Fiverr sellers without experience

[dylesto]

Hello there,

I started selling on fiverr a month ago, I've been working in the post production industry for some years now and thought I could give Fiverr a try.

One thing that shocked me is the fact that so many sellers...

-Have a low level of english

-Are lying about their abilities

-Don't have (or have little) experience

 

And Fiverr is full of these sellers, they all have the same looking profile picture, same looking gig images/videos and the same descriptions.

"I am photoshop expart" or "I am marketing profesionnal" etc...

 

For the older sellers here, was this always like this or did these sellers start to come later (and at which year)?

[visualstudios]

You will always run into this kind of thing when you have a platform that allows you to make money with no barrier to entry. It did get worse during the pandemic though, when there was a ton of pressure on people to start working remote.

[dylesto]

16 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

You will always run into this kind of thing when you have a platform that allows you to make money with no barrier to entry. It did get worse during the pandemic though, when there was a ton of pressure on people to start working remote.

 

I was thinking on joining Fiverr pro, I see you are a pro seller. 

Are there any unprofessionals at Fiverr Pro?

[visualstudios]

10 minutes ago, dylesto said:

Are there any unprofessionals at Fiverr Pro?

I can't speak for everyone, I'm sure there are better and worse sellers in Pro, as everywhere else, but Pro is a vetted category, needing manual approval by Fiverr, so the general level of professionalism is much much higher than the general platform. So, while being Pro means you will certainly be more skilled than the average seller, that doesn't mean there aren't level 1 or 2 sellers that are better professionals than some Pro sellers. The same logic applies to Top Rated Seller, btw.

Edited March 7, 2023 by visualstudios

[catwriter]

2 hours ago, dylesto said:

For the older sellers here, was this always like this

Yes.

As @visualstudiossaid, it got worse during the pandemic, then the war in Ukraine that messed up the economics even more... People can't get jobs, they're desperate to earn money, they have no skills but they see a YouTube video promising them that they can become rich without any skills if they join Fiverr (or some other freelancing platforms, but Fiverr is very popular because anyone can (or could, they're starting to change that) join...).

And then, there was also a certain country (we're not allowed to mention specific countries or regions in negative context) where the government created some lousy program that was supposed to teach their people how to earn money on Fiverr (or generally as freelancers), but they outsourced the courses to third parties that were not qualified to teach... And you can see the results.

2 hours ago, dylesto said:

"I am marketing profesionnal"

...and yet they come to the forum to cry about not getting sales, and just don't understand you when you point out that, if they're marketing professionals, they should be able to successfully market their Fiverr business.

[imagination7413]

10 hours ago, dylesto said:

For the older sellers here, was this always like this or did these sellers start to come later (and at which year)?

Always. (I've only been on Fiverr since 2019, but I read a LOT, and end up in the depths of the forum quite often.)

A post from 2012, questioning Sellers who look identical, selling questionable services, looking to make a quick buck.
https://community.fiverr.com/forums/topic/1067-do-some-fiverr-sellers-take-advantage-of-sites-that-make-things-for-free-and-resell-them/

This one, also 2012 (and missing some posts), sarcastically sums your gripe.
https://community.fiverr.com/forums/topic/2069-maybe-there-should-be-a-couple-of-new-fiverrs/

Two rants from 2018 on non-native English.
https://community.fiverr.com/forums/topic/149104-why-would-you-lie
https://community.fiverr.com/forums/topic/136195-finding-someone-who-doesnt-lie-about-english-being-their-first-language/#comment-731805

A 2018 post cautioning Sellers against exactly what you've observed.
https://community.fiverr.com/forums/topic/147964-new-sellers-no-integrity-no-success/

We are also entering a new era, AI generated content, that makes it even easier for people-in-general to fake proficiency. I'd offer more examples, but I need to log off for the night.

