Fiverr 4.0 - Some thoughts on the current state of things

[nickkold]

14 hours ago, danno1950 said:

Request to Order came out as my sales were beginning to slip. At first I set it up for all my gigs. Then I scaled back on my setup of that feature, thinking that maybe in Fiverr's wish for quick transactions, they might drop you down in search results if you didn't have "quick completion of orders" capability.

I would love to hear thoughts about this as well. I currently have it on, on all my gigs. It's just nice to know that I won't get an order I can't complete or need to finish quickly all of a sudden. But if it's impacting my gigs - I will of course change this. My order and impressions have dropped as well. Any thoughts/experience with Request to Order?

[donnovan86]

2 hours ago, nickkold said:

My order and impressions have dropped as well. Any thoughts/experience with Request to Order?

So I have it only on a gig that rarely receives orders, but it does seem to work pretty well. 

The thing is, a lot of people want to place an order directly. The fact that they need to wait for you to reply to a message disrupts that fast experience and instant gratification of placing an order. I think it all depends on your pricepoint. For higher pricepoint gigs, people always need to contact first anyway. But if you have a smaller pricepoint, then I can see Request to Order affecting you. I am curious, the number of clicks is similar to previous months? 

[nickkold]

2 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

So I have it only on a gig that rarely receives orders, but it does seem to work pretty well. 

The thing is, a lot of people want to place an order directly. The fact that they need to wait for you to reply to a message disrupts that fast experience and instant gratification of placing an order. I think it all depends on your pricepoint. For higher pricepoint gigs, people always need to contact first anyway. But if you have a smaller pricepoint, then I can see Request to Order affecting you. I am curious, the number of clicks is similar to previous months? 

Yeah, that makes sense. For me, clicks have dropped as well. Not much, but definitely less than in previous months. I also suspect new customers could have an impact on my ratings lately. I have had a couple of demanding customers in the past month. I used to be first page on a lot of my gigs in various categories (I know, lucky), but lately they have dropped to page 2, 3 and 4 (not that this is bad in itself). Happened to about 6 of my gigs. Giving it time, seems about right, because I've seen my gigs fall up and down on the first page a lot. Giving space to new sellers and other Pro sellers. It's only fair of course.

[donnovan86]

5 minutes ago, nickkold said:

I used to be first page on a lot of my gigs in various categories (I know, lucky), but lately they have dropped to page 2, 3 and 4 (not that this is bad in itself).

Same, as I said in this thread, my success manager said the drop has to do with first time buyers. So yeah, I am very hesitant when it comes to taking on new customers, as that can be extremely challenging...

[itechoza]

Dear Fiverr community,

I am writing to seek some advice and guidance regarding my experience as a Level 2 seller on Fiverr. Despite being an active and successful seller on the platform, I have recently experienced a significant decline in my business, with few to no requests or orders coming in.

To give you some background, I have been selling my services on Fiverr for several years, and have achieved Level 2 status due to my high ratings and positive customer feedback. However, I have not updated my gigs in some time, and have noticed a decline in interest and engagement from potential buyers.

I am struggling to understand why this is happening, and am looking for any insights or advice from other experienced Fiverr sellers. How important is it to update your gigs regularly? Is there anything else I should be doing to increase my visibility and attract new buyers?

Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated, as I am keen to get my business back on track and continue to grow and succeed on Fiverr.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Best regards,

itechoza

[danno1950]

Well here's an interesting side note about the slump issue, combined with AI. I turned Buyer Briefs back on recently, figuring I'd do it "just in case," and "wanting to leave no stone unturned." I just received a Buyer Brief that was - an actual match. I almost fell down in shock.

Part two - the Brief was to edit AI generated business content, to make it "sound more human." I set up a brief for that specific purpose several weeks back, thinking that as businesspeople began to learn how to work with chat gpt and the other generators, they would realize that it still needed to be edited.

It's a pretty interesting confluence of circumstances. I've responded to the Brief, and we'll see if anything comes of it. But I am heartened by the direction. I do know that my AI Content Editing gig got a massive number of impressions and clicks, so maybe this is a result of businesspeople learning how to generate content with AI.

Edited April 5, 2023 by danno1950

[vickiespencer]

14 hours ago, itechoza said:

I have recently experienced a significant decline in my business, with few to no requests or orders coming in.

If you take the time to read this thread, you will find many sellers are having this experience. 

