Improvements to our availability feature

[web_pilotz]

On 9/21/2023 at 6:20 PM, Noam.Arik said:

Based on valuable feedback from our community, we have made several fixes and improvements to our availability feature. We want you to take vacations, and want them to be stress-free! These updates will ensure that changing  your availability status does not negatively impact your business or compromise your services and visibility on Fiverr. Read more here.

I think this gives the sellers some advantage. Because sometimes we have to take mandatory vacations. Emergencies, Accidents, Hospitalizations. I hope this option helps to minimize the impact on us in such cases on the platform

[yasad3]

Thank you for sharing the updates regarding the availability feature on Fiverr. It's great to hear that you're working to make it easier for freelancers like myself to manage our availability without affecting our business negatively. This is definitely a step in the right direction, and it shows that Fiverr cares about the well-being of its freelancers. If there are any specific changes or instructions on how to use the updated availability feature, please feel free to share, and I'll be happy to learn more about it. Thank you, Fiverr❤️

[chatcosmique]

Hello to everyone!

On 9/21/2023 at 9:39 AM, visualstudios said:

this is the type of thing that makes users not trust the platform. Either it will be or it won't - this is a career for many people, so they need absolutes, not maybes. I never activated that feature, and I still won't, there's no reason to risk it. Even if they claimed "it won't", I don't know if it can be trusted or not. We need transparent systems, with transparent metrics, otherwise we can't know what affects us and what doesn't, regardless of what's said.

When I want to take some time off, I just need to keep replying to messages once a day, with request to order on. 

On 9/21/2023 at 9:34 AM, melanielm said:

I've looked over that page and can't quite figure out what's different. Could you specify?

Also, what does "your visibility will not necessarily be negatively impacted" mean? That sounds like it could absolutely still be negatively impacted just like it was all along. What has changed there?

 Alright so y'all telling me using the availability feature all this time was causing negative impact on my gigs? Man I did not know. My visibility went down drastically since last year for gigs that were always popular. I thought it was just the market chaing but since this availability option came out I started using it. Sometimes I rather not receive more orders without prior contact from the buyer, so at least once every two weeks I use this feature, sometimes with the option to keep receiving messages, sometimes with that option off if I'm really taking days off. My only problem with that feature was that most of the times when I sent offers to clients while having the availability off, they weren't able to order and it was annoying because I did want to keep it off while working with those clients specifically. But I had no idea it had direct impact on my visibility and now that I know it does make sense and it sucks. 

[donnovan86]

1 hour ago, patrickcharlie said:

So now you admit that it did very much impact the gigs. 

You also have to realize that Fiverr as a marketplace is not static. If you are out for weeks, obviously a lot of people will sell way more and generate better stats. Fiverr's algorithm will compare you with the performance of others, and that's why it takes a while to recover. It's just like in real life, if you are a competitive athlete and don't exercise or maintain your regimen for a few weeks or a month, you will have less performance when compared to the other people that do it.

[visualstudios]

4 minutes ago, chatcosmique said:

 Alright so y'all telling me using the availability feature all this time was causing negative impact on my gigs? Man I did not know. My visibility went down drastically since last year for gigs that were always popular. I thought it was just the market chaing but since this availability option came out I started using it. Sometimes I rather not receive more orders without prior contact from the buyer, so at least once every two weeks I use this feature, sometimes with the option to keep receiving messages, sometimes with that option off if I'm really taking days off. My only problem with that feature was that most of the times when I sent offers to clients while having the availability off, they weren't able to order and it was annoying because I did want to keep it off while working with those clients specifically. But I had no idea it had direct impact on my visibility and now that I know it does make sense and it sucks.

We can't know for sure, that's the issue. It may just be coincidence, it may just be that using out of office harms your positioning. That's the real problem with a lot of the systems in place - people can't know exactly how they work, so all we can do is speculate. If everything was clear and transparent ("do x, y will happen"), we could make much more informed decisions.

Btw, as for clients ordering without contact, just use request to order.

Edited September 22, 2023 by visualstudios

[melanielm]

I'm still not sure what is actually new about this. We could always set availability, have our gigs hidden, a notification on the gig, a message to potential buyers, and decide whether we could get contacted or not. None of that is new. Is the 'it won't necessarily impact you' new? That doesn't sound new at all either. It did absolutely impact us before, but it still really sounds like it might.

WHAT is new about this? There are tons of people saying that it's such a great change, so someone must understand. 

[angle_moni]

For the last 3 years, I have not been able to take any vacation, I have not been able to travel anywhere, and life has become completely boring.

But if Fiverr would make an arrangement every year that would gift us $500 for 7 days of vacation a year and our profile would be fine.

I considered myself a proud member of a fiverr.

Thanks in advance.

