Fiverr should finally abandon $5 gigs

[donnovan86]

Well I would disagree. I lowered my word count and kept the $5 price for many years, and it's fine for me. Yes, I will eventually increase my prices, but removing the $5 gigs doesn't make sense. One, it's the site's branding. Two.. while some categories won't make sense at $5, many others do. Especially gimmick ones. Then there's three, the fact that they already have a business category anyway, so it would make no sense to ditch the current Fiverr and go Full Business mode.

It's up to debate, but I don't see what harm is in having $5 gigs. Buyers are free to choose whatever they want, and not everyone visits Fiverr for very expensive services. There will always be people that want cheaper services, so I don't see Fiverr setting a $10 starting price. But who knows.. we never expected to have a full on war between very large countries in 2022, so anything can happen. I for one, don't see the benefit of removing $5 gigs. 

[donnovan86]

26 minutes ago, newsmike said:

The problem is that a great many do not have skills, and therefore cannot render "valuable services", so instead they steal gig descriptions,

That doesn't mean removing $5 gigs would make a difference. They can easily charge more. The problem here is in buyers vetting their sellers properly and asking for samples, talking with them before ordering.

Like @vickiespencersaid, it mostly has to do with Fiverr vetting sellers. Because no matter what price limit you will have, people will just raise their prices and you still have the same scammers and unqualified people that just charge more. 

[amirkhan96hamza]

35 minutes ago, newsmike said:

The problem is that a great many do not have skills, and therefore cannot render "valuable services", so instead they steal gig descriptions, images and other content from successful sellers in an attempt to grab a $5 bill, for which they cannot deliver a quality service. Every day we call out people here who post "I cannot get sales, please help me", and at the same time they have gigs claiming to be "SEO/marketing experts", an obvious lie, and attempt to scam buyers. This is more often than not the case, and especially out of control with regard to 2-3 locations. 

Yeah! that is true but I don't think the solution you suggested that can solve this issue you are mentioning now, it's a different topic and I just explained - why people from "undeveloped nations" selling at low. 

Edited December 31, 2022 by amirkhan96hamza

[newsmike]

52 minutes ago, amirkhan96hamza said:

Yeah! that is true but I don't think the solution you suggested that can solve this issue you are mentioning now, it's a different topic and I just explained - why people from "undeveloped nations" selling at low. 

I appreciate what you are saying, but to be fair, we already knew why they sell at low prices. The discussion is about the negative impact that such sellers have on the site, and what steps should be taken to prevent it, regardless of why they do so. This applies to $5 sellers in the USA as well as any other country. It's bad for the site

Edited December 31, 2022 by newsmike

[donnovan86]

3 hours ago, newsmike said:

The discussion is about the negative impact that such sellers have on the site, and what steps should be taken to prevent it, regardless of why they do so.

I don't disagree with you, some $5 sellers are very bad and lack any business acumen or even industry knowledge in what they are offering. But then again, these people can easily charge more if $5 gigs are not allowed anymore. In fact, I saw a $25 gig for 500 words in the writing section where the person had VERY bad english, and still had dozens of reviews, which I assume are fake.

Honestly @vickiespenceris right, sellers have to be vetted manually, that's the only way to curate sellers, at least some. Sure, there will be some that slip between the cracks, but it will be much better for the site. Will Fiverr spend a significant amount of time and resources for this when $5 gigs still make good money for the site? Most likely not.

Also, I do charge $5 and I brought in a lot of sales, kept a lot of people on the site, so not everyone charging $5 is bad, I know that for a fact. 

[gongor32]

I haven't seen gig that is under 10$ or even 20$ for a while at least in front pages. They may have been switching slowly. 

Edited December 31, 2022 by gongor32

[donnovan86]

11 minutes ago, gongor32 said:

I haven't seen gig that is under 10$ or even 20$ for a while at least in front pages. They may have been switching slowly. 

It depends on the niche. In the case of writing gigs, this is more common because you can easily change the word count. Some do around 100 words and charge $5, others do 500 words for $5. So there is quite the difference, even if they both charge $5.

[shawnevian99]

Fiverr implemented this in our category recently, maybe they should do it in other categories too. 

[donnovan86]

48 minutes ago, shawnevian99 said:

Fiverr implemented this in our category recently, maybe they should do it in other categories too. 

 

I agree that a fully functional site can't cost $10. However, they can't do that for something like articles. Due to their nature, they are very affordable and also something people can buy on a daily basis. So it works for some categories, not that well for others. 

