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Fiverr Business Profiles and what it means for the marketplace.


frank_d

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Hey gang!

I wanted to start posting sooner, but I was working on a few major projects and my trip to Fiverr HQ created a bit of backlog I had to work through.

So I will be creating a series of posts on this forum and on my IG about some interesting topics, based on what I learned first-hand during my discussions with Fiverr officials. 

This first post is to talk about the new Fiverr Business feature. 

I think this is the most important thing to talk about right now for several reasons:

A) It's happening right now

B) A lot of sellers seem to be confused about what it really is about

C) I think this will fundamentally change how a part of the marketplace works

 

What is actually happening

First thing first, let's try to clear some confusion.

The Fiverr Business marketplace is not launched yet.

We had a grace period where sellers who were eligible to set up Fiverr Business profiles, were given guidelines and a deadline to make changes and updates to their profiles.

That grace period has ended. 

Now, the Fiverr Business team is manually checking sellers' profiles to ensure everything is aligned and everyone is on the same page.

At the same time there is some initial testing, where a small portion of buyers is actually able to see the Fiverr Business seller profiles.

Fiverr was able to gather some very encouraging data, and numbers were significantly higher when a Fiverr Business buyer was able to browse through Fiverr Business sellers. (conversion rate was up, ASP was higher, refunds were close to 0)

So the experiment was so far, a successful one.

 

That's cool and all, but what is Fiverr Business?

In my personal opinion Fiverr Business is an attempt to elevate the marketplace. It could be seen as a natural continuation of the Pro program, where Fiverr tried to offer buyers a chance to spend more money on bigger projects and work with top-tier talent.

So now Fiverr is essentially creating a new "store front" within the marketplace.

The plan was to provide buyers with a better experience, so for the past 2 years or so, Fiverr Business was offered to buyers even though nothing had changed for sellers.

So Fiverr Business was a new service that Fiverr was offering buyers:

-A concierge/liaison type service that offered to help buyers find the right talent

-Tools to include a team on the buyer side of things, to streamline projects and -most importantly- spending

-VIP support

So once that part was established, now Fiverr had to shift things on the seller side of the transaction.

Fiverr needs to change how profiles are served to Fiverr Business buyers, in order to ensure that:

-Bigger projects can be facilitated

-Less friction exists during the pre-purchase cycle

-There's a focus now on the actual seller, their skills and their performance, rather than the gigs themselves.

 

BuT I DoN't LiKe wHeN tHingS cHaNGe!

We need to focus on that last point if we are to make sense of this new part of an already fragmented marketplace.

Up until now, even with Pro, it was all about productized services. Your gigs were in the spotlight, and sellers were able to get more sales by offering gigs that were relevant to what buyers were searching for.

Now, with Fiverr Business something different is happening. Fiverr Business buyers will be looking to get something done, let's say a marketing campaign.

So they need to look for a marketing expert, a copywriter, a designer, maybe even an animator. 

By searching for specific roles to facilitate their project and goals, they will land on a special page where they can actually browse vetted experts. Fiverr is trying to make their job easier when it comes to finding someone that is a high-performer -with a proven track record- and that they can trust.

Fiverr is essentially trying to qualify leads for you as a seller and also ensure that buyers can trust that whoever they pick, the project will get done one time, on budget and it will be a success.

So the reason why the profiles needed to look different, is because buyers now need to focus on Frank, Bill and Ted, rather than see yet another SEO friendly gig title and flashy gig thumbnail.

Hence the need for a professional headshot as a profile pic, the change from "superexpertanimator1337" to an actual name next to your image and a clear definition of your brand's positioning as a tagline.

It is also important to list your skillset accurately, as it helps buyers understand if you are a right fit for their specific project.

What lies ahead?

Just a reminder that I don't speak on Fiverr's behalf here.

From my understanding the Fiverr Business team is working hard on vetting all the sellers who were eligible to populate the new storefront and actually made the necessary adjustments to their accounts. Which is why several sellers have been reporting receiving a weird notification that they were now approved, but it's not happening at the same time for everyone.

Then once all verticals are populated by enough sellers the Fiverr Business part of the marketplace will start being served to existing Fiverr Business buyer accounts, and hopefully we as sellers will start working on some really cool projects.

No one shared a timeframe with me, but I know they were waiting for this whole Easter hiatus thing to end before gearing up for a global roll out, so things should start moving soon IMO.

On a personal note I spoke extensively with the person behind this initiative and I have to say that I really think this is a positive direction and I fully trust in the part of the vision that was shared with me in private. 

There's great potential here on both ends of the transaction. Sellers get a chance to enjoy riding a great marketing wave as Fiverr will push for great performing sellers to dominate this new store, and buyers will start enjoying a more streamlined way to finding and hiring top-tier talent.

 

These are my initial thoughts. I think a lot of sellers will still have questions so, as always, I am here to answer to the best of my knowledge but I would also like to see if other sellers think the same about this new feature.

 

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If FB is what's offered to buyers who come to the site looking for a service, what happens to the non-FB people? Do they ever show up in any type of search anymore if "normal Fiverr" is not the part of the platform buyers naturally land on?

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10 minutes ago, melanielm said:

If FB is what's offered to buyers who come to the site looking for a service, what happens to the non-FB people? Do they ever show up in any type of search anymore if "normal Fiverr" is not the part of the platform buyers naturally land on?

That’s a great question.

For right now non-FB buyers will be exposed to the regular marketplace plus the occasional FB seller profile peppered in there.

Fiverr’s goal seems to be to get as many buyers as possible onboarded.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that FB buyers can only buy from FB sellers.

But this is where I was wrong in my original assessment of FB: it’s not just an afterthought. It’s here to stay and it will grow.

I can easily see it expanding even more in the future.

