Milestones should count towards completed orders

[charlsmcfarlane]

In terms of orders, December was the slowest month I’ve had on Fiverr ever.

Then, unfortunately, I had a cancellation. I’ve had very few cancellations, but this one came at the worst possible time.

My work has picked up loads — in fact January is now looking to be one of my best months ever.

However, this has flagged up a weird issue. Due to my low number of orders and the one cancellation, I have been fighting to keep my completed orders above 90% and avoid a level demotion.

However a lot of the orders I have right now are milestones orders. I completed several milestones and then realised these don’t have any bearing on the order completion metric.

This seems very strange. I am completing work, getting paid and getting fiverr paid but it doesn’t contribute to the levels system.

In a way, this incentivises prioritising non-milestone orders.

It would seem to make sense that the “completed orders” metric should really be completed orders/milestones. If not, someone could be completing hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of work and still get demoted for not completing orders.

Thanks

[donnovan86]

3 hours ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

This seems very strange. I am completing work, getting paid and getting fiverr paid but it doesn’t contribute to the levels system.

 

Of course it doesn't matter, because it's just an order. You chose to split it in multiple milestones, but it is a single order. 

Making them count as an order would be unfair towards people that actively complete full orders. And also, it would be prone to abuse. People would just do 10 milestone orders just to have more orders. Most cancellations can be dealt with via customer support if it's not your fault. However, sometimes there are abusive clients so I get that. Still, it's so prone to abuse and also unfair to some sellers that I don't see this happening.

[charlsmcfarlane]

5 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

chose to split it in multiple milestones

So I’m being penalised for taking advantage a Fiverr feature that benefits the customer and seller?

5 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

Making them count as an order would be unfair towards people that actively complete full orders

A milestone could be a significant amount of time and money. There’s nothing stopping an individual milestone being much bigger than an entire order, so why should it be considered less important than an order? For example, one of the milestones I completed recently was for hundreds of dollars and took a long time to compete.

You’re right that I could have just sent multiple offers, but offering a milestones order keeps things organised and logical. What I’m proposing is that fiverr needs to change the metric to reflect completed “work”, vs. cancelled “work”. This would actually be a more accurate measure in other ways too. For example, if a seller creates a milestones order with 4 milestones, completes 3 of them and then the buyer cancels the 4th one, the seller’s metrics will count that as a completed order. This isn’t really accurate as the cancelled milestone isn’t measured at all. Basically the order completion metric only really means anything if you never use milestones.

5 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

People would just do 10 milestone orders just to have more orders

Every milestone needs to be approved by the buyer so what difference does it make? If I hadn’t chosen to create a milestones order, like you suggested, each one would be a separate order anyway. So if there are ten orders or ten milestones, what is the practical difference?

Now I’m aware buyer metrics don’t benefit from completing milestones, I probably will stop using them until Fiverr fixes this. I’m just highlighting that it needs to be fixed, otherwise there’s little incentive for sellers to use the feature. Really, that’s a shame and quite counterintuitive because I use milestones to improve the customer experience, even though in several ways, it doesn’t really benefit sellers:

– sellers have to wait an extra 5 days before auto completion on milestones.

– sellers can’t get tips or reviews on milestones.

– completed milestones don’t count towards metrics measuring a seller’s completed work.

[donnovan86]

9 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

So I’m being penalised for taking advantage a Fiverr feature that benefits the customer and seller?

6 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

How does having a milestone count as multiple orders benefit the customer? It just doesn't.

Also, you are not penalized. You chose to have a massive order with multiple milestones. No one is stopping you from actually splitting that massive orders into multiple smaller orders. But since it's a single project, it doesn't make any sense right? That's why milestones seen as orders makes no sense. I get it solves your issue of not having enough orders to counter a cancellation, but it doesn't make sense in the grand scheme of things, and sellers could manipulate this to make a larger order with a dozen milestones and thus not worry about order issues. It's a milestone, the milestone system is made for large projects. But those are still ONE order, albeit a larger one.

 

[donnovan86]

12 minutes ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

it doesn’t really benefit sellers:

It benefits you because if it was a larger order without milestones, you would not get paid unless you finalize the entire order. That also means if the buyer bails on the project, you end up without money and lost time. Milestones being approved, that means you get paid as the milestone gets approved by the buyer. So yeah, it's definitely a major benefit and a way to protect sellers. 

Again, not arguing with your need, but objectively the milestone system is good the way it is.

