Change seller plus

[charlsmcfarlane]

There are many features in seller plus that should be available to all users.

Request to order, advanced analytics, negative keywords. These are simple software features that should be available to everyone.

Fiverr is a business and needs to make money – I get it – but Fiverr takes 20% from seller revenues, including tips, and even charges service fees to the buyer too.

To be clear, I don't think the 20% cut is unreasonable, considering they host this system and help connect buyers with sellers. However, I don't think it's a good model to then also charge sellers to have the latest platform features.

Make the features free for all or reduce the 20% cut to 10% for seller plus members. This would make it feel like a financially worthwhile investment because the more money the seller makes, the more of it they get to keep themselves – and either way, fiverr still gets their 10% cut plus the monthly recurring revenue from the subscription.

Thank you.

[smashradio]

1 hour ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

There are many features in seller plus that should be available to all users.

Request to order, advanced analytics, negative keywords. These are simple software features that should be available to everyone.

Fiverr is a business and needs to make money – I get it – but Fiverr takes 20% from seller revenues, including tips, and even charges service fees to the buyer too.

To be clear, I don't think the 20% cut is unreasonable, considering they host this system and help connect buyers with sellers. However, I don't think it's a good model to then also charge sellers to have the latest platform features.

Make the features free for all or reduce the 20% cut to 10% for seller plus members. This would make it feel like a financially worthwhile investment because the more money the seller makes, the more of it they get to keep themselves – and either way, fiverr still gets their 10% cut plus the monthly recurring revenue from the subscription.

Thank you.

So you're expecting all the perks without paying a dime? Fascinating.

Do you also walk into a restaurant and ask for a free dessert just because you had lunch? 

These aren't just simple software features: they're solutions developed by a hardworking team of developers, UX designers, customer success managers, and other staff at Fiverr, meant to attract more people to pay for Seller Plus. 

Fiverr was staring at a gaping deficit of 72 million dollars last year.  20% of seller revenue can't foot the bill for operating Fiverr Incorporated and turning the company profitable. 

Why should Fiverr pour resources into creating enticing features for Seller Plus - all for the grand cost of nothing?

The only beneficiaries of this would be fledgling sellers who aren't prepared to invest in their businesses.

Fiverr ought to put up a hard paywall: pay or hit the road. The platform is saturated with mediocre sellers not willing or able to invest in their business. To be clear, I'm not questioning your work, but I am saying that this platform would be better off if talented and hard-working people didn't have to share space with freeloaders. 

Most Plus members understand that the 20% fee is merely an operating expense, akin to paying rent, marketing, and hosting costs. We work it into our pricing.

A negligible subscription fee wouldn't offset the loss of 10% revenue from some of Fiverr's top earners. Seller Plus members are typically thriving and are willing to invest in their businesses.

Edited June 26, 2023 by smashradio

[donnovan86]

45 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

To be clear, I don't think the 20% cut is unreasonable, considering they host this system and help connect buyers with sellers. However, I don't think it's a good model to then also charge sellers to have the latest platform features.

 

The thing is, as my esteemed colleague @smashradio said, Fiverr pours a lot of extra resources to deliver these features. I find it ok that they charge extra if you want to access them, since it's not something mandatory. Are they nice to have things? Of course, but that doesn't make them mandatory. You can sell on Fiverr without them and do just fine.

47 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

Request to order, advanced analytics, negative keywords

You already have analytics, this just gives some extra insights. Negative keywords aren't really THAT helpful, at least I don't find any use for that feature. Request to order is great, but that also means you will have way less orders. But it's nice to have if you want more control. Yet, as I said, it's not something mandatory.  And it's not like Seller Plus is going to give you more sales either. It's just extra stuff that you can pay for if you want. It can enhance the selling experience, but it can also do absolutely nothing when it comes to growth and sales. And yes, as I said, some of those features I barely use myself, even if I had Seller Plus from the beginning. 

