An update on the new option to review canceled orders

[Shiran.M]

Dear sellers,

We would like to follow up on the previous post discussing the upcoming change.
First, we sincerely appreciate your feedback and value the insights you have shared with us. Your concerns have been heard, and we want you to know that we are committed to addressing them in a thoughtful manner. As a result, we have decided to take more time to work on improvements before the implementation of the canceled orders reviews option. This will allow us to make the necessary adjustments to align better with your needs.

We understand that sellers can sometimes face challenges during the order process with buyers. Our aim is to create conditions that promote fairness and ensure that your experiences on our platform are positive.

While we continue to work on these improvements, it's important to emphasize that the reliability of our review system is crucial for the overall success of our platform and our sellers. The goal of enabling reviews on canceled orders is to reflect buyers’ experiences more accurately and increase transparency. We aim to ensure that sellers who provide the best service can really stand out and succeed on Fiverr.

We are actively working on additional enhancements before the launch of this option, and will keep you informed in the upcoming weeks with all the necessary details. We appreciate your patience and encourage you to stay tuned for further updates.

Thank you for being an integral part of the Fiverr community.

The Fiverr team

Edited June 21, 2023 by Shiran.M

[shemanta16]

I am aware of this update though. Anyway, so excited to see the next update! Let's see what's coming soon but I'm sure more flexibility will come soon. Thank you very much for sharing this update.

[uk1000]

2 hours ago, Shiran.M said:

Our aim is to create conditions that promote fairness and ensure that your experiences on our platform are positive.

Is it fair that sellers can give their competitors a bad review/rating? Couldn't that be biased?

Edited June 21, 2023 by uk1000

[coerdelion]

2 hours ago, uk1000 said:

Is it fair that sellers can give their competitors a bad review/rating? Couldn't that be biased?

Sellers who are also buyers can't leave reviews on cancelled orders

[smashradio]

Given the significant backlash from sellers, this reaction wasn't a surprise.

I found myself in the minority, probably one of just two, including @newsmike, who didn't see this as a negative move. But if I were at the helm of Fiverr, I'd certainly revisit this decision.

What caught me off guard about this update was the lack of consultation with veteran sellers before its implementation.

As far as I know (and I might be wrong), none of us were brought into the conversation before you chose to roll it out.

Though my view wouldn't have been any different, I believe a lot of discontents could have been avoided by seeking feedback prior to its public release.

Over the past few years, the staff has done a commendable job taking veteran sellers' insights into account before launching and during development of new projects.

Perhaps you did and asked participants to keep quiet about it, but I'm skeptical. If you had, you would have a lot of this feedback prior to going live with the idea, avoiding pissing off so many sellers in one go.

Just an idea... 😄

[uk1000]

1 hour ago, coerdelion said:

Sellers who are also buyers can't leave reviews on cancelled orders

But should a seller really be able to go and buy a gig in the same subcategory and then leave a bad rating/review for that seller's gig? Surely that's biased/unfair and could be done to destroy their competition. Note: I'm not just talking about cancelled orders here. I'm talking about completed ones too.

The original post said "Our aim is to create conditions that promote fairness" - if that's the case maybe it would be fairer if sellers who have a gig in a particular subcategory can't review another seller's gig in the same subcategory - whether it was completed or not (so they can't try and remove their competitors).

Edited June 21, 2023 by uk1000

[smashradio]

Just now, uk1000 said:

But should a seller really be able to go and buy a gig in the same subcategory and then leave bad rating/review for that seller's gig?

Well... Yes.

I'm a voice actor and translator.  I often engage in projects that need other talents alongside my own. Let's say I commission a female voice-over for a client's commercial I'm producing. If the delivery is terrible, I should be able to voice my experience—after all, my money holds the same value as anyone else's.

I commonly handle localization projects for clients in various languages in my translation projects. The same principle applies here. If I'm supervising a translation project from English into Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, and Spanish, working with three different translators, why shouldn't I have the right to leave feedback?

What if the work is excellent and warrants positive feedback? I've previously elevated a seller's review count from 20 to over 50, all positive, because they consistently deliver top-notch work and are a pleasure to work with. So, shouldn't I have the same opportunity to do this, despite also being a translator?

It's against the community guidelines and terms to leave feedback with the goal of manipulating ratings already. That rule promotes "fairness". Refusing to take my reviews just because I'm also a seller doesn't. 

[uk1000]

3 minutes ago, smashradio said:

It's against the community guidelines and terms to leave feedback with the goal of manipulating ratings already.

