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Order accept / decline feature for the seller


helloscoopz

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Sorry if it wasn’t clear enough in the OP, the seller has the choice to either:

  1. Allow buyers to buy instantly, or
  2. Not allow buyers to buy instantly

Still, a lot of buyers don’t even care, they place orders randomly and that will lead to buyer friction and people leaving the platform. So I am 100% sure Fiverr would not allow that.

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So why do airbnb do it?

Well, with Airbnb you’re not actively working, it’s just a passive service, and you can screen your clients because they are coming to your home. Also, you’re not getting 40-50 orders per day like some people do on Fiverr. Among many other things

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Well, with Airbnb you’re not actively working, it’s just a passive service, and you can screen your clients because they are coming to your home. Also, you’re not getting 40-50 orders per day like some people do on Fiverr. Among many other things

If you consider airbnb hosting passive work, what do you consider running a hotel?

Why does it matter if it is passive work or active work anyway?

So you don’t think freelancers should have the right to choose which clients they work with? (Law: Under federal anti-discrimination laws, businesses can refuse service to any person for any reason, unless the business is discriminating against a protected class. At the national level, protected classes include: Race or color. National origin or citizenship status.)

I agree, for high volume sellers - it would make sense that they allow “instant orders” - all they would have to do is have the “instant orders” setting turned on.

Your arguments against the implementation of this function are very thin.

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Hello, several posts have mentioned they would like to have this feature. I doubt if it will happen since fiverr offers instant placing of an order as one of it’s main advantages. To allow sellers to choose if they want to accept an order means there would be a delay while the one who placed the order had to wait to see if his order was accepted by the seller.

So overall it would be a bad experience for someone who wants to place an order.

Also it would require giving buyers the option to instantly cancel the order when they see they have to wait to have it accepted.

Internet sales are a 24 hour a day business. It never stops or closes. So we can get orders while we sleep. It’s an advantage to both buyers and sellers. It’s a trade off therefore between getting a decent number of orders around the clock, or getting to choose which ones you want to accept. Most likely most buyers wouldn’t want to wait to see if they have been accepted.

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While this sounds like a good idea, it would be a nightmare if you are the type of seller with a lot of orders. You will barely get any orders because people won’t wait for you to accept or decline an order if you’re sleeping for example.

Most clients on Fiverr just want to share the order and then do their thing knowing you will get the job done. If they initiate the order and you decline that in 12 hours when you are back online, it would take days for a buyer to place an order and get the job done.

Yes you could never scale Fiverr work high at all and you’d spend a ton of time on administration and communication, which you don’t get paid for.

I agree we shouldn’t be penalized for buyers ordering the wrong things, but I think the solution is to change how those ones affect our ratings.

Another option could be a proper (automated) intake form and then if the buyer doesn’t go through it or meet all the criteria that cancellation wouldn’t count in our ratings.

That way it wouldn’t impact scaling or add extra work.

Also, on Fiverr’s end I can see why they dont have a decline feature. This is a marketplace and buyers would leave if they were vetted this way. People have deadlines and they just want to buy and get going. An automated form with established criteria for vetting would mean they are vetted without having to wait for you to personally screen them.

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If you consider airbnb hosting passive work, what do you consider running a hotel?

Why does it matter if it is passive work or active work anyway?

So you don’t think freelancers should have the right to choose which clients they work with? (Law: Under federal anti-discrimination laws, businesses can refuse service to any person for any reason, unless the business is discriminating against a protected class. At the national level, protected classes include: Race or color. National origin or citizenship status.)

I agree, for high volume sellers - it would make sense that they allow “instant orders” - all they would have to do is have the “instant orders” setting turned on.

Your arguments against the implementation of this function are very thin.

If you consider airbnb hosting passive work, what do you consider running a hotel?

