Joined: 08 Sep 2009 Posts: 2457 Location: USA - CA
Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 6:33 pm Post subject: Creator Marketing: Web Shop Redesign - update Jan 12
Updates to the Web Shop Redesign
January 12, 2015: Send us your best Valentine's Day items! Clothing, furniture, and rooms will be featured on the Shop page in time for Valentine's Day on February 14.
January 9, 2015: We continue to offer advertising slots for Creators on the web Shop page. We are currently looking for the following categories for male and female avatars: hair, accessories, shoes, tops and bottoms. We're also accepting rooms and furniture. Send us your latest designs and we'll contact you if your products are chosen.
July 2, 2014: We've been working on some changes to the web Shop page in recent weeks. We're happy to announce that we've made some improvements to the overall process for our team, and we're ready to refresh the page with your products every two weeks. We have also made a change so that shoppers see products that match their avatar's gender on IMVU. So, if you are a female customer and go to the Shop, you will see female products, and vice versa for males.
January 10, 2014: Going forward, we will be advertising each product on the web Shop page for 2 weeks. There is no change to the pricing, it is only a change to the amount of time a product will be shown on the page. Additionally, we are looking for Valentine's Day-themed products! Please submit your Valentine's Day products by 1/28.
December 18: We are no longer requiring creators to create and submit an icon as part of their form submission. The "Selection Criteria" below has been updated, as well as the form. We will be using the icons from your products (submitted within Create Mode) on the web Shop page going forward.
December 4: We are now accepting holiday-themed clothing, furniture, and rooms! We are also looking for "ugly sweaters" for customers to wear during those popular parties.
November 20: The web Shop page is now randomized! Each time you click on Shop a random category will be shown.
November 15: We're still accepting fall items, and we have some new data to share with you on page 28.
November 6: We have made a few changes to this project, which are reflected here in the main post. Please read through my update on pg 25 for details on each change.
October 30: We are looking for furniture and rooms! Please send us your fall-themed furniture (tables, couches, room sets) and rooms (houses, cabins, etc.) for the phase beginning Nov 8.
October 23: New pricing information. Please see the new Pricing section below. We are no longer accepting Halloween submissions; Halloween promotion begins at the end of this week (October 24-25).
IMVU is launching a new marketing opportunity for Creators on one of our most visited pages: website Shop. We have redesigned the Shop page to highlight popular shopping categories and include 5 product examples directly clickable from that page. The new look advertises creators as well as gives our mutual customers a fresh selection of products to fit their needs.
The new IMVU Shop’s landing page rotates between several categories: hair, tops, bottoms, accessories, shoes, furniture, and rooms. Each category page design will include 5 individual example products below the main image. These 5 spots are where Creators will get a chance to showcase their products as shown below in the red box. Each product spot will display the Creator's name and the price of the item:
The main goal of this form of marketing is to simply get your name and brand out there by purchasing one of five available product spots on Shop’s main page. Each advertising spot will be a product from your catalog that represents that category. For example, if you have a beautiful necklace, you could submit that product to be chosen for the Accessories category. Creators may not have more than 1 product per category.
Pricing
Each marketing phase will include two weeks of product advertising. On the last day of a phase, a new set of items will appear, starting the following phase.
If you would like to read my update on the first test phase, you can do so by clicking here. The payment plan is as follows:
One session of web Shop placement (two weeks) per product:
8,000 credits, or
1,000 developer tokens
The above listed prices are subject to change. Payment must be made in either 8,000 credit increments or 1,000 dev token increments. If multiple products are selected, you may pay for each in either credits or dev tokens; for example, if 3 products are selected, you can pay for 2 with 16,000 credits and one with 1,000 dev tokens, OR 2,000 dev tokens and 8,000 credits, and so forth. This is a new opportunity for many of you to use your dev tokens!
