Fiverr's Changing ...Are You?

[visualstudios]

1 hour ago, vickieito said:

However, there's still a huge stigma that Fiverr is a cheap, $5 platform where you can get cheap services.

It's called Fiverr. That's a major branding issue, by design, from the beginning. It's a terrible name for a serious, high value platform.

[visualstudios]

1 hour ago, donnovan86 said:

Also, if they remove low-priced gigs, more than half the sales on this platform (if not more) will go away, because I am certain most sales are under the $50-$100 pricepoint.

This is false in terms of revenue. I read all the quarterly earnings reports. Q1, 2023, states clearly that about half the revenue was generated by orders over $200. It certainly has moved further in that direction since. If we add the $100-$200 group in there, it increases greatly. The orders under $100 represent much less than half the sales on the platform at the moment.

Relevant excerpt from Q1 report:

Edited August 15, 2023 by visualstudios

[moikchap]

Q2 letter references an even larger order.

"For example, one of our largest transactions in Q2’23 was a $20,000+ order where a B2B wellness company needed a customized app for educational and coaching services."

Both cases it's for a full app which would require a broad set of disciplines to complete well. So these would likely be a company hiring a studio.

They say the average spend per active buyer is $265 per year. I recall them also once saying some percentage of buyers were "Power Buyers" who had done over $500 a year. I forget the math, but from what I recall, with the various data points they've provided, it seemed to me like buyer spend was very closely following an 80/20 pareto principle. So probably about 800k buyers are spending an average of $2k/yr.

[visualstudios]

Yes, but I'm not focusing on larger orders only, the main takeaway is that the orders above $100 are representing a bigger and bigger slice of the market, over time. So the often repeated talking point that "low price sellers make up  the majority of Fiverr's revenue since they sell so many gigs and are so many" is not true any longer.

[vickieito]

14 minutes ago, moikchap said:

So probably about 800k buyers are spending an average of $2k/yr.

If Fiverr is targeting business buyers, $2k is really low (this averages to only $167 per month, which is nothing). 

[moikchap]

Possibly the forum and Fiverr have different definitions of a "business" buyer. I find the average person anticipates any business owner to be wealthy simply by virtue of owning a business, but 80% of new businesses fail in their first five years. Staying even just revenue neutral is hard. I can see formal budgets for traditional businesses being "small" like that, especially if they're new launches. 

Fiverr might be targeting a definition of business which is more about activity rather than affluence where the recurring nature of a product development life cycle will lead to better stability. Like, they may be suspecting that those who subscribe to small services might be better than those who slap down big orders irregularly. My day job is in the mobile games industry and you see that a lot in discussions of monetization. Sure, whales slapping down 1k on cosmetics all at once is a nice surprise, but a bunch of people buying the battle pass every month is a lot less stressful. It opens up more-willing investment due to the lower perceived risk.

[catwriter]

2 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

there was one for writers but all I learned from there was how can I use AI as a business owner to write my own content, not as a writer. So yeah, those webinars are a clear skip at least for me. 

There was one recently, where the seller talked about the prompts she created that helped her write articles faster (but human touch was still very much needed, and it wasn't something that a business owner would have enough time to do).

[donnovan86]

14 minutes ago, catwriter said:

There was one recently, where the seller talked about the prompts she created that helped her write articles faster (but human touch was still very much needed, and it wasn't something that a business owner would have enough time to do).

True.

In any case, I for one didn't find anything new to learn in the past few webinars that I attended. I will join a few more, but generally these don't seem to be for me, maybe they might help newer people. 

[newsmike]

2 hours ago, visualstudios said:

It's called Fiverr. That's a major branding issue, by design, from the beginning. It's a terrible name for a serious, high value platform.

Corporate name change is not hard, and has been done on a much more grand scale than Fiverr.

 

 

[vickieito]

Just now, newsmike said:

Corporate name change is not hard, and has been done on a much more grand scale than Fiverr.

Wow ... BackRub?! 😂

Great examples, @newsmike! I had no idea those companies came from those names. The names really do make a difference.

Fiverr definitely needs to do the same. Currently, its name gives the same feel as the "Then" column.

[newsmike]

2 minutes ago, vickieito said:

Wow ... BackRub?! 😂

Great examples, @newsmike! I had no idea those companies came from those names. The names really do make a difference.

Fiverr definitely needs to do the same. Currently, its name gives the same feel as the "Then" column.

Yeah, the only think Fiverr can mean is "cheap." 

[donnovan86]

4 minutes ago, newsmike said:

Yeah, the only think Fiverr can mean is "cheap." 

