[Archived - Polystyrene] Drastic drop in sales

Posted by “Nursissistic” on October 22, 2022.

I don't imagine it is any easier on the business end of things right now than it is on the creative side, so I'm not going to try and speculate on the inner workings that I am not privy to. I definitely did notice that there were ZCD catalogs being featured, which is admittedly disheartening and certainly a deterrent from putting in the time it takes to do quality work... Even down to ZCDs stealing icons. All they do is crop out the logo of the original creator and some don't even bother doing that yet still spout that pro tag. I would definitely like to see creators like Poly and others who consistently do amazing work in those features.

I would be curious to know if ZCD catalogs are experiencing the same kind of sales issues as the rest of us or if perhaps they're seeing an uptick because they're just optimizing SEO while mooching off of the time other creators put in to make quality products? I do PR daily and the submissions are FLOODED with ZCDs. I noticed this as I tend to wishlist things I'd like to work with in order to go back later and find the original mesh. Some of the things take a LOT of clicking back to get to the beginning of the chain with absolutely no changes in between. Could this be contributing to the problem or am I just reaching here?

Posted by “Sylaraia” on October 21, 2022.

How much further do sales have to drop? We're losing creators like crazy here, and I don't think they're coming back.

Posted by “FemmeDraven” on October 21, 2022.

I don't know if anyone else has noticed but I saw some creators featured in recent ads/showcases whose catalogs consist in large part of ZCDs and in my head those folks aren't even really creators. They game the system to increase their productivity so they can remain at level 10 without any effort.

Posted by “Polystyrene” on October 21, 2022.

I'm not sure if I'll bother activating my Halloween account next year. This year I not only had to pay extra in order to make products early to apply for the showcase in September (which I did not make it in to), I'm barely getting any sales. In the past it has been worth it, but not this year.

Posted by “FemmeDraven” on October 21, 2022.

I gave up. My VIP expired in mid-September and I've gotten nothing but spam from IMVU asking me to come back or purchase credits which I find hilarious. Why would I? There is ZERO incentive for me to create other than to make things for myself and/or friends and while that's been the only temptation I've been spending the time I was wasting here on other things that actually have the potential to make me money. I miss the creativity aspect of being here but nothing else. IMVU is concerned more with ad clicks that generate more revenue for them and the "game" touting @Nursissistic​ mentioned is likely due to the HUGE investment made by one of China's largest gaming companies back around January of 2021. Sadly, IMVU will be left in the dust when the Metaverse technology really kicks in and other sites will be ready for it.

Posted by “Sylaraia” on October 21, 2022.

@4u​ 

Gotta love the California mindset. Prices/taxes NEVER go down, despite what any economist tells you. Instead, lets run more sales! The spam from IMVU has been out of control lately, and guess what IMVU - we don't read any of it. The more spam you send towards a person, the more you condition them to ignore it. But if you were to LOWER THE PRICE OF CREDITS to what they should be, which is $1 = 1000 credits, you'd see a massive spike in sales. You've devalued your own currency in the eyes of the consumer by running all of these predit deals to the point that no one wants to buy credits, no matter the sale price. Does anyone take an economics class in college anymore? This is only going to get worse, not better, as the recession deepens, and the idiots running the world aren't doing anything that's going to alleviate it. This could be a damn long recession, and meanwhile IMVU's sales are swirling the toilet bowl.

Side note, I love that I get messages from IMVU telling me I can get developer tokens for doing PR. Thanks, IMVU. I had forgotten that I gave you people that suggestion. You could thank me by excluding me from that particular bit of spam.

Posted by “4u” on October 21, 2022.

My products are still destroyed, after 3 years of Studio it's still incapable of rendering basic icons.. put a particle in the hand, and it takes a picture of the feet, I kid you not.. I've now quit full time developing and have taken on a job, it was senseless me even trying here anymore as my incomes less than 10% what it once was with no route to recovery.

The good news is the return to fulltime employment was seamless, first couple of weeks I was shattered at the end of the day, but now 4 months later it's just another day. Eventually I'll get myself back into my own business and actively perusing ideas for that now.