[noirparliament_]

Recently in the forum there was a discussion that Fiverr prefers gigs which are priced higher than $5. Fiverr wants sellers to stop using the $5 price point, so they started to give notifications for some specific niche gigs to be priced higher.

Thank you.

[catwriter]

2 hours ago, gongor32 said:

I haven't seen gig that is under 10$ or even 20$ for a while at least in front pages. They may have been switching slowly. 

That depends on the category. There are plenty in mine.

[newsmike]

7 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

Also, I do charge $5 and I brought in a lot of sales, kept a lot of people on the site, so not everyone charging $5 is bad, I know that for a fact. 

Until you mentioned that, I had never looked at your gigs. They look great, you have over 1,000 reviews and I can see 15 orders in your queue right now. With all that success, are you not tempted to go to $10, since that magically doubles your income? 

[danno1950]

22 hours ago, newsmike said:

For this reason Fiverr need to finally leave behind the $5 pricing option, forcing all gigs to a higher price point.

I completely agree, Mike! I've been saying the same thing for a while. $5 gigs just hold Fiverr back. Maybe if Fiverr went to a paywall it would eliminate this issue.

[donnovan86]

5 hours ago, corsogr said:

@donnovan86as I'm a writer too, I'm genuinely interested to know if you ever raised your prices and what happened. Thanks.

I see you write in your local language, so that's a bit different. I asume you have way way less competitors when compared to the English writing market. This is way more competitive, and even if I lived and studied in the UK, the fact that I live in Romania automatically tends to push more expensive buyers away, not all of them, but some definitely told me they just want to work with an US writer, so right away that limits the market considerably.

When it comes to raising prices.. I tried a few times, and I realized the better option is to shorten the word count instead of asking for a higher price. It depends on how much you rely on the Fiverr income I guess. But in my case, it ended up cutting my income in half for the month I experimented, things got back when I removed 100 words from the gig, so clearly in my case lowering the word count worked. But again, it depends on so many different factors.. 

[donnovan86]

5 hours ago, newsmike said:

since that magically doubles your income? 

Thank you Mike.

Well, the fact that I am not US or UK based is very unappealing for clients that hire a writer. So that limits my market considerably. Even with around 18K reviews between all my gigs, I still have people that specifically ask me if I am an US or UK native. So even if I studied in the UK, I can't lie and say that I am born there or live there now. And there are plenty of people like that, I encountered quite a lot of them. In my case, I found that lowering the word count a bit is the ideal option to earn a bit more.

 

Increasing the price and trying to double it was met with backlash from current clients, and overall it halved my income that month, so it definitely wasn't great for me. I will try again soon, just to see where it goes. But even now, I am pushed back in search due to a client sharing a 1-star review which said good job.. clearly by accident. However I wasn't abe to do anything since you know..if you start asking customer support to remove reviews because they were shared accidentally, might as well hand them a blank piece of paper saying "I want an account warning". So I just moved on, but it seems that the review in question is affecting my exposure anyway. 

[moikchap]

57 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

I realized the better option is to shorten the word count instead of asking for a higher price

I recently did some digging in various verticals to see what proportion were $5 gigs. Some verticals have 50% of sellers offering a $5 option, but some only 0.5% have a $5 option. One of those categories is Rigging, which I know from college, so I browsed it to see how this highly technical field was offering $5 gigs.

Rigging is the act of adding bones and mass to computer characters so you can animate them. There's a saying that goes like "The final 20% takes 80% of the effort." The rigging gigs are offering that first 80% which only takes 20% of the effort at $5. It only gets you a spine and limbs. Hands are extra. Weight maps are extra. Hair is extra. Face is Premium only. It's like the built their own funnel model. For the smallest price, you get the smallest result. Asking for more takes offering more.

[moonstaredits]

Thank you for such an interesting topic.

In my opinion the problem is not the 5$ tag. Not even the unskilled people from third-world countries trying their luck in the site. 

The problem is Fiverr doesn't check your qualifications. Sure, they have the tests, but that's not enough. They need to make these mandatory: tests for every gig category to really prove how skilled you are in it, language tests,  uploading certificates and college diplomas or at least something that proves you are the student/professional you claim to be, a portfolio (5 past works, even if they are mocks) and adding some bank info (no matter if you choose to get paid with PayPal.).

The greatest weakness of Fiverr and the reason they are the quintessential website for scam sellers is the poor filters they have when people sign up. Other freelance websites ask you for a portfolio or certificates that prove your identity, and they take some time to verify it.

Not even a paywall would stop people that steal from others. There are resellers, for example. They already have some money to "invest" when they outsource their work. The only reasonable way to stop them was adding a rule to the ToS that prohibits selling services you bought from another seller "as they are". Scam buyers also have money beforehand.