The credits or dev tokens will be manually deducted from accounts. We will send you a brief message indicating your products were chosen for the following phase; we will not confirm payment for each creator, so please have sufficient credits or dev tokens when you submit the form. You will not be able to pay for this plan via the Credit Store using Prepaid Cards, credit cards, or any other payment method offered there.
Bonus for participants of the first paid phase: we will be advertising your catalog via shoutouts for one week starting Friday, October 25th. This is a special bonus for those who are part of our first paid phase.
Selection Criteria
There are 5 product advertising spots per category available, and no creator can have more than 1 spot per category. Once selected and payment processed, each spot will be marketed for two weeks.
The selection criteria is as follows:
Product-specific criteria:
--Each product must be General Audience (GA) appropriate.
--Products must be high quality
--Products must be your own original work. Copyrighted images are unacceptable.
--Products may showcase a variety of themes: urban, goth, anime, etc.
Icon criteria
We have removed the icon requirement as of December 18, 2013
Submission
Send us your top 3 products per category via the submission form below. Be sure you have read and understood our new pricing guidelines.
Please do not submit multiple entries. We will no longer contact you to confirm payment, but instead we will send a simple message that states your item(s) will be in an upcoming phase. Please have sufficient credits and/or Dev Tokens in your account when submitting the form.
We are excited to provide this marketing opportunity for our Creator community. Since we are in the early stages of this project, we may make changes that improve the overall process based on your feedback. Please post your questions and comments below. Thanks! _________________ Katie
Last edited by katiemarie on Mon Jan 12, 2015 3:53 pm; edited 16 times in total
Joined: 08 Sep 2009 Posts: 2457 Location: USA - CA
Posted: Wed Sep 25, 2013 6:33 pm Post subject:
FAQ
Will other areas of the catalog (furniture, rooms, etc.) also receive this new page redesign?
Maybe! Our focus right now is on avatar clothing. Once we see how this test performs, we will evaluate other areas of the catalog. We’re also taking your feedback about various categories (eyes, skins, and so on) into consideration.
Will IMVU staff vet each product for TOS violations?
Yes, members of IMVU staff will select products that are GA-appropriate, and do not violate the TOS or VGP.
Will creators be able to submit AP products?
No, we are not accepting AP products for this project.
Why is a product image not the same as the one I clicked on/the category I clicked on takes me to a different category!
We have tested all links on a few different machines in different browsers and each category and product/creator name links to its proper page. Perhaps the design is rotating through the categories too quickly; I will pass this onto the team. If images are not matching up to titles or creator names, please post a screenshot below.
If I click on Furniture, Rooms, Avatars, or Stickers the main design still shows Shoes, Accessories, etc., why?
The new Shop design in the center of the page is separate from the clickable catalog navigation bar. If you click on any of those categories in the nav bar (Women, Men, Furniture, Rooms, Avatars, or Stickers) the main Shop design does not change. Note: if you click on any subcategories (eyebrows, outfits, couches tables, etc.) you will be taken to that Shop category’s main page.
Suggestions:Can you reduce the amount of time a product is advertised/Can you increase the products per category from 5 to 10 etc?
These are great suggestions. We will take these ideas into consideration when we evaluate our test phase. We are passing ideas presented in this thread to the team.
Will you make this marketing opportunity available in the client?
We are only focusing our marketing efforts on web Shop at this time. Web Shop is a great way to gauge interest in marketing opportunity as well as effectiveness of the design on customers.
Which types of styles/themes will you accept?
We are looking for products of all types! Urban, real-life, preppy, goth, anime, kawaii—we are looking for products that are representative of our customers' various tastes. We will also have seasonal themes for upcoming holidays, such as Halloween. We will make a post here when we are accepting Halloween-themed items.
Do we need to submit new products that we just created?
No, you do not need to submit only your newest products. As long as the product follows our quality criteria, it will be considered.
Do we have to send you 3 items per category? Can we only send 1 or 2 per category?
