This is a section of the tutorial “Upload a Product“. See the entire article here.
○ Help Panel
On the right hand side of the Product Submission Card is the Help Panel.
The Help Panel displays help for each topic. As you select topics in the Help Panel, the fields are highlighted and vice versa, as you click around in the various input fields, the topics help is shown.
○ Product Submission Panel
The Product Submission Panel, on the left hand side of the Product Submission Card, contains fields (described below) that need to be completed in order to submit your product to the Shop. Some of them are mandatory.
Let’s go through all the fields and how to fill them.
◇ Location Field
This field allows you to tell IMVU where in the catalog your new product should live and it will be where the product lives in your customers’ inventories as well.
The available categories are based on product type. For example, Furniture products are only allowed to go into the Furniture Section of the catalog.
If you want a product to end up in Female Tops, you have to derive from a Female Top product. If you want a product to end up in Furniture, you have to derive from a Furniture product.
Choosing the category that best suits the product you want to submit, help consumers to know which kind of product they are purchasing (a room, a piece of furniture, an item of clothing, or an accessory).
Some products have more than one drop down list for categorizing placement (as occurs in this guide).
For instance, in this case the product to upload to the Shop is an accessory, a pair of Female Sunglasses. Therefore, the chosen categories that best describe the product are “Female Accessories” and “Sol Sunglasses”.
◇ Product Name Field
Product names matter to a product’s relevance in catalog searches. So, chosen a clear name will have a good impact on sales.
In this case, the product name chosen describes the type and color of the glasses, “Berry Sunglasses”.
There is a 24 character limit for product names.
◇ Rating Field
The IMVU Terms of Service requires that every Creator rate each product they submit to the IMVU Catalog appropriately.
Every product available for purchase in the IMVU catalog has a rating of General Audience (GA), Access Pass Only (APO), or Unsuitable for IMVU (UFI).
| GA | Goods available to all users. |
| APO | Goods available only to users who have purchased the Access Pass product. |
| UFI | Goods not available anywhere on IMVU’s website. |
To learn what rating is appropriate for your product, please read the Virtual Goods Policy.
Keeping in mind IMVU guidelines, the pair of sunglasses is rated as GA (General Audience).
If your product is inappropriately rated, it will fail Peer Review and/or be flagged for review by a member of the community. So, please make sure you understand the Virtual Goods Policy before setting the rating.
◇ Profit Field
By typing a number in this field, you are setting how many credits you will earn once your product is purchased by consumers.
You can set any number in this field from 0 to 999,999.
Adding or changing the Profit does not result in existing Products going through Peer Review.
As you type in the Profit field, the Total Price of the product is calculated on the fly.
The total price is made up of three components:
- Profit: credits you will earn once your product is purchased.
- Derivation Fee: a fee you will need to pay to the creator you are deriving from in order to upload your product to the Shop. Depending on the kind of product you are creating the fee will be lower or higher.
- Markup: amount charged (10%) for submitting your product. This is standard.
For instance, if the value 150 is entered as Profit, the Total Price has changed its value to 587 which is the amount of credits that consumers will have to pay for purchasing your product.
◇ Product Image Field
This is the first thing about your product that your customer sees. This image is used in both the Shop and Inventory and it should represent the product you are trying to sell.
- The dimensions of your image must be 100 x 80 pixels.
- The supported file types are: GIF, JPG, or PNG.
- The file size of the image must be 50KB or less.
- The file name of the image must be 50 characters or less.
For more information about how to make a good product image, please read the Make Product Image article or watch the Create a Basic Catalog Icon and Create an Animated Catalog Icon videos.
Using a good image that clearly highlights the product in context, can make your product more appealing to consumers. For example, the following images (animated and non-animated) meet the aforementioned IMVU guidelines and they make the product attractive.
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Choose an image that makes clear what you are selling (glasses vs. hair in this case) and catches the eye of the customer by not having competing elements around it. On the contrary, the following two images illustrate a poor product image because it’s less clear exactly what the actual product is.
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◇ Search Keywords Field
Many consumers search products in the Shop using keywords. Although this field is not required to submit your product, we encourage you to add keywords to help customers to find your product.
To add keywords, just type them in the Search Keywords field. Make sure they are comma separated.
You can add up to 12 words.
In this case, keywords such as mulberry, summer, sun, sunglasses, or beach will help customers that are trying to search for the product and it will pop up easier in the Shop.
Adding or changing Keywords does not result in existing Products going through Peer Review.
◇ Controls Field
This field (which is optional) allows you to set whether your product is Visible, Derivable, Bundleable, and/or Display Only.
- Visibility
- If you check this option, it makes your product visible in the Shop. If you un-check this option (hide your product), it does not effect its usability to those who already own it.
- Derivability
- This allows other Creators to derive new products from this product and set their own product as derivable. This permission allows them to re-use any and/or all of your product’s assets on their child product. This setting can be turned off only if the product has never been derived from. Once a product has been derived from this Derivation permission as well as its profit are permanently locked.
- Bundlability
- This setting allows other Creators to add your product to their Product Bundles, Promotional Bundles, Outfits, etc., if they have also purchased the item. When that Creator sells a bundle with your item in it, you will receive your full profit as if you had sold the item. This setting can be changed at any time but it will not remove the item from already existing bundles.
- Display Only
- If this option is checked, your product is visible in the Shop but consumers cannot buy it.
Check “Visible in shop,” “Allow derivation from this product” and “Allow inclusion in 3rd party bundles” to make your product (1) Visible in the Shop, (2) Derivable by other Creators, and (3) Eligible for product bundles.
It is possible to change the default settings for Derivability and Bundleability by going to the Creator Preferences Panel on the Account Page and setting those Flags to On or Off.
◇ Required Fields
In order to submit a product to the IMVU Catalog, there are five fields that are required to fill: Location, Name, Image, Rating, and Profit.
There is a Red Bar at the bottom of the Product Submission Panel that will remain there until all required fields are completed.
When all required fields are completed, the Red Bar is replaced by the Fee Reminder (described below) and the product can be submitted to the Shop by clicking on the Submit to Shop button.
The Fee Reminder lists what you are about to pay in order to submit your product to the Shop.
IMVU charges a Submission Fee on top of the fees you pay to the Creators you are deriving from.
The Submission Fee can be paid in either Credits or Developer Tokens. You receive a Developer Token when a customer purchases your product with Promotional Credits.
Although it is not necessary, we recommend to fill every field in the Submission Product Panel for adding your project to the IMVU Catalog.
◇ Cancel Button
If you change your mind, you can either click on 
or the Cancel button to close the Product Submission Card.
Closing the Product Submission Card loses all data you may have already input.
◇ Submit to Shop Button
The Submit to Shop button is only available when you have correctly filled in the Required Fields. The moment you fill in those five fields, the Submit to Shop button is available.
Although the Search Keywords and Controls fields are not required, we encourage you to fill them in order to make your product easier to be searched.
Now, your product is ready to be submitted.