If you went to the exact service that you provide (eg. a male voice over) then it would be a lot fairer not to allow you to review as a seller doing that could be biased and it would be hard to prove whether they were doing it to manipulate the ratings or not (maybe they'd go to other sellers slowly giving them lower ratings). But stopping them giving the same service a rating will help prevent that bias.

[coerdelion]

22 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

But should a seller really be able to go and buy a gig in the same subcategory and then leave a bad rating/review for that seller's gig? Surely that's biased/unfair and could be done to destroy their competition. Note: I'm not just talking about cancelled orders here. I'm talking about completed ones too.

The original post said "Our aim is to create conditions that promote fairness" - if that's the case maybe it would be fairer if sellers who have a gig in a particular subcategory can't review another seller's gig in the same subcategory - whether it was completed or not (so they can't try and remove their competitors).

Ah.  Total change of subject designed to confuse.  If you want to talk about whether or not buyers who are also sellers should be able to leave reviews at all, then your best bet is to make your own post about it.

 

 

[newsmike]

1 hour ago, smashradio said:

But if I were at the helm of Fiverr, I'd certainly revisit this decision.

My guess is that this is their way of burying it permanently. 

[newsmike]

1 hour ago, uk1000 said:

Surely that's biased/unfair and could be done to destroy their competition

This seems very unlikely as there are currently 1,666 TRS Voice Over sellers with an average minimum of $50.  And another several hundred PRO sellers at a minimum of $100.  Figuring an average of 2000 sellers at $75 each, it would cost $150,000 to purchase and poorly rate them, and that would only slightly ding the top sellers. Plus Fiverr might notice that I have given 2000 consecutive 1 star reviews.  This has always seemed a specious argument.  

Edited June 21, 2023 by newsmike

[maitasun]

4 hours ago, uk1000 said:

Is it fair that sellers can give their competitors a bad review/rating? Couldn't that be biased?

 

1 hour ago, uk1000 said:

But should a seller really be able to go and buy a gig in the same subcategory and then leave a bad rating/review for that seller's gig? Surely that's biased/unfair and could be done to destroy their competition.

 

50 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

If you went to the exact service that you provide (eg. a male voice over) then it would be a lot fairer not to allow you to review as a seller doing that could be biased and it would be hard to prove whether they were doing it to manipulate the ratings or not (maybe they'd go to other sellers slowly giving them lower ratings).

Buyers that are also sellers have always been able to leave reviews even if they hired sellers from the same category/subcategory.

I don't see why that would need to be different now. It hasn't bothered you before, it should not bother you now.

[gayantha123]

i think as new update it say "excluding first time buyers" . so only repeated buyer can review after canceled . am i correct ? 

[donnovan86]

8 hours ago, smashradio said:

I found myself in the minority, probably one of just two, including @newsmike, who didn't see this as a negative move. But if I were at the helm of Fiverr, I'd certainly revisit this decision.

 

The thing is, it seems they are doing it anyway, it will just be in a new version. So regardless of the situation, sellers will not be happy with this measure. 

[donnovan86]

7 hours ago, maitasun said:

Buyers that are also sellers have always been able to leave reviews even if they hired sellers from the same category/subcategory.

 

The problem now is they can get their money back and seriously put down any competitor while also not spending a dime. 

[catwriter]

4 hours ago, gayantha123 said:

i think as new update it say "excluding first time buyers" . so only repeated buyer can review after canceled . am i correct ? 

Only buyers who have already bought on Fiverr (not necessarily from you) can review an order after it was cancelled. Well, they can't review it yet, they'll only be able to do it after the change is implemented.

[uk1000]

8 hours ago, newsmike said:

This seems very unlikely as there are currently 1,666 TRS Voice Over sellers with an average minimum of $50

For some categories with a lot of gigs (eg. thousands) yes it may be unlikely they may try to downrate their competitors (or more likely their main ones). For subcategories with a lot less gigs then then it may be a lot more likely that they'd do it. It's also unfair if they target gigs costing a 10th of the price of their gigs to give them a lower rating to try to get people to buy their gig. Especially if they make no reference about them using other sellers to do their work on their own gig description. Especially if they pressured the seller they bought from to deliver in half the time the originally ordered for.

It's like if a new restaurant opens in the same place, that hasn't had many reviews. Is it fair that the people from the restaurant near it (who don't want that new restaurant to be there because it would take business away from them) to leave the reviews without disclosing the fact that they're from the restaurant near it (that they are biased)?

If it is allowed (even though it's obviously biased) then maybe Fiverr should say next to the review "this review was left by a competitor". That would at least give buyers info about it.