No, you can send us 1 or 2 items per category. We have a 3 item maximum to give you the opportunity to select a range of products for us to choose from.
If I change my mind/do not want to pay for the paid placement after I sent you items, can I decline the placement?
Of course. Please send me a PM if you have submitted items to us, but change your mind and no longer wish to participate.
Can I pay for someone else's advertising spot?
Send me a PM if you want to gift someone an advertising spot. Once the person you are gifting submits their Google Form, we can make a note next to their response that your account will be paying for any advertising. You can gift your friends, alts, etc. Just be sure to give us the exact amount of credits or dev tokens you will be gifting towards a spot. _________________ Katie
Last edited by katiemarie on Fri Dec 06, 2013 12:59 pm; edited 4 times in total
Joined: 29 Mar 2007 Posts: 8732 Location: USA - MI
Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2013 1:35 am Post subject:
I'm very interested to see how this tests out, and how it prices out. The last time there was a 'pay for advert' it seemed priced for wealthy devs only.
I think the layout looks nice. The page is definitely more attractive now. I'm glad to see the web catalog being presented better, but fixing the catalog as a whole would be awesome, too, you know?
Joined: 20 Nov 2006 Posts: 7230 Location: Australia
Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2013 4:47 am Post subject:
Is this going to be rolled out to other areas of the catalogue such as furniture?
The problem currently with any form of paid advertising is that IMVU have turned a blind eye to those mass creating accounts and spam gifting their products, and basically if your paying.. your a fool as those your competing with are not and just exploiting loop holes in the system.
Despite this biting in to every single developers pocket IMVU have done next to nothing and the only solution that was offered was to.. hand a select a catalogue for precious new users and leave the rest of us drowning.
One of the first tests should be .. paid vers gift spam.
And if gift spam still wins.. paid advertising idea fails.
I'm thankful of IMVU offering us any opportunity to better market our products! Lets just have a level paying field and everyone in the same rule book first _________________
Developers Create The Easy 123 Way! Buy Textures For IMVU!FREE SAMPLES.
The only drawback for me is that I don't make clothes ... it would be great to see a furniture section.
I hope that the applicant's catalogues are vetted so that the crooks on here don't gain yet another advantage (having a nice original GA product advertised while the remainder of their catty is full of copyrighted and stolen items). _________________ http://www.pixelpusher.info/index.php
Will creators have the opportunity to submit AP products as well? Many of my friends make alluring clothes for AP users and are hurting for sales. This would be really great for them.
EDIT: The prices seem to be off in the banner. :< _________________
Last edited by Jibrielle on Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:21 am; edited 1 time in total
Joined: 30 Jan 2009 Posts: 19042 Location: United Kingdom
Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:09 am Post subject:
I'm trying to wrap my head round the fact they claim this to be a advertising opportunity yet all that can be shown is the product and no text to the image, yet they make the text under the items as faint as **** making it hard to read. So how exactly does that help the creator when a persons got to shove their head against the screen in order to read who the creator is. Plus the lack of a background i'll be frank makes 90% of what i currently see less appealing. _________________
“We are masters of the unsaid words, but slaves of those we let slip out”
its a way for them to make more money off of us. they should do this for free.we spend so much here and get no where what we do. I give all the time ,in my groups to other dev's. they need to think of different ways to make money beside's from creators.
Joined: 07 Jun 2006 Posts: 24952 Location: Australia
Posted: Fri Sep 27, 2013 7:28 am Post subject:
popsbutterfly wrote:
its a way for them to make more money off of us. they should do this for free.we spend so much here and get no where what we do. I give all the time ,in my groups to other dev's. they need to think of different ways to make money beside's from creators.
Why should advertising be free? You spending time in groups is your choice :/ It's great to help people but it's not up to IMVU to reward you for that. _________________
It still doesn't change the fact that the catalog is cluttered and even when i click "get a new look" banner i don't see anything I would be interested in purchasing. _________________
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