Well they need a name that's not related to any pricepoint. It should be more focused on the digital service aspect, in my opinion. But who knows, maybe they will just stick to it since they invested so much in brand recognition. We'll see. 

[newsmike]

50 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

Well they need a name that's not related to any pricepoint. It should be more focused on the digital service aspect, in my opinion. But who knows, maybe they will just stick to it since they invested so much in brand recognition. We'll see. 

Yeah, watch them rebrand as TenDolla.

[visualstudios]

Upwork is a great name, actually. They should just buy them out!

[visualstudios]

41 minutes ago, newsmike said:

Yeah, watch them rebrand as TenDolla.

Nah. Tennerr, obviously. 

[moikchap]

Could just change what the five is referring to. Pull some shenanigans like

Five million satisfied buyers.
Five thousand roles filled.
Five hundred options.
Five stars.
Fiverr
 

Edited August 15, 2023 by moikchap

[visualstudios]

The issue is that doesn't change the public perception and reputation, which has already been established.

[nickj2013]

Change is always good. The problem is, atleast in my opinion, is that the changes Fiverr's currently making have no real direction or purpose. They feel mostly, to be honest, like the platform overseers are throwing stuff against the wall to see if it sticks. I think the platform was better logistically during the pandemic, than it is now. Which is an insane thing to say, yet here we are. Its functionality, customer flow, order quality, client communication... have only gotten worse coming out of those troubled two years or so. Even this here community forum, doesn't seem as optimistic, valuable, and efficient as it used to be.

[visualstudios]

2 minutes ago, nickj2013 said:

I think the platform was better logistically during the pandemic, than it is now. Which is an insane thing to say,

Money was cheap during the pandemic. It's not insane, it's pretty obvious. All remote / work from home / tech businesses were golden during the pandemic. They could do no wrong.

Edited August 16, 2023 by visualstudios

[vickieito]

3 minutes ago, nickj2013 said:

Even this here community forum, doesn't seem as optimistic, valuable, and efficient as it used to be.

I hear that a lot but haven't experienced it since I've only been on the forum since May of last year. What did you like about the old forum (that's not here now)?

[nickj2013]

8 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Money was cheap during the pandemic. It's not insane, it's pretty obvious. All remote / work from home / tech businesses were golden during the pandemic. They could do no wrong.

Depends on which ones you mean. Some crashed and burned after the pandemic, some during. All about the product they were offering. But prior to the pandemic, Fiverr specifically was a much better platform environmentally. It just felt like during the pandemic, it hit a new gear. Which is/was to be expected. Of course that bubble wasn't gonna be sustainable. But the come down shouldn't have been this visceral.

[visualstudios]

2 minutes ago, nickj2013 said:

But the come down shouldn't have been this visceral.

Tightening monetary policy. A flow of new freelancers with a simultaneous contraction of the buyer market. War in Europe. AI coming out of nowhere and basically wiping out entire fields of work. Just look at the stock, basically a 90% drop from highs. I think it's doing quite well, in terms of my personal experience and business, given the externalities.

Edited August 16, 2023 by visualstudios

[moikchap]

1 hour ago, visualstudios said:

The issue is that doesn't change the public perception and reputation, which has already been established.

The "establishment" of a public perception and reputation is less concrete than it would seem to an individual. At social scales, it can change almost annually as old cohorts exit the market and new ones enter. It's like the XKCD 10,000 Comic writ large. A lot of people don't know about fiverr at all let alone it's reputation.

Edited August 16, 2023 by moikchap

[nickj2013]

11 minutes ago, vickieito said:

I hear that a lot but haven't experienced it since I've only been on the forum since May of last year. What did you like about the old forum (that's not here now)?

The conversations on the old forum (circa 2014 - 2020), were much more robust and informative. Although I didn't post much because I was busy running a whole website, writing screenplays, filling orders here on Fiverr, plus working a day job, and a volunteer job. But I could always scroll the forum and pick up useful tips, and information. There were many great threads I just didn't have time to be a part of though. But every now and then, when I could I'd chime in. However now, it seems most topics are just empty calories. Although I think some of it is because Fiverr has cracked down on certain content. Such as threads started to help gigs get exposure, promotion, or ones created where users could trade awareness of each other's gigs.

[nickj2013]

8 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

Tightening monetary policy. A flow of new freelancers with a simultaneous contraction of the buyer market. War in Europe. AI coming out of nowhere and basically wiping out entire fields of work. Just look at the stock, basically a 90% drop from highs. I think it's doing quite well, in terms of my personal experience and business, given the externalities.

I agree on buyer blues. Customers have certainly vanished from here in many aspects. However their replacements are awful.