Edited June 22, 2023 by uk1000

[donnovan86]

2 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

It's like if a new restaurant opens in the same place, that hasn't had many reviews. Is it fair that the people from the restaurant near it (who don't want that new restaurant to be there because it would take business away from them) to leave the reviews without disclosing the fact that they're from the restaurant near it (that they are biased)?

 

Of course it's not but in reality they still do it. 

[uk1000]

13 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

Of course it's not but in reality they still do it. 

But at Fiverr they have the info to know about the bias, to know when someone is a competitor buying the same subcategory/leaf subcategory so they can more easily prevent that bias. Of course some people might try to create fake accounts but they may also be detected and all their accounts removed.

There were lots of sellers sued by amazon for providing paid reviews in the past, obviously those sellers were likely to be biased. But when it's obvious that sellers (competitors) are buying from the same leaf subcategory that their competitors have a gig in, buying the same service they have a gig for, Fiverr should be doing something about the obviously biased (or very likely biased) reviews/ratings they create (if they do leave them). I think the easiest and fairest thing is to just not let those leave a review.

Edited June 22, 2023 by uk1000

[donnovan86]

12 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

Of course some people might try to create fake accounts but they may also be detected and all their accounts removed.

Fiverr can identify bad actors, but obviously things are limited. We need to realize that bad actors can easily ask a friend to buy and post a review, at that point you can't know if it's fake or not. 

[yourbrandingpal]

56 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

But at Fiverr they have the info to know about the bias, to know when someone is a competitor buying the same subcategory/leaf subcategory so they can more easily prevent that bias. Of course some people might try to create fake accounts but they may also be detected and all their accounts removed.

There were lots of sellers sued by amazon for providing paid reviews in the past, obviously those sellers were likely to be biased. But when it's obvious that sellers (competitors) are buying from the same leaf subcategory that their competitors have a gig in, buying the same service they have a gig for, Fiverr should be doing something about the obviously biased (or very likely biased) reviews/ratings they create (if they do leave them). I think the easiest and fairest thing is to just not let those leave a review.

True, the kind of resources they have, I am sure there is a lot they can do/do differently, baffles me really, not sure if it's lack of project managers and action takers or if it's lack of experience or cost or what really, but I just feel that they should have better checking systems in place. Plus, I feel that mechanisms such as the private review should not be used to penalize anyone (I mean, how would one improve if the feedback isn't shared?). At the very least, there should be a strike system in place, where if you are an established seller, you don't immediately get sandboxed after just 1 bad private review.  There is scope for improvement for sure, baby steps I guess. But hey, they did listen to their users and rolled back this change, so that's a positive,

[newsmike]

6 hours ago, uk1000 said:

It's like if a new restaurant opens in the same place, that hasn't had many reviews. Is it fair that the people from the restaurant near it (who don't want that new restaurant to be there because it would take business away from them) to leave the reviews without disclosing the fact that they're from the restaurant near it (that they are biased)?

That is exactly how Yelp, Amazon and all the big sites operate. The fact that on Yelp you can leave a review without even having made a purchase in the first place is far worse, yet it seems that businesses survive. At least on Fiverr you have to make a purchase first, then even if cancelled, you don't get a refund, you get a Fiverr credit.  How much would experienced sellers waste on less successful sellers when they lose revenue they worked for and have to pay taxes on, only to end up with a bunch of credit on Fiverr?  It does not seem likely that anyone would spend the time or money necessary to make such an effort, especially against less successful sellers. But I guess it could happen occasionally. I just don't see it as much of a threat, or it paying out because even in small verticals it would still take a good deal of money. 

[smashradio]

22 hours ago, uk1000 said:

If you went to the exact service that you provide (eg. a male voice over) then it would be a lot fairer not to allow you to review as a seller doing that could be biased and it would be hard to prove whether they were doing it to manipulate the ratings or not (maybe they'd go to other sellers slowly giving them lower ratings). But stopping them giving the same service a rating will help prevent that bias.

You'd think so at first glance. But if a project called for another male VO besides me, it would also be unfair to refuse me the right to leave feedback on a product I spent real money on. I've considered this a risk myself, and sure, the risk is there, but so is the risk of competing businesses doing it in the real world. If there's a pattern of fraud involved over time, I'm pretty sure Fiverr could identify that. 

And let's not forget that a review from me to another male VO, could also be considered an expert opinion, potentially benefiting future buyers (and the seller themselves, if they do a good job). If there's something I might dislike, I can also provide constructive criticism that helps them improve in the future. 