Oh, I wanted to add something to the low prices and the freelancers from third-world countries. I am from Venezuela. Inflation here is off the charts. I offered my gig at a starting price of 5$ when I joined Fiverr, and back in 2020 the 4$ I got from a sale would be useful for me. Not anymore, thanks to inflation. Also I got the reviews I needed to have, so a 5$ price was bringing me more trouble than good. I raised my prices. Some people from third-world countries are in fact skilled enough to offer a gig for a fair price. They just don't because buyers tend to be wary of them, or because they need to build a proper reputation first with the low prices on the site to get somewhere. Some, like I did, don't have Fiverr as a main source of income, or they are students looking for some extra money while they put a portfolio together. All those categories of people I mentioned will offer good quality service in exchange of a low rate just because they don't need anything else. 

Cheap buyers that come after those services need to be purged as well. They should have also an identity verification and no anonymity. We sellers need to be certain too that we're not going to be scammed with the good old refund method.

But most importantly, if Fiverr hasn't removed the 5$ tier is because they get a lot of income out of it. They are not going to drop it anytime soon. I get your point that they can't be both a cheap and a high quality marketplace, but I disagree. There are buyers and sellers for everything. A website is smart enough if they acknowledge that and offer both cheap and expensive services. If I were a buyer, if I came looking for a Pro seller, I am going to buy from them even if I see the site offers way lower prices, as long as I get the high-end service I payed for. If I came looking for low prices and get sh***y work, well, I deserve what I ended up getting. 

The bad buyers and sellers don't originate from the low prices per se. Is the lack of a verification process that makes scammers thrive here. Raising the price won't make a significant difference if they don't address the underlying issues.

[newsmike]

13 minutes ago, moonstaredits said:

Thank you for such an interesting topic.

In my opinion the problem is not the 5$ tag. Not even the unskilled people from third-world countries trying their luck in the site. 

The problem is Fiverr doesn't check your qualifications. Sure, they have the tests, but that's not enough. They need to make these mandatory: tests for every gig category to really prove how skilled you are in it, language tests,  uploading certificates and college diplomas or at least something that proves you are the student/professional you claim to be, a portfolio (5 past works, even if they are mocks) and adding some bank info (no matter if you choose to get paid with PayPal.).

The greatest weakness of Fiverr and the reason they are the quintessential website for scam sellers is the poor filters they have when people sign up. Other freelance websites ask you for a portfolio or certificates that prove your identity, and they take some time to verify it.

Not even a paywall would stop people that steal from others. There are resellers, for example. They already have some money to "invest" when they outsource their work. The only reasonable way to stop them was adding a rule to the ToS that prohibits selling services you bought from another seller "as they are". Scam buyers also have money beforehand.

Oh, I wanted to add something to the low prices and the freelancers from third-world countries. I am from Venezuela. Inflation here is off the charts. I offered my gig at a starting price of 5$ when I joined Fiverr, and back in 2020 the 4$ I got from a sale would be useful for me. Not anymore, thanks to inflation. Also I got the reviews I needed to have, so a 5$ price was bringing me more trouble than good. I raised my prices. Some people from third-world countries are in fact skilled enough to offer a gig for a fair price. They just don't because buyers tend to be wary of them, or because they need to build a proper reputation first with the low prices on the site to get somewhere. Some, like I did, don't have Fiverr as a main source of income, or they are students looking for some extra money while they put a portfolio together. All those categories of people I mentioned will offer good quality service in exchange of a low rate just because they don't need anything else. 

Cheap buyers that come after those services need to be purged as well. They should have also an identity verification and no anonymity. We sellers need to be certain too that we're not going to be scammed with the good old refund method.

But most importantly, if Fiverr hasn't removed the 5$ tier is because they get a lot of income out of it. They are not going to drop it anytime soon. I get your point that they can't be both a cheap and a high quality marketplace, but I disagree. There are buyers and sellers for everything. A website is smart enough if they acknowledge that and offer both cheap and expensive services. If I were a buyer, if I came looking for a Pro seller, I am going to buy from them even if I see the site offers way lower prices, as long as I get the high-end service I payed for. If I came looking for low prices and get sh***y work, well, I deserve what I ended up getting. 

The bad buyers and sellers don't originate from the low prices per se. Is the lack of a verification process that makes scammers thrive here. Raising the price won't make a significant difference if they don't address the underlying issues.