Airbnb is not hotel management, just a way for someone like me or you to make some extra bucks. Fiverr is a marketplace for professionals to share their services online. You have to work here, it’s mostly active income, for Airbnb you don’t need any skill, you don’t have to work on anything, just offer the free space you have for $$.

Not sure why you are comparing with Airbnb. Anyway, it’s my opinion and I for one I am sure Fiverr will never implement this as it would cause a lot of friction and wasted time on their side. The return will be minimal for them, but adding this would drive buyers away. They need to bring more buyers here, not to drive them away. An automated process would help but as @humanissocial said, the best thing they can do is to not have us sellers deal with penalties. Then again, if sellers see they don’t get penalized if they choose this option, that would make them abuse the system and say all orders they want to cancel are placed by mistake. I believe that’s why they removed the lack of penalty from mutual cancellations in the first place, to prevent abuse.

So, I would say don’t expect any decline/accept feature anytime soon because it requires a lot of work and planning with pretty much negative returns. Again, my opinion, but I am 100% sure Fiverr will never do this as it doesn’t make any business sense.

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  • 1 year later...

I had a similar problem from a buyer, The buyer told me to design an extremely detailed 3D model that could take up to months or even a year. And he didn't request just one, he sent me like 6-7 different videos and Ideas and told me to do them all just for $65, it's impossible for a single one of the extreme detailed design to be done with that money... Told him, and he either not understand or didn't care about any of the description or what I said. Told him I will make a custom order for his build and since I'm an individual, I can only do one at a time. And later on, he just Straight-up purchased 2 different pre-set Gigs, one $65 and one $30+. He didn't gave me any info on the $30+ Order and just sent it, in the chat he said "You can get it done by now, it's ez"

Since he did not give me any of the $30+ information, nor do I tell him to purchase any of those pre-set Gigs, I tell him to either cancel one of them (as the one which he did not give any info, $30+) OR he should cancel/dispute both Orders and accept the Custom Offer I sent him. 

And... He cancelled the $65 Order, telling me to "start grinding the material for the design now", even though in the description I stated that you will need enough material for the design. Left me with a $30+ Offer telling me to Grind the materials for him, and build the $65 design for him. 

I was so stressed out not knowing what to do, as I am fairly new, and if I cancel, it my hurt my ratings... 

I then contacted the Customer Support for help, they're really helpful and friendly. They helped me through the cancellation progress understanding the reason, then they asked me if I wanna cancel that order, without having it to hurt my ratings. 

The Customer Service who helped me yesterday, if you're seeing this, I really wanna say thank you to you for your help. Also thanks for reading this, there's still some other problems from the Buyer I didn't mention. Anyways, thanks for reading the whole passage.

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  • 2 months later...

It happens from time to time, that buyers (even experienced ones) put details in their orders, that my gig just not offers.

My gig offers German voice over. Today I received an order "the text is in English. Translate to German and then record".

It's even in my FAQs that my gig does not cover translations and that a buyer should contact me for that to align about this extra beforehand.

It's not the first time something like this happens.

And now I am in the bad position: I have to request an order update which the buyer might end up declining and the whole order ends up in a cancellation that will at the end harm my account. To be fair, in these instances the support is a great help and set everything straight, but the effort and the hassle is on my side.

This all could be avoided if I had the option to accept, decline or suggest a modification of an order prior to actually start the contract.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is EXACTLY the same problem I'm facing! I have completed 1,200 orders and have 60 order cancellations, that's 5% cancellation ratio which doesn't sound too good. Aside from a handful of incidents, wherein there was a disagreement in the middle of an order and either I or the buyer asked to cancel the order, the vast majority of these cancellations are from buyers who placed an order without contacting me in advance. They just see a $5 gig price and try to "steal" my work for that price, regardless of the scope of the work they want me to accomplish. That happens regularly when my gig's description first line is:

PLEASE DO NOT PLACE AN ORDER BEFORE CONTACTING ME IN ADVANCE.

(Highlighted in yellow, underscored, all capital letters in bold font - How the hell can a buyer miss it!?)