GFY IMVU management and specific staff.

Posted by “miaka618” on October 21, 2022.

I have been keeping track of my sales since the beginning and this graph is just a sample of a few years. I used the tiers numbers for the most accurate reporting currently and when the tiers changed from 7 levels to 10, my reporting changed so I was unable to visually show that portion of the change. But being in 2020 and all the stimulus money rolling in with nothing to do, my numbers were huge that year and into 2021. Now that all of that money has dried up and people are cutting back their spending, my sales have also dropped, but this graph is still fairly accurate. Fourth quarter is usually huge for everyone and I suspect once we get past Halloween everyone's number will increase. The only year I went down in Q4 was 2016 and that is because I didn't create anything that year. That was the year I was battling cancer into 2017. But for the most part....sales come in at the end of the year, slowly drop after the holidays, drop even more during the summer, level out a bit, then spike again at the end of the year.

Posted by “Nursissistic” on October 21, 2022.

Weighing in here as someone who recently returned from a hiatus... My sales have never been what I would consider to be stellar, but since I have been back they have been downright abysmal. Mind you this is AFTER some bigger named developers have generously derived from me AND I finally made pro for the first time ever. I'm not saying that I should be running with the big dogs or anything, but I have been pouring my all into learning and creating lately and there were times in the past that I was barely active and saw more sales rolling in. I figured it was just because I'm not that great and need to work harder but I'm reading comments from people I greatly look up to experiencing similar and it's concerning.

I get the economic situation, believe me... I was among the laid off in 2020 so I am incredibly well-versed, but if IMVU is already feeling the heat, just imagine how much it will be felt when creators are unable to afford to create at all anymore. This is something to consider. Also, I see this platform being marketed and described as a game lately. Why? I've never seen it as such, how about you guys? The appeal when I started was that it was an online community of people who came together in a virtual space to share common interests. I think some marketing in that direction could be useful with as much focus on mental health as society has taken post-2020. Perhaps try to reach influencers and / or bloggers to get the word out there, maybe offer affiliate incentives to accomplish this?

I don't know. I'm just grasping at straws here, but I thought I would throw it out there as a firm believer that talking about problems is more productive when you throw in some solutions to toss around. IMVU has been such a big part of my line in some of the toughest times and I would hate to see it lose its soul.

Posted by “Polystyrene” on October 21, 2022.

Slightly better here but nowhere near back to normal. Looks like the proportion of predit sales is a little less.

Posted by “Alyissapearl” on October 21, 2022.

Fine it hard to believe that IMVU themselves are suffering. They are the ones who introduced this mess, knowing quite well that it would have a disastrous effect on creators. They are flooding their own market with useless promo credits handing them out like candy. On any given day they are lucky to reach 60k of people unlike a few years ago when it would be 100k - 200k. Its a sinking ship.

Posted by “LestatDeLioncourt” on October 21, 2022.

Hey? I want normal sales...!!! :P Mine about half of what they were before COVID

Honestly, I believe IMVU is suffering along with us...

Posted by “RainEvenMorn” on October 21, 2022.

yes so many and i had one customer not get her AP bundle from imvu shop decorated. Imvu send her to customer diservice and they tell her " dec room bundles dont come decorated you have to decorate yourself"

I have hundreds of decorated rooms. all doubles all dont load... ive read that imvu will do nothing and to manually delete them? Imvu only now caters to new users with tiny inventories. when i HAVE to use studio under duress i have to wait till each room loads i have several hundred. and each and everyone has to load till i can get to select which room i want to enter then that wont load itll be greyed out.

As much as studio is pretty for effects thats all it does. Its not usuable or functional for what the majority of real users use it for. Show me a room full of people socialising and ask whos using studio - theres your answer IMVU.

Posted by “gaf210” on October 21, 2022.

@RainEvenMorn​ I've heard there's like an ongoing problem with decorated room bundles? ​

Posted by “gaf210” on October 21, 2022.

I'm not really a parameter since i rarely create and don't have as many products, but im in close contact with many devs and some have told me their sales have gone up​ to almost normal levels for the Halloween season and motivated by WOC themes, so i was curious to know