A Fun and Cool Picture from My Fiverr Analytics

[emmaki]

I don't think I need to say anything.

 

[shuvo_va]

Rating is missing.😲

Is it a bug?

[catwriter]

46 minutes ago, emmaki said:

I don't think I need to say anything.

I had something similar, except that it was for the level 2, when my rating went N/A. I didn't lose the level, though.

[levinewman]

Experience matters for naught when it comes to Fiverr's ever-growing need to churn out volume instead of quality.

[md_yeakub]

4.2,  saying law rating 

[emmaki]

My rating is N/A since I haven't made a sale since late November. 🙂 I find it curious that all my other metrics are perfect, although the inbox metrics have obviously had some fresh input since I reopened my gig with everything on RTO. I mean if the system "forgot" my reviews - I have like 3,000 of the useless lil [badwords] - then how come it remembers that I deliver on time and the other thing, even though it's over 60 days for that, too?

Sure, new review system, I get it. What's the point of slogging away and giving great service and (blah blah blah) for years to build up an account if it just.. doesn't matter? If you ask me, Fiverr's turning into nothing more than Google and its HCU (Helpful Content Updates, AKA "we're not showing your website to anyone anymore and we won't tell you why"), but even Google tends not to do that to the most established websites with high trust etc. - I won't say biggest since anyone can make a huge vaguely-optimized website in 1 week with AI today.

So what is Fiverr's excuse? I mean, surely the Fiverr algorithm has some sort of trust and authority rating... oh wait. It's broken in the name of a test of transparency and everyone's patience. Not that it wasn't broken before, but it's incredible how each new iteration of the feedback system just makes it more clunkier and even worse, isn't it? 

And we all know that when the dust settles, the sellers and buyers who manipulate the rankings anyway will find a new method to manipulate it, leaving us all to wonder what monstrosity of a review system is coming in a few more years. It's really not difficult to fix the issue. It's just expensive and time-consuming because it needs an army of people - and given the demographics, a big PR campaign to avoid being cancelled.  Or maybe not, Fiverr's never been very good at that (see: Pewdiepie incident).

We'll see how my first buyer of the year reacts to my amazing service in the next couple of days. I hope my $100 discount takes care of the value for money problem. But it might not if buyers reviews aren't being accurately rendered. But who cares about silly things like that when designing awesome feedback systems anyway? I'm happy to burn $100 just for a silly review for a silly review system for an even sillier badge that debuted when Fiverr was where you went to get 480p happy birthday videos from grown men in diapers for $5.

I'm pretty sure the 4.2 thing is a bug, since I think lvl 2 is 4.5 or something (but I can't be bothered to check). 

[emmaki]

Also, I decided to check out the ! message

I was out of office, Fiverr! I was using your feature to not be online! The feature you were celebrating last year as a huge milestone! That's why I wasn't "performing"! My stats are literally all at 100% and my review thingy was 5.0 when I went Out of Office! 

There's nothing to evaluate in terms of performance other than that I respond to my messages very fast, even the spam ones! AND I logged in every day I wasn't in the office to make sure no errant messages got through. 

And you call that a drop in performance. I'm not the one dropping the ball here Fiverr. You are. 

[sripra9007]

@emmaki This is from an email Fiverr sent during Sep.

Looking at your scenario, it seems they have changed some rules again, not sure though.

[emmaki]

That's the one I'm talking about. It wasn't even a vacation, since I was working the whole time on other projects. 

I am not refreshed. I am not renewed. I am not ready to work, because all I have come back to is what appears to be completely broken review system and what feels like imminent demotion from TRS no matter what, due to my alleged "drop in performance". 

I have plenty of choice thoughts to share on the matter, but you shall all have to imagine them. Pro-tip: swear a lot. 

[catwriter]

2 hours ago, emmaki said:

I'm pretty sure the 4.2 thing is a bug

It's not, it's the old system (when they introduced reviews for cancelled orders and lowered the minimum rating to 4.2). The new level system isn't live yet.

1 hour ago, emmaki said:

feels like imminent demotion from TRS no matter what

It felt like I was going to lose a level too when I had that N/A and the "!" message, but I didn't, even though my rating was still N/A on the 15th.

Then again, the TRS rules might be different...

[emmaki]

Mixed messages galore from Fiverr (email).

Pro-tip: go on vacation for more than 60 days and lose your TRS but become an Enterprise seller anyway despite your workshy performance. Reminiscent of when I became a Pro. despite being asked to leave the forums for 1,000 years. My career path on Fiverr could be a really lame movie. 

@catwriter I'm sure you're right (the last time I dangled on the precipice, I was told that Pros were "manually checked" - but this was before the pro-splosion), but it's just another illustration of how poor Fiverr's systems are when it comes to sellers. I do of course have to navigate the terrifyingly broken obstacle course of working with a first-time buyer (to Fiverr) with the new review system, too. So you know, plenty of opportunities outside of my control to demote me. Because I performed badly one one gig after daring to take a 60-day vacation advertised as a safe and secure activity for the platform's sellers. 

I reckon that the whole new review system would be taken a lot better if the Levels system was gotten rid of. UW doesn't have levels and I don't see nearly the amount of fussing over 4-star reviews there that I do here (well, I don't see any... but I don't look very often, tbh). Although don't mistake this faint praise as an endorsement of that platform. Their 🤑connects🤑 system is an abomination to the Lord. 