The correct way of handling such unwanted orders is to contact Fiverr Support and ask them to cancel these orders. If you do it on your own from the Resolution Center, it will negatively impact your gig. I got this confirmed more than once by Support that the healthiest way to cancel an order is to contact them.

There should be the seller's option to accept or deny an order before buyer's order actually becomes active. It's especially in those cases that they click on the Purchase button without bothering to read the description of what they are actually buying. It would save so much headache and hassle for sellers later on.

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@alex68berlin and @excel_expert, the next time that happens again, have the buyer cancel the order on their end with "ordered by mistake" as the reason. If the cancelation is done this way, it will not affect your seller statistics (so please make sure it is done correctly). Sometimes when the seller initiates the cancelation (even through Fiverr CS) the cancelation affects seller statistics. It's always better if the buyer initiates the cancelation in these instances. I like how @imagination7413 explains it here:

 

If canceled in this way, the following statement will show up on the canceled order (this is how you know you did it correctly):

image.thumb.png.592d86e89f474726d6d86de8ecc9e366.png

In order for this to work, clear and professional communication with the buyer is necessary. Remind the buyer of the scope of your package and show them how they included requirements that don't align with what you offer. Suggest that they initiate the cancelation so that they can get a full refund and provide them with the instructions provided above. You may even want to suggest how they can go about finding another seller who is more qualified to meet their needs. When approached this way, most of my buyers are grateful for my help and are more than willing to initiate the cancelation in this way.

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@vickieito thank you for this explanation. This is noted and I am sure this will be helpful in some cases.

But I am speaking of experience that Fiverr is not the easiest platform to deal with for some customers. At least they messed up already at least once when we find ourselves in this situation. 😉

And in my case, one buyer was already showing that he didn't care about rules, since he knowingly underpaid and tried to cheat me. So I would still be happy to have this in my hands and do not have to rely on the willingness to cooperate of someone who is either lacking experience or has already shown not being interested in not harming me.

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17 hours ago, alex68berlin said:

.. in my case, one buyer was already showing that he didn't care about rules, since he knowingly underpaid and tried to cheat me. So I would still be happy to have this in my hands and do not have to rely on the willingness to cooperate of someone who is either lacking experience or has already shown not being interested in n.ot harming me.

 @alex68berlin you might want to consider increasing the price of your base package ... $5 will attract the type of buyers that you are describing. You are a Level 2 seller with 140 great reviews so it may be time for your to increase the prices so that you can start attracting buyers of a higher caliber.

@excel_expert the same goes for you too. You are a Level 2 seller with 863 5-star reviews. There's no reason why you need to list your services for $5.

When you increase your prices (especially from $5!), you will find that buyers will respect you more.

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@vickieito I checked my last 10 cancelled orders and only one of them had a notification at the top that my stats won't be affected:

image.png.769100109e091dfbb1280006853099d5.png

However, most of these orders I cancelled via Support and they assured me the stats won't be affected. The said promise doesn't reflect it at the top of the order page nor anywhere at the bottom.

In my latest cancellation the buyer didn't send the requirements and yet that Fiverr's statement of not affecting my stats is not showing anywhere. I guess I will need to have this matter clarified with Fiverr Support.

I wonder what if the buyer's cancellation reason states "ordered by mistake" and I do not respond to the cancellation request by approving it. Does that mean it will affect my stats after all? Normally do not respond with approval because I am trying to seek the requirements from the buyer and waiting for the buyer to send it over, most of the times they do not respond and the order gets cancelled automatically. This seems like a wrong step if not approving the cancellation from my end despite "ordered by mistake" is still affecting my stats. Does anyone know if not approving a cancellation from my end (regardless of the reason), automatically affects the stats negatively?

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On 5/31/2022 at 3:31 PM, vickieito said:

 @alex68berlin you might want to consider increasing the price of your base package ... $5 will attract the type of buyers that you are describing. You are a Level 2 seller with 140 great reviews so it may be time for your to increase the prices so that you can start attracting buyers of a higher caliber.