Good points. Not sure if Fiverr can or really wants to entirely solve the schizophrenic nature of the site. They may be committed to trying to offer PRO services, but also remain tethered to the revenue of the $5 economy. One could argue that Amazon offers $2 packs of gum, and also this:

 

 

[moonstaredits]

56 minutes ago, newsmike said:

They may be committed to trying to offer PRO services, but also remain tethered to the revenue of the $5 economy. One could argue that Amazon offers $2 packs of gum, and also this:

Precisely my point. Thank you!

[markp]

9 hours ago, moonstaredits said:

The problem is Fiverr doesn't check your qualifications. Sure, they have the tests, but that's not enough. They need to make these mandatory: tests for every gig category to really prove how skilled you are in it, language tests,  uploading certificates and college diplomas or at least something that proves you are the student/professional you claim to be, a portfolio (5 past works, even if they are mocks) and adding some bank info (no matter if you choose to get paid with PayPal.).

this isn't a barrier at all. people will just get fake qualifications printed. There is no real way to verify them (automated verification). As you can probably see people are just making up their qualifications. Ive seen sellers state they went to Harvard and listing non existent courses there and can barely string a sentence together. I don't list any qualifications as its pointless because of this. Making people take tests is a different story and would work but they need to be adaptive tests. Have you seen the number of people posting on the forum "I got 78% or whatever in the test but its really low and I did the test in 5 minutes" these people are obviously getting the answers elsewhere. It takes longer than 5 minutes to read the questions properly and if you read their posts its a forgone conclusion they don't have any grasp of the subject.

9 hours ago, moonstaredits said:

The greatest weakness of Fiverr and the reason they are the quintessential website for scam sellers is the poor filters they have when people sign up. Other freelance websites ask you for a portfolio or certificates that prove your identity, and they take some time to verify it.

People are doing the same thing on other sites. people are making up portfolios, taking other peoples portfolios. Have you ever been asked strange questions by people on here, asking for your portfolio and proof of results etc. this is where its going. I've followed the trail before. 

9 hours ago, moonstaredits said:

Not even a paywall would stop people that steal from others. There are resellers, for example. They already have some money to "invest" when they outsource their work. The only reasonable way to stop them was adding a rule to the ToS that prohibits selling services you bought from another seller "as they are". Scam buyers also have money beforehand.

I wouldnt put too much emphasis on that. people are still doing it. there are a lot of people doing this & people on downwork are as guilty as here of reselling services. Ive had no end of issues with people reselling my services on there at price points that will change expectations and it causes no end of problems. I wouldn't give them too much credit over there.

 

9 hours ago, moonstaredits said:

Cheap buyers that come after those services need to be purged as well. They should have also an identity verification and no anonymity. We sellers need to be certain too that we're not going to be scammed with the good old refund method.

cheap buyers come after cheap sellers. a customer with a 5$ budget is not going to buy a 125$ gig. they will try, I had someone yesterday asking for a 80% discount. Not in this lifetime, but they will try. its one following the other.  there is absolutely no point in asking buyers for verification. this is business sui cide. they, buyers, will not want to do it and will vote with their feet.

i used to get a LOT of customers from linkedin (many of them have accounts on here already). I put up a shi**y profile and a mickey mouse website for the sole purpose of getting conversations started. One thing i have heard repeatedly from customers with higher budgets is they do not even pay attention to 5$ gigs. they go straight past them and a lot of other price points as well and they only pay attention to prices above certain points and look for specific things with sellers. Recently though a lot of people on linkedin have started raising other issues stopping them from ordering here.

9 hours ago, moonstaredits said:

The bad buyers and sellers don't originate from the low prices per se. Is the lack of a verification process that makes scammers thrive here. Raising the price won't make a significant difference if they don't address the underlying issues.

you do get bad buyers and sellers everywhere. its just the fact you are on here and more aware of issues related to this site. The "other place" that has been mentioned on here numerous times has a good reputation with a certain sector.  Ive been part of conversations in the past with people from fortune 100 companies, privately and at parties, and Ive heard the same specific things mentioned repeatedly and its not the mention of scammers. I personally think Fiverr have gone a long way to addressing  some of the issues that were here before but there is still the perception, correct or otherwise about certain things that remain.

[moonstaredits]

11 hours ago, markp said:

this isn't a barrier at all. people will just get fake qualifications printed. There is no real way to verify them (automated verification). As you can probably see people are just making up their qualifications. Ive seen sellers state they went to Harvard and listing non existent courses there and can barely string a sentence together. I don't list any qualifications as its pointless because of this. Making people take tests is a different story and would work but they need to be adaptive tests. Have you seen the number of people posting on the forum "I got 78% or whatever in the test but its really low and I did the test in 5 minutes" these people are obviously getting the answers elsewhere. It takes longer than 5 minutes to read the questions properly and if you read their posts its a forgone conclusion they don't have any grasp of the subject.