[zeus777]

12 hours ago, dylesto said:

For the older sellers here, was this always like this

I've been on Fiverr for over 10 years now, and sadly, the answer is yes.
Back in the day the very common problem was simply copying/pasting/stealing EVERYTHING ( gig title, image, description) from popular sellers.
Nowadays the fake sellers are taking snippets of other seller's description from here and there, and then pasting them all together not realizing that the description gets inconsistent. One time I found this dude who copied descriptions from at least 3 sellers, and it said something like "I have 4 years of experience..." at the start, and somewhere in the middle it said "with over 10 years of experience..."
Some people are just dumb.

Also logo designs were "big," there were thousands and thousands of "professional" logo designers and all they did was steal images from Google.
I guess these guys are still around.
Another one of course is translation.
The one big problem is that some fake sellers create an account, they will BUY a few reviews as a jump start, and a while later other non-suspecting
buyers are lured in because they see those glowing "Top quality! Will buy again!" comments.  Sadly those buyers don't take the extra step of asking other
people to proofread the translated files.

Those youtube videos where they say "Make money on Fiverr with ZERO skills" ain't helping either.
Some people seriously think that's true.

[lalitsdmittal]

It's not a new thing, there are so many guys on fiverr who created the seller account, and gigs then they send me messages to learn about Digital marketing.

there was a girl who made the gig,  got the order, and then ask me to help her to complete the project. 

[damooch916]

On 3/7/2023 at 11:13 AM, dylesto said:

Are there any unprofessionals at Fiverr Pro?

Absolutely.

Listen, the pink elephant in this already smothered room goes like this: Fiverr is a reflection of business in general. In every arena, for every service, there are few actual, amazing, top notch creators … and then there’s everyone else. This applies to the brick and mortar world as much as it does to the online realm. In every industry there are the exceptionally terrible - the mediocre majority and the truly rare greats. Our job is to navigate the correct linguistic cues to initiate top level conversations. Our job is to differentiate our understanding of the actual service via differently minded qualifying questions. And ultimately our job is to operate at a level that showcases our expertise in an undeniable capacity.

As a pro/TRS I often get messaged by young songwriters looking to rocket themselves up the fiverrian charts. They message me in the hopes to learn a secret recipe. They pose as someone willing to work hard, but their negating of the rules to message me tells the real facts: they want to be given magic tricks to bypass the system.

In almost every instance I offer the same advice: 

“Write better songs.”

Do you know that of the many times I’ve rolled this advice out - not one person has asked how? I’m usually met with the same ego stung, BS, “Oh my songs are great - I just need to learn how to get customers.”

And why not? They operate in a subjective medium, being judged by subjective judges and in none of that does the actual protocol of “learning correctly” ever seem to factor in. Thing is - nothing is subjective and everything has a right way. Only the insecure or the ignorant would beg to differ. And they beg often.  

So when you ask if there are pros who have no business calling themselves pros … well, that’s literally true of all industries and sometimes even the successful are in question.

Its an odd process for a team of people to qualify what constitutes professional credentials. Especially when you’re unaware of the criteria. As an example to that - I’ve spoken to musical pros who couldn’t determine the keys of a song. Likewise - I’ve known legitimate television symphony performers who have been turned down from pro status. Know why? They didn’t have a strong enough social media presence.

That’s a true story. 

The thread line here is the work. Whether you’re the young amateur - pretending to be professional, looking for a handout … or regardless if you’re the old pro, being rejected for absurd metrics of modernity - what will become of your success is always going to be determined by the actual work. The work will speak. The word will spread. The algorithm will favor you when you feed it. Feed it well and it will come back for more.

All in all - you’ll get exactly what you deserve - if you “write better songs.”
 

And you’ll get exactly what you deserve if you don’t. 

[visualstudios]

What a great way of saying fake it till you make it. And after you make it, you better keep faking it. Everything can me unmade.

For real though - fake it till you make it works. It's the only thing that works. But you need to fake it well. It's a skill like any other. The fake must be indistinguishable from the real, that is the only true secret - there is no real. Only better and worse fakes.

Edited March 14, 2023 by visualstudios

[visualstudios]

As always, Bukowski said it best:

"Almost competition

the higher you climb
the greater the pressure.

those who manage to
endure
learn
that the distance
between the
top and the
bottom
is
obscenely
great.

and those who
succeed
know
this secret:
there isn't
one."