@excel_expert the same goes for you too. You are a Level 2 seller with 863 5-star reviews. There's no reason why you need to list your services for $5.

When you increase your prices (especially from $5!), you will find that buyers will respect you more.

@vickieito I don't think it's the issue here but if you've already mentioned it, I would gladly relate to that too. It is debatable whether offering your service at the lowest "original" starting price (in the past all gigs were $5) is indeed a good practice or not. My FAQ and gig description mention clearly that this $5 price is for very basic work which takes a matter of minutes. In my gig's FAQ I mention that my hourly rate is $50. To most requests I'm getting, I'm also responding with my first message specifying my hourly rate. The average order I'm getting according to my seller's dashboard is at $59... And many of those who initially contacted my $5 gig end up leaving behind hundreds and thousands of Dollars in my account. So I don't think the $5 starting price is a bad idea. It attracts in a good day about 20 inquiries, of which a few I can convert to orders. Do you still think it's a bad strategy? ☺️

I will not deny that the thought of increasing the gig's starting price does come around often but until now, probably because my sales don't seem to be affected by it, I haven't taken any action to increase the starting price to a different amount. In my line of business (Excel development), from buyer's perspective, a big chunk of their decision-making is affected by how professional and convincing my response is. In that regard I believe I'm handling it in an optimal manner.

Edited by excel_expert
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19 hours ago, excel_expert said:

@vickieito I checked my last 10 cancelled orders and only one of them had a notification at the top that my stats won't be affected ... However, most of these orders I cancelled via Support and they assured me the stats won't be affected. ... Does anyone know if not approving a cancellation from my end (regardless of the reason), automatically affects the stats negatively?

If Fiverr CS says that it doesn't affect your stats, I would have Fiverr CS tell you specifically what order numbers are affecting your stats, just to verify. CS does make mistakes from time to time, so I always like to know the exact order numbers that are affecting my order completion rate.

On your second question, it depends on the reason. I know if a buyer marks "ordered by mistake," the order is often canceled on its own (without my input as a seller). This one shouldn't affect your stats. However, there are other reasons buyers may cancel and order (without the seller's input) and it will affect your stats. So it's always best to reach out to Fiverr CS and verify if it does or doesn't (and dispute it if you believe you shouldn't be penalized).

19 hours ago, excel_expert said:

...many of those who initially contacted my $5 gig end up leaving behind hundreds and thousands of Dollars in my account. So I don't think the $5 starting price is a bad idea. It attracts in a good day about 20 inquiries, of which a few I can convert to orders. Do you still think it's a bad strategy? ☺️

... I believe I'm handling it in an optimal manner.

@excel_expert, I will defer to your expertise. 😊 This is your business and if you feel like you have a good handle on things, keep doing what you're doing. You'll have to deal with the headaches that come from attracting some annoying buyers who can't read the gig description, in order to secure the big orders, but it sounds like it might be worth it!

As for me, my life a lot easier now that my prices have been increased. I certainly don't want 20 inquiries a day (I prefer to spend my time on orders and not chatting with buyers who might waste my time). My higher prices automatically filter out a lot of the unnecessary inquiries. So instead of 20 inquiries turning into 5 orders, I'll get 8 inquiries that turn into 5 orders. I also like it when buyers just place the order right from my gig page, because when I talk with them, I already have an open order with them. That's a lot more manageable for me. 

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  • 4 months later...
  • 4 weeks later...

I am in the same boat from being level 2 to no level, thanks to some people ordering with no consultation as to whether I can help them or not. I make it clear in CAPITAL LETTERS at the top of my Gig description saying "PLEASE MESSAGE ME BEFORE ORDERING!" 

It truly is not a fair system and detracts from all the positives that I love about Fiverr.

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  • 2 months later...

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