My main argument still stands, though: As soon as I buy something, I'm a customer, regardless of whether I also happen to be a seller. Every paying customer should have the right to express their opinion about a service.

21 hours ago, newsmike said:

My guess is that this is their way of burying it permanently. 

Yep. 

21 hours ago, newsmike said:

This seems very unlikely as there are currently 1,666 TRS Voice Over sellers with an average minimum of $50.  And another several hundred PRO sellers at a minimum of $100.  Figuring an average of 2000 sellers at $75 each, it would cost $150,000 to purchase and poorly rate them, and that would only slightly ding the top sellers. Plus Fiverr might notice that I have given 2000 consecutive 1 star reviews.  This has always seemed a specious argument.  

^ This. 

13 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

The thing is, it seems they are doing it anyway, it will just be in a new version. So regardless of the situation, sellers will not be happy with this measure. 

I don't think so, at least not in its current form. The backlash was too strong from people who were afraid of others expressing their opinion openly. If they return with a... less potent version of this, sellers will still be unhappy because they're always unhappy about something. This was the fad of the week.

Personally, I think they just want us to forget this ever happened and silently introduce bigger changes over time. Perhaps they'll just introduce a feedback form asking the buyer privately about why they had to cancel the order, with certain alternatives counting towards your gig quality metrics, as they did with revision requests. Get too many "partial delivery" or "low-quality deliveries," and you're flagged by the system. 

13 hours ago, uk1000 said:

For some categories with a lot of gigs (eg. thousands) yes it may be unlikely they may try to downrate their competitors (or more likely their main ones). For subcategories with a lot less gigs then then it may be a lot more likely that they'd do it. It's also unfair if they target gigs costing a 10th of the price of their gigs to give them a lower rating to try to get people to buy their gig. Especially if they make no reference about them using other sellers to do their work on their own gig description. Especially if they pressured the seller they bought from to deliver in half the time the originally ordered for.

It's like if a new restaurant opens in the same place, that hasn't had many reviews. Is it fair that the people from the restaurant near it (who don't want that new restaurant to be there because it would take business away from them) to leave the reviews without disclosing the fact that they're from the restaurant near it (that they are biased)?

If it is allowed (even though it's obviously biased) then maybe Fiverr should say next to the review "this review was left by a competitor". That would at least give buyers info about it.

It would still be way more expensive to pay for taking down your competition, both in terms of money and time, than it would be actually to do a good job. People with little to no talent can't afford it, and the truly talented sellers don't need to do it. I don't think this is or will be a huge concern. 

 

[newsmike]

21 minutes ago, smashradio said:

The backlash was too strong from people who were afraid of others expressing their opinion openly.

Agree. They caved to people who want less transparency in the process. Very telling, but they did not want the noise, so they folded. Fiverr tried to to the correct thing, but decided the prison riot was not worth the time. So yay, angry mob got less transparency and continued sanitized reviews. 

Edited June 22, 2023 by newsmike

[donnovan86]

18 minutes ago, smashradio said:

Personally, I think they just want us to forget this ever happened and silently introduce bigger changes over time. Perhaps they'll just introduce a feedback form asking the buyer privately about why they had to cancel the order, with certain alternatives counting towards your gig quality metrics, as they did with revision requests. Get too many "partial delivery" or "low-quality deliveries," and you're flagged by the system. 

14 hours ago, uk1000 said:

So making that even worse? The private thing and going behind our back with sellers not having any idea what their buyer satisfaction rate is.. and gigs randomly going out of search for a short or long time randomly. That gives way less control over our business. I understand if someone had a very bad review, obviously you expect that to happen. But in my case in the last 5 months almost I barely had a bad review,  and while asking my SM they said that my buyer satisfaction rate can be improved.. it is ascending but still, I would prefer to have a number, graph.. something as a part of Seller Plus to see that. And maybe we can see a collage of what exactly buyers disliked the most, was it communication, etc. 

I mean, I understand they want to make buyers feel safe with private review, but how can a seller improve when they did something wrong if they have no idea what that wrong thing is in the first place. As I said, I had great ratings overall in the past few months and despite that the buyer satisfaction rate doesn't match what I see publicly, and I also have no idea why that is...

Anyway, I am done rambling. I think this will come back. Fiverr wants to prevent people from canceling orders, and they also want to show what sellers are serial cancellation machines. They do want more transparency, so I don't see a private form being the right solution here. That's my opinion, this will come back in a less intrusive way and as I said and you also said, people won't be happy anyway. After all, when were we happy after any change? We just went ahead and adapted 🙂