People are doing the same thing on other sites. people are making up portfolios, taking other peoples portfolios. Have you ever been asked strange questions by people on here, asking for your portfolio and proof of results etc. this is where its going. I've followed the trail before. 

I wouldnt put too much emphasis on that. people are still doing it. there are a lot of people doing this & people on downwork are as guilty as here of reselling services. Ive had no end of issues with people reselling my services on there at price points that will change expectations and it causes no end of problems. I wouldn't give them too much credit over there.

 

cheap buyers come after cheap sellers. a customer with a 5$ budget is not going to buy a 125$ gig. they will try, I had someone yesterday asking for a 80% discount. Not in this lifetime, but they will try. its one following the other.  there is absolutely no point in asking buyers for verification. this is business sui cide. they, buyers, will not want to do it and will vote with their feet.

i used to get a LOT of customers from linkedin (many of them have accounts on here already). I put up a shi**y profile and a mickey mouse website for the sole purpose of getting conversations started. One thing i have heard repeatedly from customers with higher budgets is they do not even pay attention to 5$ gigs. they go straight past them and a lot of other price points as well and they only pay attention to prices above certain points and look for specific things with sellers. Recently though a lot of people on linkedin have started raising other issues stopping them from ordering here.

you do get bad buyers and sellers everywhere. its just the fact you are on here and more aware of issues related to this site. The "other place" that has been mentioned on here numerous times has a good reputation with a certain sector.  Ive been part of conversations in the past with people from fortune 100 companies, privately and at parties, and Ive heard the same specific things mentioned repeatedly and its not the mention of scammers. I personally think Fiverr have gone a long way to addressing  some of the issues that were here before but there is still the perception, correct or otherwise about certain things that remain.

I get the points you made. All websites dedicated to freelancing have their downsides. The nature of not being able to see face to face the person you're making business with makes all of this happen. However Fiverr must find a way of stopping the scams, and I'm sure the price of the gigs is not the issue that's stopping the potential of the site. At the end of the day most of the transactions resulting from scams will lead to one or two unsatisfied users and the money will need to be reimbursed anyways, no win for anyone there. 

[moonstaredits]

14 hours ago, markp said:

other.  there is absolutely no point in asking buyers for verification. this is business sui cide. they, buyers, will not want to do it and will vote with their feet.

But you can't expect to buy in total anonymity. What for? In what marketplace they don't ask you for ID's, credit cards and more? PayPal offers no real way to verify someone's identify.  If you're a legit buyer I need to know as a seller that you are, and as a website, I need to know that you will not try to rip off the company's money with fraudulent refunds. It could be a bummer for buyers but that's precisely the point of it.

 

14 hours ago, markp said:

One thing i have heard repeatedly from customers with higher budgets is they do not even pay attention to 5$ gigs

I also made that point. If they have a high budget they come looking for other kind of sellers. But some sellers have gigs where a 5$ price is reasonable, as they don't need to ask for more, they offer good quality service and some legit buyers are looking for them. Hence my point about the price not being the main issue here, but other things that are not being addressed to the extent they should be.

[markp]

I don't think any platform  would ask for verification for buyers. Sales would fall off a cliff and obviously competitors would see a huge opportunity and use it as a pitch to take your customers. Pricing is a big issue. let me give you an extreme example. Mr broke  is not going to try and buy a 1000$ gig and hope he can get a refund on it before ordering it. he is not going to risk losing the dispute. he may try other tactics but will not want to risk being out of pocket. He will do it on a 5$ gig and if he doesn't get his money back,  just ask for endless revisions or leave negative feedback. I can show you some examples of this where buyers have gone to seller to seller with an axe. Some of these buyers still think doing this will elicit a refund.  this ties up resources on Fiverr with support with suspect buyers foaming at the mouth over 5$.

[kendal1747]

On 12/30/2022 at 12:25 PM, newsmike said:

Would you rather have 20% of $5 or $10?  That is a 100% increase on a tremendous amount of sales.

You are right Newsmaker. I would like to just put in a comment. $5 is how Fiverr got the name in the first place. Are you asking them to abandon their very beginning, their very being, their namesake? It is true what maitasun said that you still will have the cheaters. When one cheater goes, you have another one to take their place. 

[catwriter]

4 minutes ago, kendal1747 said:

When one cheater goes, you have another one to take their place. 

Hundreds of others, more likely.