ORDERS YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO RECEIVE (Unfitting Requirements)

[googlesheetspro]

THIS IS NOT A RANT. PLEASE DON’T TREAT IT AS ONE

I have seen several posts of this nature and done some research before I decided to post this to the community. I would love to know how sellers in “Programming and Tech” feel about it, as our line of work is much more vague in terms of what can be done. That said, all suggestions are welcome.

First, I have acknowledged the fact that this is something that is supposed to relate to the way Fiverr works. The idea of Fiverr is to “parcelize” services into products. The way the site is designed, and the way you bundle your services to a “gig” and essentially convert it into a tangible product is what gives Fiverr it’s uniqueness.

I’ve been on Fiverr for the past year as a Seller / Google workspace developer, and I’ve made some measurable progress during this time. I’ve left my job to become a full time freelancer, as I’m now able to support myself just through Fiverr. Needless to say, I love the site very much and I get inspired to do better every day, to hopefully make my way to a TRS.

Getting back to the philosophy of converting services into tangible products, this fits well for some services found here. Probably the best example I can think of would be “Logo Design”. My point is that if your service is to design a logo, the expected quality of the requirements is not as significant as other services, like writing a program. I might have offended someone by saying that, but I don’t intend to, at all.

A good logo designer would do a magnificent job based on very little information, like “I need a logo for my car company”. There is enough room to use creativity, and inspire ideas of your own.

If you ask a JavaScript programmer to code something in python, that is not easy to do for most. Even if the chosen service fits your skills, the precision of the requirements is a huge factor. For example, in my own line of work, if I receive an order that says “Design me a google sheet to manage my inventory”, those terms are extremely vague to even think of a reasonable solution without contacting the buyer.

The amount of work is also a factor. Taking the Logo Design example for a reference again, the set of requirements submitted is not too much dependent on the amount of work you need to put in. Again, no bad intentions here, I know it’s an extremely creative job to do, takes a lot of research, and is indeed involving. However, allow me to mention that the difference is much radical in fields like programming. If a buyer purchases your basic gig and the requirements are of a system that takes a month to build, you have a problem.

The fact that buyers can instantly place an order is a great option, but it has it’s curses. Especially in a line of work like ours, where the amount of work and the requirements are extremely significant, and should determine the price and the time you’re supposed to deliver it in.

I’ll take my time to credit Fiverr, because over time there have been multiple improvements to support our line of work. For instance, the ability to deliver a project in iterations, rather than a single gig. The ability to create custom offers. These are great to have. But the only way to gain exposure and compete in the market is via your gig, and something people may buy without contacting you first.

I would love to see a way for a seller to be able to mark a gig, something like “needs seller consent before starting”. I’ve seen comments against this on other posts, and they usually tend to say that it is not the way Fiverr works and the whole point of Fiverr is to give buyers the ability to purchase a gig and sit back, knowing it will be delivered to them. My defense against that claim is one, that everything evolves with time, and it’s not such a bad idea for Fiverr to evolve into doing that (as it has done on several other fronts). And two, no seller would voluntarily use this feature to bar their own orders, if they could be certain that they could deliver something for any set of requirements they receive. I see it hurting sellers more than it would hurt Fiverr, if someone were to use the feature. And three, the buyer will be able to see that they need seller consensus to get started with an order, so they could move to the next gig which doesn’t require that, if that’s even supposed to be a real issue. It also motivates buyers against the idea of getting unfairly large amount of work done for a basic gig, knowing that for sellers (mostly new and growing), not delivering or cancelling means a huge loss to their statistic.

Other solutions, like Turning off the gig or going on Vacation hurts you in a real way and you won’t get the legitimate orders that you could work on, and deliver a good result. I see this to be a loophole, not significant to certain types of services but very real on the line of work like ours.

In my opinion, it would be a tremendous feature to have the ability to require a consent before the order starts, specially because cancellation or a negative review could do a lot of damage to the stats.

Please share your thoughts.

[janeeditor]

As another software developer, I agree that having a “consent” on the side of the seller prior to a contract being initiated would be a very useful facility.

People could ask you do code something illicit or simply outside your skillset and the seller gets penalised for cancelling a contract that was never viable in the first place. I do more of the software side on the other well-known online freelancing platform, where the process of contract initiation is commenced by the seller accepting the buyer’s request. I feel a lot more comfortable doing that kind of work there because I can vet jobs that aren’t a good fit.

I understand the premise behind Fiverr is different, but it means that software developers can be pretty badly exposed if a buyer either unknowingly or wilfully misunderstands the boundaries of a gig. In terms of contract law, this blurs the line of “genuine consent” where you can be held to the terms of a contract that doesn’t match what you intend.

[getty_webdesign]

I’ve also faced the same issue once. It lead to a cancellation which really affected my stats on Fiverr, and as a seller who has not yet accomplished a lot. I was punished thoroughly.