[grayprogrammerz]

10 hours ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

In terms of orders, December was the slowest month I’ve had on Fiverr ever.

Then, unfortunately, I had a cancellation. I’ve had very few cancellations, but this one came at the worst possible time.

My work has picked up loads — in fact January is now looking to be one of my best months ever.

However, this has flagged up a weird issue. Due to my low number of orders and the one cancellation, I have been fighting to keep my completed orders above 90% and avoid a level demotion.

However a lot of the orders I have right now are milestones orders. I completed several milestones and then realised these don’t have any bearing on the order completion metric.

This seems very strange. I am completing work, getting paid and getting fiverr paid but it doesn’t contribute to the levels system.

In a way, this incentivises prioritising non-milestone orders.

It would seem to make sense that the “completed orders” metric should really be completed orders/milestones. If not, someone could be completing hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of work and still get demoted for not completing orders.

Thanks

I felt same in recent months, not sure about milestones, but single payment orders.

Current order completion looks vulnerable.

Suppose a guy earns $400 in 2 orders. and cancel 1 order of $5. Then order completion be like %66 ? 😂

It can be abused. Suppose if we split $400 in $5 orders. Then completion rate be like 98%

 

I believe completion rate should based on amount of money earned.

and cancellation rate be amount of money cancelled

[vickieito]

7 minutes ago, grayprogrammerz said:

I believe completion rate should based on amount of money earned.

and cancellation rate be amount of money cancelled

This doesn't make sense.

21 minutes ago, grayprogrammerz said:

Suppose a guy earns $400 in 2 orders. and cancel 1 order of $5. Then order completion be like %66 ? 😂

What if you canceled 1 order of $200 but delivered a bunch of $5 projects? Your order completion rate would be terrible either way. Cancelations hurt, and Fiverr does it so we don't have too many order cancelations.

10 hours ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

Due to my low number of orders and the one cancellation, I have been fighting to keep my completed orders above 90% and avoid a level demotion.

10 hours ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

In a way, this incentivises prioritising non-milestone orders.

Fiverr's algorithms will always favor sellers who have and deliver more orders, even if their average selling prices are lower. Unfortunately, this puts a lot of pressure on low-volume sellers (I'm one of them). Even 1 order can make or break your seller stats, and it can take a long while to recover. This is why I choose to have higher prices and am really selective about who I work with (I reject most buyers coming into my inbox, and right now, I just keep my out-of-office on all the time).

[charlsmcfarlane]

1 hour ago, grayprogrammerz said:

I felt same in recent months, not sure about milestones, but single payment orders.

Current order completion looks vulnerable.

Suppose a guy earns $400 in 2 orders. and cancel 1 order of $5. Then order completion be like %66 ? 😂

It can be abused. Suppose if we split $400 in $5 orders. Then completion rate be like 98%

 

I believe completion rate should based on amount of money earned.

and cancellation rate be amount of money cancelled

I understand what you mean, but I think that would be too inconsistent a metric. It would mean that someone could cancel 10 $5 orders and complete 1 $1000 order and still have a really good cancellation metric, which would then imply to customers that the person is reliable and completes most of their orders, even though that’s not true.

[charlsmcfarlane]

2 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

It benefits you because if it was a larger order without milestones, you would not get paid unless you finalize the entire order. That also means if the buyer bails on the project, you end up without money and lost time. Milestones being approved, that means you get paid as the milestone gets approved by the buyer. So yeah, it's definitely a major benefit and a way to protect sellers

This is true, but why would I not just create multiple orders to achieve the same result? This is my point. There isn’t an advantage to the seller using milestones over simply creating multiple orders, so why does it exist? I know it helps to keep multiple milestones contained within one order but that’s just a convenience thing.

There does, however, seem to be disadvantages, such as the one I originally mentioned. I have done lots of work, which has been approved by customers, but my cancellation metric still doesn’t look great because the milestones I’ve completed don’t contribute towards it.

Surely, the point of an order completion metric is to demonstrate to customers that the seller is reliable and completes, all or almost all of the work that they are commissioned to do. If that’s the case, then a completed milestone should count towards that because it is completed work. That completed milestone shows a level of reliability in the same way that a completed order does.

I completely understand how the system actually works right now. I am simply suggesting a way that would make the system work better.

[charlsmcfarlane]

1 hour ago, vickieito said:

Fiverr's algorithms will always favor sellers who have and deliver more orders, even if their average selling prices are lower. Unfortunately, this puts a lot of pressure on low-volume sellers (I'm one of them). Even 1 order can make or break your seller stats, and it can take a long while to recover. This is why I choose to have higher prices and am really selective about who I work with (I reject most buyers coming into my inbox, and right now, I just keep my out-of-office on all the time).