[visualstudios]

14 hours ago, itechoza said:

However, I have not updated my gigs in some time

Maybe you should?

[mabelma]

21 hours ago, visualstudios said:

Maybe you should?

I agree. Updating your gigs should be something you do at least every 3-4 months, to showcase your best and newest work. To answer frequently asked questions right in your description and fix anything that might be costing you possible orders. 

[guillermospada]

On 5/4/2023 at 3:41, itechoza said:

Estimada comunidad de Fiverr,

Le escribo para buscar algunos consejos y orientación sobre mi experiencia como vendedor de nivel 2 en Fiverr. A pesar de ser un vendedor activo y exitoso en la plataforma, recientemente experimenté una disminución significativa en mi negocio, con pocas o ninguna solicitud o pedido entrante.

Para brindarle algunos antecedentes, he estado vendiendo mis servicios en Fiverr durante varios años y he alcanzado el nivel 2 debido a mis altas calificaciones y comentarios positivos de los clientes. Sin embargo, no he actualizado mis conciertos en algún tiempo y he notado una disminución en el interés y el compromiso de los compradores potenciales.

Me cuesta entender por qué sucede esto y busco información o consejos de otros vendedores experimentados de Fiverr. ¿Qué tan importante es actualizar tus conciertos regularmente? ¿Hay algo más que deba hacer para aumentar mi visibilidad y atraer nuevos compradores?

Cualquier ayuda u orientación sería muy apreciada, ya que estoy ansioso por volver a encarrilar mi negocio y continuar creciendo y teniendo éxito en Fiverr.

Gracias por tu tiempo y atención.

Atentamente,

itecoza

If the same thing happens to me, I haven't received anything for 2 months, I'm a level 2 with high qualifications... Open to having patience

[schreibmaschine]

Glad I stumbled across this thread.

I've been selling on Fiverr for 5 years – practically all the time I was maxed out with orders. More orders than I could handle.

Past 2 to 3 weeks the drop-off in messages and orders is unlike I ever experienced. Above all, promoted Gigs is not working at all this year. This year, I spend 360 USD in promoted ads...0 return. Really astonishing. My SM said the marketplace overall is just really slow this year.

Since I see a lot of otherwise successful sellers having barely any orders, I can only explain it with two factors:

- AI
- recession

AI probably being the bigger one. I mean, Fiverr put that "open letter to AI" on the front page of the New York Times. You don't have to be a genius to guess that ChatGPT has a HUGE impact on Fiverrs business if they felt the need to publish that letter – basically saying, "hey, but you still need humans!"

 

 

 

Edited April 7, 2023 by schreibmaschine

[williambryan392]

I've been waiting to comment on this fully because I took 30 days off in February as unavailable so I thought this was another variable thrown into the mix. I also paused a couple of gigs a few weeks ago.

What I'm finding strange is that my impressions are pretty good, but the amount of messages has really dropped off, and so has the number of orders. Back in January I was getting 3 or 4 orders a day, for the least couple of weeks it's averaging 1 or less. But I've still been getting some Fiverr Choice orders. That's the really strange thing to me.

So, I'm assuming that my BSS is good otherwise I wouldn't be getting FC or good impressions.

I've also noticed that on certain days when I do get messages they are all often from specific parts of the world, whereas before they were random.

I do feel something has changed, whether it's the algorithm, the upcoming/present recession, recent layoffs causing more new sellers, or something else- I have no idea. Probably a combination.

I would be surprised if I wasn't alone in saying that I had got a little comfortable with the order regularity, and so hadn't updated my gigs for at least 6 months. Time for some changes. 

[leannelrivers]

3 hours ago, schreibmaschine said:

AI probably being the bigger one.

My new AI voiceover gig (human doing AI) has had the most impressions and clicks in the past week. No orders. I wonder if clients are actually looking for a human to do character AI, or if they think it's actually AI. 

 

1 hour ago, williambryan392 said:

I would be surprised if I wasn't alone in saying that I had got a little comfortable with the order regularity, and so hadn't updated my gigs for at least 6 months. Time for some changes. 

You're definitely not alone here. I got very comfortable because I was getting plenty of orders, and was always encouraged to "build my Fiverr business"... and the Fiverr Business profile promised a lot and delivered next to nothing. the last Fiverr Business query I got was spam. So I've refreshed all my gigs but I've returned to almost redundant profiles elsewhere and also joined other platforms and applied to agencies. 

