1. Introduction
Are you ready to sell your own creations in the IMVU Catalog and make money?
This tutorial will walk you through the process, showing you how to Upload a Project to the IMVU Catalog, using IMVU Studio. Once it has been uploaded, it will become a Product. This means that it will be added to the IMVU Catalog and given a Product ID.
- Project – A creation that is saved to your local computer.
- Product – A creation that was published to the IMVU Catalog.
- Product ID (PID) – Product Identification Number. It is assigned when a product is submitted to the catalog.
At the end of this guide your product will be visible in the Shop and people will be able to purchase it!
This tutorial is part of the Creator Program. To learn more about the Creator Program, please click here.
2. Open your project
Once you have created and saved a project, and you are happy about how it looks, it is time to upload it to the shop.
On the home screen of IMVU Studio, you will see all products you are working on under Drafts. Open one of these projects by hovering on the product tile (or clicking the … button on the lower right), then clicking Edit. The product will open in a new tab.
A default avatar is displayed on your screen.
If you want to customize the avatar, click on Inventory on the right-hand panel.
The avatar will update with the products you have chosen.
● Edit Product Information
The Info Tab contains input fields for everything your product requires in order to be submitted to IMVU.
Completing the input fields of the Product Submission Card is required in order to Submit your Product to the Shop. To do so, click here.
Here, you can edit the Product Name and its Type. You can also set the Rating and Category. If you want to set a different margin of profit for this product, you can also do so.
Let’s go through all the fields and how to fill them.
◇ Thumbnail
This is the first thing about your product that your customer sees. This image is used only for Shop and Inventory in Classic Web and Classic Shop 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.
◇ Name
This is how your customers will find your product. Product names matter to a product’s relevance in catalog searches. So, chosen a clear name will have a good impact on sales.
There is a 24 character limit for product names.
◇ Type
This is the type of item you are Creating. It is pre-filled depending on the base product you derived from to create the current item.
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.
◇ Rating
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.
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.
◇ Category
This will depend on your product’s Type. For example, if you are creating Clothing, you can choose whether the product is a Top, Bottom, etc. 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).
◇ Compatibility
This determines which avatars will work with your product. The Male avatar is designated as 191, and the Female avatar is designated as 80.
◇ Profit
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.
◇ 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.
Towards the bottom of the tab, you will be able to input search keywords by which your potential customers will be able to find your product. Finally, you can change settings your item is Derivable (can be used as base to create future products), Searchable in the Catalog, Display Only (Searchable, but cannot be bought), and available for inclusion in Bundles.
◇ Controls Field
This field (which is optional) allows you to set whether your product is Visible, Derivable, Bundleable, and/or Display Only.
[ht_message mstyle="info" title="Visibility, Derivability, Bundlability, and Display Only" show_icon="true" id="" class="" style="" ]
- Searchable
- 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.
- Derivable
- 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.
- Allow inclusion in 3rd party bundles
- 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.
● Product Page
Once you have submitted your product to the Shop, a browser window will open with your product’s information (Product Page).
From the Product Page, you can do a lot of things such as Add Custom HTML, Toggle Visibility, Edit Product Settings, or Publish the Product.
If you find that you need to make some changes to your product before publishing it, read the article Product Page to learn how to do it.
If you close this page and then cannot find your product in your catalog don’t panic, it will take a while for IMVU’s servers to catch up and see the new item in your catalog.
You can either get back to it by using:
- Browser History
- Your Inventory
- Your Creator Center Dashboard under “My Projects”
3. Upload your Product
Uploading a Product costs Credits and requires a thorough knowledge of the Virtual Goods Policy.
Please, take a look at our “Your Responsibilities as a Creator” article to understand and learn about the importance of following Creator Guidelines.
Click on the Submit button on the upper-right to upload your product. The button will change into a loading bar to indicate the upload progress.
The Submit button is smart enough to know whether you are trying to submit a brand new product or just editing an existing one.
After clicking Submit, you will see the following notification:
● Peer Review
Peer Review is an opportunity for Creators to test your product and its description.
IMVU users will have a chance to vote on whether it meets the requirements set forth in the Virtual Goods Policy and to be added to the IMVU Catalog.
We highly recommend that you read our “Terms of Service” article to understand Copyright and Property Rights.
We also encourage you to be a peer reviewer yourself. Once you Sign Up to be a Creator, even if you have never submitted a product, you can review products. This will give you ideas about how to test your product as well as help get more products into the IMVU Catalog.
To learn more about Peer Review, please go to the FAQ tab on the Peer Review Page.
Once your product is in Peer Review, your Product Page will show a bar at the top warning potential customers that this product is in Peer Review and may not pass.
While a product is in Peer Review, customers may prefer not to purchase it because it could be taken away from them if it does not pass Peer Review. Therefore, you may want to hide your product until it passes Peer Review.
To do so, go to the Creator Tools Bar and click on the small red circle.
Remember that while your product is unpublished, you can use it and test it but no one else will know it exists in the catalog or in IMVU. You can wear it, but no one else has permission to see it (in some cases, that means they will see you in the default option). If the product is a room, you will not be able to use it as a public room.
You will receive a message once your product has passed Peer Review.
On your Product Page the Warning Bar has turned green. Now people will know your product passed Peer Review.
If you want to make your product visible to IMVU customers, do not forget to click on the green circle in case you hid the product while it was in Peer Review.
To confirm your product is ready, go to the Shop, type your Avatar Name in the search bar, and your product should appear!
4. Sell your Product and Earn Credits
CONGRATULATIONS! Your product is in the IMVU Catalog already!
You can start making sales and earning credits! And others can derive from your product so you earn even more credits!
You can market your products by taking photos of your creations and sharing them with the IMVU Community. Click on the following links to learn how to take photographs and how to post pictures in the IMVU Feed.
This is a section of the tutorial “Upload a Product“. See the entire article here.