excuses about the economy and the unfortunate state of the world, it will not. Nothing is going to change until someone who understands the platform and it's audience starts making some changes to the current state of affairs.

IMVU cannot survive the way it is now. It will continue to rapidly lose creators and users until it's a laughing stock and a joke unless someone on the staff starts acknowledging these issues for the bugs and poorly designed features that they are and takes the steps to change it.

In the end, it won't be the creators and users who really suffer - most of them will simply migrate to other places that better suit them. IMVU and it's staff are the ones who'll go down with the ship. The rest of us will have jumped by the time it's too late.

Posted by “FemmeDraven” on May 14, 2022.

@LovedWarrior​ I'm sorry but I'm getting quite a giggle out of you thinking IMVU might actually listen to anything we have to say here. The discussions are here so we have a place to vent...no real change ever comes from our suggestions (believe me when I tell you we've had suggestions). We threw idea after idea at them when the tiers mess first started and some of the ideas were solid but as usual, they didn't listen and nothing changed. IMVU doesn't care if we have sales as long as they're collecting the monthly membership from everyone. IMVU hasn't even given the creators a raise since they stopped allowing the credit resellers so why would they spend time and money running sales that might benefit the creators? The game devs would have to implement something like that and they're too busy working on next and studio. And if IMVU gives away anything for free we will be the ones to eat the cost of it just like we are now when people use promo credits.

Posted by “LovedWarrior” on May 14, 2022.

I can come up with more ideas to draw in new customers, for example for a new user instead of giving free products, give %50 discount to anything they buy for a week.

They could be given an "IMVU gift card." This gift card can also be given randomly for anyone who comes online and chats or shops continuously for 3 months (something in those lines). Something that excites the customers and make them keep coming back to see what's new.

Or IMVU can still give free products to newcomers but does not take the profit from the creators and they randomly choose products from different creators' shops.

I am not an economist but I shop online and some stores offer sales so often and I get emails so I became familiar with those ideas.

Posted by “LovedWarrior” on May 14, 2022.

The idea is to make the products cheaper so customers are more inclined to buy more products. I am sure some will go crazy buying cheap items. OR IMVU can sometimes put some category of items on sale. For example, every 2 - 3 weeks something new goes on sale, say all trees are on sale this week, however, IMVU does not make the creator lose any profits, just reduces the base product price (like for empty furniture instead of 350 credits, it becomes 200 credits). But the profit the creator put, does not get influenced. Or some other way that creators' profit doesn't change but the total price of items gets cheaper.

Posted by “Sylaraia” on May 14, 2022.

@LovedWarrior​ I like that idea, but wouldn't that only affect prices going forward? At 59 million products in the catalog now, that'd be a drop in the bucket.

Posted by “LovedWarrior” on May 14, 2022.

Base derivation prices. The prices that are on IMVU base products. For example, Empty Furniture is 350 credits, it can change to 200 credits. Our fees get less and when we put the profit as before, the total price for the item comes cheaper. So, all items in the catalog gets cheaper suddenly but creators do not lose any credits.

Posted by “Sylaraia” on May 14, 2022.

@LovedWarrior - when you say base prices, are you talking about the prices for credits, AP, etc, or out catalog prices? I've advocated for the first and warned against the second strongly. When IMVU forced a 10% catalog price hike on us, the algorithm messed up badly and raised some items to as high as 300% normal. I vaguely recall that there were also insane issues with the creator not being able to fix the price hikes. I do not want to relive that nightmare in reverse.

Posted by “LovedWarrior” on May 14, 2022.

I think someone gave a very good idea. I forgot who but I read it yesterday in this thread.

If IMVU reduces the base prices of all items and dev fees, all creators would earn the same as before according to their profits and all customers would buy more. The only thing I don't know is how this affects IMVU's earning from the base prices, if they earn anything at all. I think earning from customers and having more customers buying products would be a better choice of earning.

Posted by “FemmeDraven” on May 14, 2022.

The economy is not the answer. Friends who create here and in other virtual environments are not experiencing the drop in sales elsewhere....only here in IMVU.

Posted by “Polystyrene” on May 14, 2022.

Thanks @RigsK​ for commenting. I'm not sure the state of the economy is the answer though. The drop happened way too quickly. It was as though something changed to stop people from shopping. Over a couple of weeks I lost 30% of my income. Others have reported up to an 80% loss.

There are definite issues with the catalogue and how the search is working (or rather, not working). Are these being looked into?

Posted by “shopdaisylogo” on May 14, 2022.

@RigsK​ I think all was good until furlough was stopped, even eating out has dropped here because of fuel hikes. Its going to be a rocky road for everyone But i think maybe imvu should step in and maybe drop the price of dev fees on some of the tiers. That just might help ..