 

[smashradio]

8 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

The thing is, as my esteemed colleague @smashradio said, Fiverr pours a lot of extra resources to deliver these features. I find it ok that they charge extra if you want to access them, since it's not something mandatory. Are they nice to have things? Of course, but that doesn't make them mandatory. You can sell on Fiverr without them and do just fine.

You already have analytics, this just gives some extra insights. Negative keywords aren't really THAT helpful, at least I don't find any use for that feature. Request to order is great, but that also means you will have way less orders. But it's nice to have if you want more control. Yet, as I said, it's not something mandatory.  And it's not like Seller Plus is going to give you more sales either. It's just extra stuff that you can pay for if you want. It can enhance the selling experience, but it can also do absolutely nothing when it comes to growth and sales. And yes, as I said, some of those features I barely use myself, even if I had Seller Plus from the beginning. 

 

I believe Plus can improve your business in many ways. Access to things like keyword research tools etc., offers you new ways to optimize and grow your business.

But it's still your business. You decide what you want to invest and how.

For instance, I just invested in a Zoom Phone system to offer me more flexibility and stability with my switchboard (I own a newspaper, and it gets many calls each day).

I decided to pay more for Zoom Phone than my current operator because it's a better product. What do you think Zoom would say if I came to them demanding the improved quality they offer at the price I paid for a mediocre one? 

But then again, it's not mandatory. I could have stayed with the cheap service and probably done just fine. But I didn't because I wanted something better for my business. 

Growing and getting access to the tools required to do so takes investment. Building a business doesn't come cheap. Honestly I think the 29/39 price tag for premium is a steal. 

Edited June 26, 2023 by smashradio

[nickj2013]

Seller Plus makes its money much like Promoted Gigs. Off the strength of 'maybe,' and 'perhaps.' 'Perhaps,' Seller Plus will boost your sales. No guarantee, but maybe it will. And as long as that system makes money for Fiverr, they'll never change it. Even though Seller Plus itself, is starting to regress according to some users. Fiverr started Promoted Gigs and Seller Plus, and in theory they sound great. The problem is, these programs aren't sustainable. They're almost like a football team. Red hot in the first half, can't reach the end zone in the second.

[charlsmcfarlane]

Interesting points all round. I would expect Fiverr giving their sellers as many tools as they can, to make more money benefits them too.. The more these tools empower sellers to sell more, the more cuts of 20% they can take. If their sellers had better tools to make a ton more sales, that would certainly help with that deficit too.

Regardless, I don't think I'd use the features myself all that much, which is why I won't buy seller plus. However, if I had access to the features as a non-plus seller, I might have experimented with them – perhaps made a few more sales, which could have been more money in my pocket and more in Fiverr's too.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts. It's interesting to see this from a different perspective.

[nickj2013]

9 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

Interesting points all round. I would expect Fiverr giving their sellers as many tools as they can, to make more money benefits them too.. The more these tools empower sellers to sell more, the more cuts of 20% they can take. If their sellers had better tools to make a ton more sales, that would certainly help with that deficit too.

Regardless, I don't think I'd use the features myself all that much, which is why I won't buy seller plus. However, if I had access to the features as a non-plus seller, I might have experimented with them – perhaps made a few more sales, which could have been more money in my pocket and more in Fiverr's too.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts. It's interesting to see this from a different perspective.

The correct way to build a program like seller plus, is to offer those features for free in the beginning. Then take what components users find most effective, and more importantly... most popular... and offer them a paid version of those components on steroids. So not only are they getting what they want, but an enhanced model of something that's already of great use to them. Fiverr basically took a bunch of random perks and put them behind a paywall to see if users would bite. But now, some of those perks are either not working, or running out of steam. Thus SP not being sustainable.