[smartpad]

2 hours ago, williambryan392 said:

I've also noticed that on certain days when I do get messages they are all often from specific parts of the world, whereas before they were random.

As a seller, it's important to stay aware of these patterns and adjust your approach accordingly. For example, if you notice an increase in messages from a particular region, you might consider tailoring your services or marketing efforts to better appeal to that audience. 

[newsmike]

On 4/5/2023 at 2:15 PM, danno1950 said:

I do know that my AI Content Editing gig got a massive number of impressions and clicks

Any sales?

[newsmike]

They do know how to shoot themselves in the foot better than anyone else, we unfortunately are the collateral damage.

 

[donnovan86]

5 hours ago, leannelrivers said:

I wonder if clients are actually looking for a human to do character AI, or if they think it's actually AI. 

I think it's just people checking the market. I know some writers also have AI editing gigs and those have a lot of impressions, but few to no orders. 

16 minutes ago, newsmike said:

Any sales?

I think he said he had a sale, but that was after quite a long time. So yeah, while it makes sense to have an AI editing gig, the chances of generating sales are rather low, honestly. I was thinking about creating such a gig myself, but I saw pro sellers that had multiple AI editing gigs started at the beginning of this year, and never got any sales. Same with level 2 or TRS.. 

[danno1950]

27 minutes ago, newsmike said:

On 4/5/2023 at 2:15 PM, danno1950 said:

I do know that my AI Content Editing gig got a massive number of impressions and clicks

Any sales?

Nope. In the Pro category there are only a couple of sales so far. 

[donnovan86]

50 minutes ago, danno1950 said:

Nope. In the Pro category there are only a couple of sales so far. 

And even outside of the Pro category, if you see people with more than a couple of sales, those are just older gigs converted to AI editing. So yeah, not exactly a best seller idea. But again, worth a shot, especially if it brings people to your profile. 

[uk1000]

1 hour ago, donnovan86 said:

if you see people with more than a couple of sales, those are just older gigs converted to AI editing.

For some of them that seems to be the case, though there's one on the first page of the top selling sort option that says "I will AI content editing..." and has 20 reviews and even though the seller joined in 2017 the gig seems to have been created in 2023 and it has "ai-content-editing" in the URL (and the URL can't be changed after publishing).

So I think any that have something like "ai-content-editing" in the URL mustn't be ones that are older gigs that were converted to AI ones (because of URLs not being allowed to be changed after publishing).

Edited April 7, 2023 by uk1000

[donnovan86]

16 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

So I think any that have something like "ai-content-editing" in the URL mustn't be ones that are older gigs that were converted to AI ones (because of URLs not being allowed to be changed after publishing).

True. But in general, if you check that category, there are barely any sales, considering there are 1,288 services available... And I know for a fact some of them were closed, so there were more. But yeah, I don't see it as a successful main business, at least for me. It's still worth a shot to diversify your offers I guess. 

[sabinespoems]

22 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

It's still worth a shot to diversify your offers I guess. 

I saw someone having a gig in my niche offering to 'write AI generated poetry'. The 'write' is already hilarious in that context. But what amused me more, for a lack of a better word, was that this person doesn't offer revisions or editing. 

I wonder why. 

This person doesn't have any sales yet. What a surprise! Sadly, it's something I do think some people could fall for. 

 

[donnovan86]

3 minutes ago, sabinespoems said:

This person doesn't have any sales yet. What a surprise! Sadly, it's something I do think some people could fall for. 

 

Exactly. There are a lot of people trying to hop on the trend. But the truth is that no, people don't fall for it. Many of them prefer to just generate content with AI and modify it themselves a bit. That's why AI editing gigs don't really have a lot of orders anyway. As I said earlier, they might be a good way to drive traffic to profiles, so I might create one just for the sake of it to see how many impressions it actually brings. 

[vickiespencer]

10 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

so I might create one just for the sake of it to see how many impressions it actually brings. 

Let us know how that works out. I had a glimmer of sunshine when I had a few orders at the beginning of April, but now I hear only crickets. Well, except for a new Fiverr buyer whose average seller rating was 4.2, whom I blocked after they contacted me.  

I will contact my SPM to see where my BSR is. 

[newsmike]

33 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

As I said earlier, they might be a good way to drive traffic to profiles, so I might create one just for the sake of it to see how many impressions it actually brings. 

Can you kill your conversion rate like this?  Lots of people browsing AI junk who click on and then off your gigs without buying?