Agreed. I am very similar. I charge more and very rarely have cancellations.

It just seems that I need to stop using milestones if I want to safeguard my seller level until fiverr make the metric representative of “work” completed, rather than only “orders” completed.

[donnovan86]

1 hour ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

This is true, but why would I not just create multiple orders to achieve the same result?

Then why see multiple milestones as different orders, when it's the same result, a single order? 

1 hour ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

It just seems that I need to stop using milestones if I want to safeguard my seller level until fiverr make the metric representative of “work” completed, rather than only “orders” completed.

Well that's the thing, milestones are meant to provide a safety net for sellers that don't want to deal with a large order's inherent risk. There was a seller that lost $600 because the buyer asked him to create a site identical to other, and he did it, but he did not take into account that copying that website's theme and style was illegal. Now the buyer has a lawsuit due to copyright and he obviously canceled the order. With milestones, you wouldn't have that. So it's definitely a safety net and a benefit for sellers. But that also means it's just a single order. 

 

3 hours ago, vickieito said:

Fiverr's algorithms will always favor sellers who have and deliver more orders, even if their average selling prices are lower. Unfortunately, this puts a lot of pressure on low-volume sellers (I'm one of them).

Vickie, I am on the other side of this and I can tell you for a fact it's the opposite. At the beginning of 2023 I had a very bad review from a single client and also a 3 star review from another one, and that ended up ruining my sales for more than half a year. I was also pushed back in search for months and months, despite having only good reviews. Even now I seem to be punished due to a "great work, will come back" 3 star client, so any order hurts and it can be seen in the algorithm. If anything, cheaper sellers have it worse, because you have multiple clients that can give you a bad review and kill your account for months. So the chances of a bad review and algorithm issues are higher, because you are dealing with a higher risk with every client. 

3 hours ago, grayprogrammerz said:

. and cancel 1 order of $5.

If you charge $200 and you also have a $5 gig, you might be doing something wrong. But in general, Fiverr's support will help you if it's not your fault. There will be exceptions, but as I said, it's a good idea to go to customer support and see if they can assist with removing that cancelation from your stats.

[grayprogrammerz]

4 hours ago, vickieito said:

This doesn't make sense.

What if you canceled 1 order of $200 but delivered a bunch of $5 projects? Your order completion rate would be terrible either way. Cancelations hurt, and Fiverr does it so we don't have too many order cancelations.

I believe more bigger the budget, the more is responsibility. So person suppose to award/punish accordingly.

If you see from fiverr view, you have failed $200, and earned $5 at end...

No doubt time is money, but money is also a conversion of it.

4 hours ago, vickieito said:

Fiverr's algorithms will always favor sellers who have and deliver more orders, even if their average selling prices are lower. Unfortunately, this puts a lot of pressure on low-volume sellers (I'm one of them). Even 1 order can make or break your seller stats, and it can take a long while to recover. This is why I choose to have higher prices and am really selective about who I work with (I reject most buyers coming into my inbox, and right now, I just keep my out-of-office on all the time).

Yes that's problem. I have to do same. But still one cancellation will enough to ruin such statistics(for 2 months!).

2 hours ago, charlsmcfarlane said:

I understand what you mean, but I think that would be too inconsistent a metric. It would mean that someone could cancel 10 $5 orders and complete 1 $1000 order and still have a really good cancellation metric, which would then imply to customers that the person is reliable and completes most of their orders, even though that’s not true.

Look here, at end, you have given value of $1000 and loss of $5 * 10 = $50 ?

Benefit vs Loss matters, right ?

Edited January 14 by grayprogrammerz

[grayprogrammerz]

42 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

If you charge $200 and you also have a $5 gig, you might be doing something wrong. But in general, Fiverr's support will help you if it's not your fault. There will be exceptions, but as I said, it's a good idea to go to customer support and see if they can assist with removing that cancelation from your stats.

That $ was example.

Fiverr support very good most of times. But difficult buyers, I don't think there's any fix ? just to avoid them.

[visualstudios]

On 1/14/2024 at 8:41 AM, donnovan86 said:

It benefits you because if it was a larger order without milestones, you would not get paid unless you finalize the entire order. That also means if the buyer bails on the project, you end up without money and lost time. Milestones being approved, that means you get paid as the milestone gets approved by the buyer. So yeah, it's definitely a major benefit and a way to protect sellers. 