[smashradio]

1 minute ago, nickj2013 said:

Seller Plus makes its money much like Promoted Gigs. Off the strength of 'maybe,' and 'perhaps.' 'Perhaps,' Seller Plus will boost your sales. No guarantee, but maybe it will. And as long as that system makes money for Fiverr, they'll never change it. Even though Seller Plus itself, is starting to regress according to some users. Fiverr started Promoted Gigs and Seller Plus, and in theory they sound great. The problem is, these programs aren't sustainable. They're almost like a football team. Red hot in the first half, can't reach the end zone in the second.

The wild card in this equation is you. My credit cards tempt me with sweet airline points, but those are only up for grabs if I use it.

The same principle applies here: it's all about what you put into it. I don't think Plus is regressing, but they should consider hiking the price for their Premium tier soon to maintain sustainability.

I don't want to come across as some affluent business tycoon, but let's be honest: in the grand scheme of things, $29 per month is nothing for a business. I routinely shell out for subscriptions that cost me thousands monthly.

3 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

Interesting points all round. I would expect Fiverr giving their sellers as many tools as they can, to make more money benefits them too.. The more these tools empower sellers to sell more, the more cuts of 20% they can take. If their sellers had better tools to make a ton more sales, that would certainly help with that deficit too.

It only works if users return to the platform and continue to spend. They'll only do that if they're satisfied, having found true professionals to work with. Fiverr's challenge is akin to finding a needle in a haystack, and making these tools accessible to the sellers most likely to use them effectively is one way to sort the gold from the grit. The logic being, if you can't or won't invest in your business, you're probably not taking it as seriously as you should. You have to spend money to make money. 

9 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

Regardless, I don't think I'd use the features myself all that much, which is why I won't buy seller plus. However, if I had access to the features as a non-plus seller, I might have experimented with them – perhaps made a few more sales, which could have been more money in my pocket and more in Fiverr's too.

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts. It's interesting to see this from a different perspective.

Your argument reminds me of readers of my newspaper readers and their "Why can't you post this article for free? I'm dying to read it but don't have a subscription and refuse to pay! You'd have a larger readership if it was free!" To this, I often retort, "What's the point of having more readers if none of them are paying?"

Nonetheless, I appreciate your viewpoint! I bet there's a host of sellers out there wishing the Plus features were available at the unbeatable price of free. But that's not how business works, I'm afraid. 

3 minutes ago, nickj2013 said:

The correct way to build a program like seller plus, is to offer those features for free in the beginning. Then take what components users find most effective, and more importantly... most popular... and offer them a paid version of those components on steroids. So not only are they getting what they want, but an enhanced model of something that's already of great use to them. Fiverr basically took a bunch of random perks and put them behind a paywall to see if users would bite. But now, some of those perks are either not working, or running out of steam. Thus SP not being sustainable.

Are there any features that are causing you trouble? Is something not functioning as it should? Have you discussed these issues with your Success Manager? (Or perhaps the Success Manager is the one not working properly?🤣) While your proposal offers one approach, I believe the primary objective of Plus is to accumulate so many features that being here without it will make sense. And I wholeheartedly endorse this strategy.

Fiverr is constantly working on going up-market (just read their shareholder letters, it's there in plain text) and is looking for more professional services and complex projects. Those don't come from part-time freelancers who make 500 bucks a month, using Fiverr as a side quest. It comes from the people willing to invest in growth, i.e., people who can easily afford to pay 39 bucks for tools they feel help their business. If I can land just one additional regular client thanks to Plus, and they stick with for a year, they've paid for Plus for the next 220 months on average)

 

[donnovan86]

48 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

However, if I had access to the features as a non-plus seller, I might have experimented with them – perhaps made a few more sales, which could have been more money in my pocket and more in Fiverr's too.