[azeemkhan401]

Good to hear. But to change other things. like bid system. Not getting orders without it.

[alexfun]

3 hours ago, visualstudios said:

Really? You'll hire someone and give them access to your Fiverr account? No way I would ever do that. I'm not even sure that's allowed according to TOS, but even if it is, nobody is getting my login.

yes thats right, I can not trust anybody else to get access to my account. 

[juliaherve776]

I sincerely think this feature is not necessary. I've been trying to wrap my head around why the sudden development. I, personally, have never complained of of the visibility status. Maybe some other persons have. But I'm good.

 

Thanks by the way.

[spaintranslator]

On 9/21/2023 at 9:39 AM, visualstudios said:

they need absolutes, not maybes.

Bravo! Totally agree with you.

[spaintranslator]

3 hours ago, tantrikasound said:

I don't understand. Let's say I've took 3 important jobs on Fiverr from clients, and I need to focus only on those 3 projects because I can't take more workload. Let's say that those big projects require 3 months to be finished. Why should I be penalized if i set myself unavailable for more than 30 days to focus only on those big projects?

Exactly!

[anabellamadeo]

6 hours ago, farhan_editz said:

But who actually is going to take an extended vacation of more than 30 days to be honest one/two weeks is enough for me. 

Maternity leave 😉

[logosuneed]

Can I send the custom offer for the buyer during unavailable time period? Thank you!

[tuhin_mitra]

3 hours ago, beatakorozo said:

I took breaks several times on Fiverr and never noticed any significant dropping in my stats long-term. The only issue I encountered was that there seemed to be an error if I set my status to unavailable on the desktop version and then didn't restart my mobile app. In such cases, I was still getting messages, which was disturbing sometimes. Other than that, all the stats came back to normal within one or two weeks after a break. I must admit, however, that I never took a break longer than 7 days.

Same happened with me, took a break of 30 days back in 2022 Oct. I got dropped from all gig rankings and still recovering from it!

[zackreynolds]

I'm still hoping Fiverr will incorporate two features into this that would make my life much easier.

1. You can set recurring out-of-office or at least weekend availability. My business on Fiverr is my main working gig, and so I work normal hours, but it is annoying to get assaulted by new buyer messages all weekend long. I would set myself unavailable every weekend except two things complicate this. 1st is that when I use the dates to set myself unavailable, it doesn't include the option to set a time, so I think by default it uses GMT time? Meaning it comes back available in the middle of the day for me. The 2nd I will get into in my 2nd point.

2. Setting myself unavailable blocks buyers from accepting custom offers. If I have a busy weekend out of the office, I might send some clients offers for work for the upcoming week, but if I then set myself as unavailable, they get an error when trying to accept the custom offer. It would be awesome if you could still allow custom offers to be accepted even when you're out of the office. Otherwise I have to choose to deal with the "Why can't I accept?" messages or a barrage of messages during a weekend when I don't want to have to deal with making sure I respond to every message within 24 hours.

Edited September 22, 2023 by zackreynolds

[melanielm]

@Noam.Arik What exactly is new about the policy? It is unclear. It looks like the same thing we've always had (ability to set availability, not take new messages, leave a note for contact, etc.)

Also, what does won't "necessarily" impact you mean? 

[nabilawaheed508]

For how many days can you remain unavailable? 😉

[shuvo_va]

Love to here it. But  I have a confutation that my baseness/career may be affected. Fiverr may not effect my career but my seller will not wait for my vacation.

 

[softdigitals_]

I really do hope it works that way especially with the comments I've been seeing from  majority of the folks that have used the feature. Cos, I think we should be allowed to take breaks without paying for it.

[trezon_cv]

Yes, gigs are hidden these days, after I became a level 1 seller, my gigs have been hidden since then. I think something should be done on this matter. 

[superb_cv]

Fiverr is a best place to work and have got couple of project but my gigs are not yet visible to opportunities that often. 

[waveform_]

I was averaging around 3-4K impressions every month. But after I had to go on a vacation, I cam back and now I am getting 70-80 impressions every month.

I had to go do another job because fiverr didn't help me understand why it happened. Its still down soo bad that its not logical to use fiverr anymore.

[catherineintuit]

Corporate-speak "doesn't necessarily..." is prevarication. Clarity required.

Nevertheless I appreciate there are now two additional options while unavailable: new buyers can still contact us and we can opt to be contacted while on "vacation".

[temizan]

5 minutes ago, waveform_ said:

I was averaging around 3-4K impressions every month. But after I had to go on a vacation, I cam back and now I am getting 70-80 impressions every month.

I had to go do another job because fiverr didn't help me understand why it happened. Its still down soo bad that its not logical to use fiverr anymore.

Still be thank your creator that you still found your gigs on search category.. 

Mine is nowhere found 😢