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4 hours ago, frank_d said:

In my personal opinion FB is an attempt to elevate the marketplace.

That's the impression I've had about this FB initiative all along, Frank. I think it is a very solid effort to bring a stronger offering to buyers, and I feel very positive about all I have heard so far. I like the new layout of the profiles, and the emphasis on names. It appears to be a way to forge personal connections for buyers, and that will lead to more long-term relationships. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

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7 hours ago, frank_d said:

and hopefully we as sellers will start working on some really cool projects.

We do already, though 😉 but the more really cool projects, the cooler, of course 🙂

Thanks for sharing your insights and thoughts with the community. My question, if you can tell, or guess, or have any idea at all, is whether FB sellers will be shown in "normal" Fiverr just the same as before, or will Fiverr kind of "reserve" them for FB buyers and not "serve" them to non-FB buyers, or to a lower degree, within the "matching" algorithm?

 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, miiila said:

We do already, though 😉 but the more really cool projects, the cooler, of course 🙂

Thanks for sharing your insights and thoughts with the community. My question, if you can tell, or guess, or have any idea at all, is whether FB sellers will be shown in "normal" Fiverr just the same as before, or will Fiverr kind of "reserve" them for FB buyers and not "serve" them to non-FB buyers, or to a lower degree, within the "matching" algorithm?

 

 

 

By “cool” I meant bigger budget. 😉 

Yes I know for a fact that they will occasionally show FB sellers profiles on the regular marketplace to help entice buyers join the FB buyers program.

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14 minutes ago, frank_d said:

Yes I know for a fact that they will occasionally show FB sellers profiles on the regular marketplace to help entice buyers join the FB buyers program.

Only occasionally? Does it mean that FB sellers' gigs won't be shown to the regular buyers as much as they used to be? Or did you mean that literally profiles will be shown, not gigs?

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23 minutes ago, frank_d said:

By “cool” I meant bigger budget. 😉 

Yes I know for a fact that they will occasionally show FB sellers profiles on the regular marketplace to help entice buyers join the FB buyers program.

Thanks, I see. 

I like higher budget projects, who doesn't, but I also like projects that fit my definition of cool, and as your reply shows, while cool and higher budget may coexist, they don't necessarily, depending on people's definitions of "cool". 🙂

My question was exactly the opposite, actually, though, maybe I didn't word it well enough. Will they still show FB sellers on the regular marketplace just as before, or will they "keep" them mostly for FB business buyers? If an FB seller already has much of their time filled by non-FB buyers' orders, they may have to say no to some FB buyers, after all, you know?

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Fiverr will always display FB sellers profiles on the regular marketplace.

It won’t be gigs, it will be the actual seller’s profile. 
 

That’s by design, as that’s a good way to get buyers to join and those seller profiles will stand out when viewed amongst regular gigs.

@catwriter

FB sellers profiles will be peppered in regular search results for sure. Not gigs, profiles. Sounds weird but there will be a visual distinction.

Fiverr business and the regular marketplace won’t be separate they will have considerable overlap.

we need to remember that one of the objectives is to get buyers who aren’t members to join.

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8 hours ago, frank_d said:

We had a grace period where sellers who were eligible to set up FB profiles, were given guidelines and a deadline to make changes and updates to their profiles

I noticed on my profile a prompt for me to connect FB to my Fiverr account. Since I had already done so here ⬇️ I thought I did not need to do that.1123539628_ScreenShot2022-04-30at12_07_33PM.png.fc0751a303ed50828622e48095af08a9.png

 

9 hours ago, frank_d said:

We had a grace period where sellers who were eligible to set up FB profiles, were given guidelines and a deadline to make changes and updates to their profiles.

I did do this.

 

9 hours ago, frank_d said:

Which is why several sellers have been reporting receiving a weird notification that they were now approved, but it's not happening at the same time for everyone.

I received this notice. Will I be part of the FB Marketplace? Are all Business Profile Sellers going to be part of it?

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21 minutes ago, vickiespencer said:

I noticed on my profile a prompt for me to connect FB to my Fiverr account. Since I had already done so here ⬇️ I thought I did not need to do that.1123539628_ScreenShot2022-04-30at12_07_33PM.png.fc0751a303ed50828622e48095af08a9.png

 

I did do this.

 

I received this notice. Will I be part of the FB Marketplace? Are all Business Profile Sellers going to be part of it?

Hey Vickie.

By FB I mean Fiverr Business, not Facebook.

Yes if you completed your profile by the deadline given originally, and then you got the notification that your profile was selected, there is nothing else for you to do, but wait for it to launch.

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1 minute ago, frank_d said:

By FB I mean Fiverr Business, not Facebook.

Lol, I was really confused!

Could the rollout be affecting our profiles' visibility? I have had a lot fewer direct orders and inbox messages since Sunday.

 

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12 minutes ago, vickiespencer said:

Lol, I was really confused!

Could the rollout be affecting our profiles' visibility? I have had a lot fewer direct orders and inbox messages since Sunday.

 

Hard to say, but as far as I know the official rollout hasn’t started yet.

So any slowdown in sales is probably not because of Fiverr Business.

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4 hours ago, vickiespencer said:

Lol, I was really confused!

I know the feeling, Vickie. I had to think a minute about whether we were talking about FB or FB. I suspect this might be a source of confusion as this marketplace gets active. What about referring to Fiverr Business marketplace as FBM? Then it is clear what we're referring to. Just thinking out loud.

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@frank_d I originally didn't abbreviate to FB, but then followed your example to keep it short 😅 but as normal forum users, we can only edit our posts for a really short time... (Please feel free to add an "M" to my post's "FB"s, but I guess it's fine if the original topic post doesn't have "FB".)

And yes, let's use FBM as the forum acronym in future, if we want to abbreviate. 😀

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