So Fiverr had a lifetime discount for the first 200 Seller Plus subscribers, I am one of those and I had it ever since they launched it. As I said, I have no use for some features, but others like withdrawing money a week quicker is very handy. Same with faster customer support, that really helped me solve some issues and just enjoy my weekend/day. Are these mandatory? No, but from that to things like sending an email to the seller manager when you have any questions or need assistance, all this stuff can be handy. I kept and will continue to keep this subscription because I do have a cheaper price locked in and I am sure they will add new features to it, they always do. Would I pay $40 every month? That would not make sense for me, but I am sure it does make sense for others.

[charlsmcfarlane]

26 minutes ago, smashradio said:

Your argument reminds me of readers of my newspaper readers and their "Why can't you post this article for free? I'm dying to read it but don't have a subscription and refuse to pay! You'd have a larger readership if it was free!" To this, I often retort, "What's the point of having more readers if none of them are paying?"

Nonetheless, I appreciate your viewpoint! I bet there's a host of sellers out there wishing the Plus features were available at the unbeatable price of free. But that's not how business works, I'm afraid. 

While I understand the analogy, Fiverr is getting a 20% cut of all orders, in addition to what they charge the buyer.

Getting things for free is indeed not how business works, but as long as Fiverr is getting paid for every order on the platform, nothing on the platform is free. 

To be clear, the platform should not be entirely free. Fiverr need to make money and I think the 20% cut is pretty fair. It's charging more on top of that that I'm not so sure about.

[charlsmcfarlane]

5 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

So Fiverr had a lifetime discount for the first 200 Seller Plus subscribers, I am one of those and I had it ever since they launched it. As I said, I have no use for some features, but others like withdrawing money a week quicker is very handy. Same with faster customer support, that really helped me solve some issues and just enjoy my weekend/day. Are these mandatory? No, but from that to things like sending an email to the seller manager when you have any questions or need assistance, all this stuff can be handy. I kept and will continue to keep this subscription because I do have a cheaper price locked in and I am sure they will add new features to it, they always do. Would I pay $40 every month? That would not make sense for me, but I am sure it does make sense for others.

Maybe a free trial would be a good idea then? I'd pay for it if I could try it for a month and prove the benefit of the cost.

[smashradio]

5 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

While I understand the analogy, Fiverr is getting a 20% cut of all orders, in addition to what they charge the buyer.

Getting things for free is indeed not how business works, but as long as Fiverr is getting paid for every order on the platform, nothing on the platform is free. 

To be clear, the platform should not be entirely free. Fiverr need to make money and I think the 20% cut is pretty fair. It's charging more on top of that that I'm not so sure about.

It's charging more on top, yes, but you also get more. Like I said, if I can get just one repeat client, it will pay for itself. If I can't, it's all for the price of a pair of socks. If it was 1000 bucks, fine, but it's 39. If you can't (or won't) invest that into your business and take some risk, you are free to try growing your business without the tools available on plus. As my esteemed colleague @donnovan86 said, it's not mandatory. 

As long as people are willing to pay up front, there's no need for a free trial. Personally, I think it's worth every penny and then some. It has helped me avoid bad buyers, given me a community of talented sellers sharing their best advice in the Plus forum (one I hope I've also contributed to), given me a range of different tools for great quality of life improvements, access to a personal success manager who is awesome, helpful and insightful, allowed me to test features before launch, provide feedback about and helping to develop everything from the new earnings page to the main navigation on Fiverr (which was horrible before), having meetings with the internal teams at Fiverr, participate in round table discussions with other sellers, and provided me with a ton of helpful material to grow my business. 

That's why I continue to invest in Plus, and why I'd happily pay twice as much for it. 

[donnovan86]

26 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

Maybe a free trial would be a good idea then? I'd pay for it if I could try it for a month and prove the benefit of the cost.

You can pay for a month and test it. Maybe go for the expensive one to talk with a success manager and see the full package.

