to be honest I've never actually known what derivable means on a product, does anyone know?

It means the developer who made the product is giving you permission to re-use all or some their assets, as long as they get a cut of each sale.

I always look thru the Derive Tree to find the cheapest one

Noted. Kinda new to the game. I appreciate the tip.

Its easy , don’t get something overboard. but get something nice. plus do your daily spins & more offers. you’ll make your credits back trust me.

Ive learned that other creators have the same product for a different price.

sometime you can get items with discount like AP products promotion , be watchout on the announcement or the banner of you imvu screen

A follow-on point from one of DM's: It's always worth leaving kind words if they're genuine. I've left good reviews or just messaged some of my favourite devs to be honest and say I really enjoy some of their products, especially X and Y, or even left some valueble (and polite) criticism or feedback. Nothing expected, but then they've come back and gifted me one or more products.

I vividly remember years ago messaging a dev to say I absolutely loved one of their collections - it was somewhat exclusive and cost 25-50k. Told them it was too much for me to buy, but just wanted to say it's amazing. Boom, gifted me the whole outfit set; I was pretty speechless and thankful to say the least.

One final take: If something basic and seemingly common costs 850+ (especially with VIP discount factored), you can probably bet someone's just flipping an identical copy of someone else's product. I know there's a notorious little group of people (might even be the same two people with multi accounts) - a certain bunch of GoT names who flip the same 500ish products for 850+.

ever since i discovered the derive tree i always check that when in shop to see if the product im interested in is original or stolen. granted sometimes creators will upload the same product on an alt account with little to no changes so watch out for that! so now i usually take the original uploaded product unless the original creator is a deleted account then i'll just take it from the stolen one.

i know it's harder for non vip's to save credits but it's definitely possible