Again, not arguing with your need, but objectively the milestone system is good the way it is.

It doesn't benefit you as a seller to use milestones instead of doing separate orders for each step of the process. That's the point. There should be an upside to use milestones instead of breaking any big order into multiple small orders. But there isn't. And there are actual downsides. It's objectively better to always try to make as many orders as possible.

Edited January 15 by visualstudios

[donnovan86]

6 minutes ago, visualstudios said:

And there are actual downsides. It's objectively better to always try to make as many orders as possible.

True. The only upside I can think of is that instead of having a single larger order, here you get paid a bit quicker and in small bits, and in case the buyer cancels, you already got paid for some of the work. Whereas a single order... if it's canceled, you end up with issues. There was a person that had a $600 order canceled, which wouldn't happen if he uses milestones. Other than that yeah, you are better off splitting into smaller orders. But some customers don't agree with that.

[visualstudios]

12 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

The only upside I can think of is that instead of having a single larger order, here you get paid a bit quicker and in small bits, and in case the buyer cancels, you already got paid for some of the work. Whereas a single order... if it's canceled, you end up with issues.

That's not an upside though.

The choices are not - 1 order for $1000, or 1 milestone order with 3 steps for $300, $300, $400.

The choices are - 1 milestone order for $300, $300, $400... or 3 separate orders for $300, $300, $400. Doing each milestone as a single, separate order is always better.

1 - You get the money faster. Clients have 8 days to revise on each milestone step. 3 on normal orders. If they let it autocomplete, it's much better to be working on normal orders than milestones.

2 - You get 3 reviews (potentially) instead of the maximum of 1.

3 - You have 3 completed orders instead of 1.

 

Conclusion - there's no reason to ever use the milestone order feature. 

Edited January 15 by visualstudios

[donnovan86]

1 hour ago, visualstudios said:

The choices are - 1 milestone order for $300, $300, $400... or 3 separate orders for $300, $300, $400. Doing each milestone as a single, separate order is always better.

 

I have no idea because I don't use milestones. I stick to regular orders, if the order is very large, I split it. I also found that splitting is a lot better when compared to large orders because it pushes away scammers. It's easier to cancel an entire, huge order when compared to smaller ones. Plus, since I work alone myself, massive orders are a lot harder to schedule. So for me, even if I always had access to milestones, I don't see the need for those. I am also not sure how many milestones you can have, I know someone said 6 one time, but since you used it and said there are 3 milestones only, I don't really find it useful, unless you really want to be paid as you get a part of a project done.

I assume for developers you can't really have too many separate orders, because there's nothing to deliver.. You can have a milestone for a prototype, etc. That's the only place where I could see some use for these. But as I said, never used milestones and unless they revamp or add some extra features, I don't see the benefit. Then again, writers might not be the target market for this feature 😄

[visualstudios]

You can always deliver something, even if it's a document explaining what was done, etc. I sell calls, and that's what I deliver for those, any milestone can easily be converted into a document delivery, be it in dev work or any other, pretty much.

[charlsmcfarlane]

21 hours ago, visualstudios said:

It doesn't benefit you as a seller to use milestones instead of doing separate orders for each step of the process. That's the point. There should be an upside to use milestones instead of breaking any big order into multiple small orders. But there isn't. And there are actual downsides. It's objectively better to always try to make as many orders as possible.

Thanks. I thought I wasn’t making sense but it seems you get my point. I can’t see any value in using milestones until these points are addressed, which is a shame, as the milestones process seems, on the surface, to be a decent idea.

[visualstudios]

Yep, there is no advantage as a seller, and there are downsides, so it's not worth it.

Now, if the milestones had any advantage versus multiple single orders (lower commission, faster clearance, locking the money up for the entire thing in the beginning, etc.) then I'd start using them, but as things stand they don't make any sense.

[charlsmcfarlane]

Just now, visualstudios said:

Yep, there is no advantage as a seller, and there are downsides, so it's not worth it.

Now, if the milestones had any advantage versus multiple single orders (lower commission, faster clearance, locking the money up for the entire thing in the beginning, etc.) then I'd start using them, but as things stand they don't make any sense.

Makes sense. I do hope they make some improvements to it because I do think, even at the moment, there are some very small advantages.

For example, it’s a better seller and buyer experience having all the milestone notes, revisions and deliveries in one order chain.

However, that really isn’t enough of an advantage to outweigh the disadvantages.