[nickj2013]

32 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

So Fiverr had a lifetime discount for the first 200 Seller Plus subscribers, I am one of those and I had it ever since they launched it. As I said, I have no use for some features, but others like withdrawing money a week quicker is very handy. Same with faster customer support, that really helped me solve some issues and just enjoy my weekend/day. Are these mandatory? No, but from that to things like sending an email to the seller manager when you have any questions or need assistance, all this stuff can be handy. I kept and will continue to keep this subscription because I do have a cheaper price locked in and I am sure they will add new features to it, they always do. Would I pay $40 every month? That would not make sense for me, but I am sure it does make sense for others.

Withdrawing your earnings a week earlier should not be part of a paid program, and actually defeats the purpose of Fiverr's two week waiting period. Initially, we were told this 14 day window exists as a way to give buyers confidence that they can get revisions if necessary or have changes made to orders. While monitoring the integrity of the sale overall. But now it seems that was not true. And Fiverr was just buying time to figure out how to charge sellers a fee to get paid early. Something Upwork doesn't do.

[donnovan86]

7 hours ago, nickj2013 said:

And Fiverr was just buying time to figure out how to charge sellers a fee to get paid early.

If you become a TRS you also wait a week. The paid option is for people that would like to get paid quicker. But don't get this wrong, the buyer can still come back and ask for a refund even if you withdrew the money. You will have -$x in your account so.. it's not like it will make a difference. 

[charlsmcfarlane]

23 hours ago, smashradio said:

It's charging more on top, yes, but you also get more. Like I said, if I can get just one repeat client, it will pay for itself. If I can't, it's all for the price of a pair of socks. If it was 1000 bucks, fine, but it's 39. If you can't (or won't) invest that into your business and take some risk, you are free to try growing your business without the tools available on plus. As my esteemed colleague @donnovan86 said, it's not mandatory. 

As long as people are willing to pay up front, there's no need for a free trial. Personally, I think it's worth every penny and then some. It has helped me avoid bad buyers, given me a community of talented sellers sharing their best advice in the Plus forum (one I hope I've also contributed to), given me a range of different tools for great quality of life improvements, access to a personal success manager who is awesome, helpful and insightful, allowed me to test features before launch, provide feedback about and helping to develop everything from the new earnings page to the main navigation on Fiverr (which was horrible before), having meetings with the internal teams at Fiverr, participate in round table discussions with other sellers, and provided me with a ton of helpful material to grow my business. 

That's why I continue to invest in Plus, and why I'd happily pay twice as much for it. 

Well you certainly sound like a happy customer, and to be fair I haven’t tried it.

I work full-time and run my freelance business through fiverr in my spare time. I usually have enough business to fill that time (and then some) so I don’t imagine it’s for me.

Thanks for sharing your insights.

[smashradio]

18 hours ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

Well you certainly sound like a happy customer, and to be fair I haven’t tried it.

I work full-time and run my freelance business through fiverr in my spare time. I usually have enough business to fill that time (and then some) so I don’t imagine it’s for me.

Thanks for sharing your insights.

No worries! We all have different needs for our businesses. Heck, there are many tools out there that other freelancers swear by that I wouldn't even consider paying for. This week, I've been bombarded with AI time management apps. "Only 29,99 and you'll get a ... CALENDAR!".... ok? ... "IT HAS AI!" ... "So does my Roomba". 

[charlsmcfarlane]

On 6/28/2023 at 7:59 PM, smashradio said:

No worries! We all have different needs for our businesses. Heck, there are many tools out there that other freelancers swear by that I wouldn't even consider paying for. This week, I've been bombarded with AI time management apps. "Only 29,99 and you'll get a ... CALENDAR!".... ok? ... "IT HAS AI!" ... "So does my Roomba". 

Indeed! With so many organisation tools out there, it’s easy to over-engineer one’s workflow. Sometimes, less is more.

[kawsar_log]

Nice thought about 10% charges!

[charlsmcfarlane]

On 7/29/2023 at 9:11 AM, kawsar_log said:

Nice thought about 10% charges!

Thanks. This would be enough incentive for me to sign up