I hope some Enterprise clients will get in touch. Half of my inbox enquiries at the moment are for GoFundMes for a cause that the state of Israel would very strongly disapprove of (and come with a whiff of charity fraud for extra noping). Luckily, the GFMs are all in Arabic, so I can't help due to only knowing the words habibi, yallah, and erm, [probably badwords] which isn't terribly useful. Is it just me though?

P

 

[catwriter]

1 hour ago, emmaki said:

@catwriter I'm sure you're right (the last time I dangled on the precipice, I was told that Pros were "manually checked" - but this was before the pro-splosion), but it's just another illustration of how poor Fiverr's systems are when it comes to sellers.

Oh, yes, I did spend some time wondering what will happen on the 15th... Didn't exactly help me feel relaxed and happy to work.

1 hour ago, emmaki said:

I reckon that the whole new review system would be taken a lot better if the Levels system was gotten rid of.

Definitely. I mean, if Fiverr got rid of the levels, there would be some sellers crying for their TRS badge, or level 2 or 1 badge, or whatever, but things would be less stressful. And it wouldn't make it more difficult for buyers to find a seller than it is now; search would still be there.

Not that I think that Fiverr would ever do that. No more gamification, no more stressing out their sellers on every 15th, sellers actually being able to focus on work more than worrying about their stats, sellers daring to accept risky buyers and challenging projects because a not-so-good review wouldn't be the end of the world... It could be good for the business, but where's the fun in not torturing sellers?

1 hour ago, emmaki said:

Their 🤑connects🤑 system is an abomination to the Lord. 

Agreed.

1 hour ago, emmaki said:

Half of my inbox enquiries at the moment are for GoFundMes for a cause that the state of Israel would very strongly disapprove of (

What do you think, are those people aware that Fiverr is an Israeli site?

[visualstudios]

21 hours ago, emmaki said:

I was out of office, Fiverr! I was using your feature to not be online!

Never do that. Don't use a feature just because it exists, that doesn't mean it is any good.

 

Don't use milestones - they don't make the buyer commit to the entire thing, and it increases the window to review from 3 days to 8, for some unexplainable reason. Use separate orders for each milestone instead.

Don't use coupons - you can just send them a custom offer for the value you want, it makes no difference. Why are coupons even capped, when you can sell whatever you want at the price you want anyway, makes no sense. Use custom offers with a discount instead.

Don't use out of office - people have been complaining for a long time that it messes your positioning within the search results.  Turn on request to order, up the prices, or up the delivery times instead.

Don't use subscriptions - they are utterly useless. You're giving a discount for what, exactly? The buyer can stop at any time. It's not guaranteeing ongoing work in any way. May as well sell individual orders. You gain zero by having subscriptions. There is nothing to use instead, Fiverr simply doesn't work for retainer contracts - and it really should, it's a major weakness of the platform.

 

I've never turned on out of office on my account, and never will. There's no reason for it. If I want to take a vacation, just increase the prices and the delivery time to an absurd value. I don't trust the out of office mode to not affect my account.

Edited February 12 by visualstudios

[emmaki]

3 hours ago, catwriter said:

No more gamification, no more stressing out their sellers on every 15th, sellers actually being able to focus on work more than worrying about their stats, sellers daring to accept risky buyers and challenging projects because a not-so-good review wouldn't be the end of the world

Isn't the new levels system a daily evaluation with some vague "probation period" to allow you to improve? After this month, anyway. I predict a lot of posts about WHY WAS I DEMOTED IT IS NOT EVALUATION TIME! in our near future. 

Other than that, 💯. 

The GFMers are apparently from the wrong side of the fence, albeit now living in various places in Europe and making funds to support whoever is stuck there because they're not allowed to use GFM. That does seem to be a thing, but so far as my inbox and the security of my account is concerned, it's parade of red flags. 

 

2 hours ago, visualstudios said:

Never do that. Don't use a feature just because it exists, that doesn't mean it is any good.

Meh, I was going out of office anyway. I only use OOO to stop the inbox, and it doesn't really hurt me when I come back (never has tbh) in terms of interest from buyers. And I went OOO in December because I got fed up with buyers who wouldn't take "I'm not taking on new orders until 2024" for an answer. This includes "talking about your project to understand it" ( = redo the whole process 2 months later). 

But yeah, I don't use the other things. I also don't plan to use the spam fiesta that is "follow up" messages that was being advertised in my inbox earlier this week. I know what happens to seller who "follow up" with uninterested buyers on Fiverr, thank you very much. As for the ones I have used:

SUBSCRIPTIONS: I have these turned on mostly as a way to fend of "gib discount plz". I think one regular buyer used them once, but cancelled after the first order (i.e. the one that doesn't get the discount) because he realized how restrictive and useless the feature is. 

MILESTONES: I used this once. Never again. I can't remember why, it was a long time ago. 

I have never used coupons. I can see the strategy behind them, but overall, meh. I don't really have any regular buyers to tempt back anymore anyway 🙂

I'd quite like a feature where I only have to pay a 10% commission. That would be nice. But I might as well wish for a review system that wasn't invented by Satan, either. 

[vickiespencer]

4 hours ago, catwriter said:

sellers daring to accept risky buyers and challenging projects because a not-so-good review wouldn't be the end of the world... It could be good for the business, but where's the fun in not torturing sellers?

A prospective buyer contacted me through my inbox, stating a budget of about 1/6th of what I charge. Before the new review system, I would have made a counteroffer. However, this seller had too many negatives for me to do that. 

A. They were a new buyer. The last new buyer gave me a glowing written review with 4.7 stars. Then she asked if I got my tip, but I did not. However, when I told her that she never did send one

B. Even if the new buyer had accepted my offer, I was guaranteed a lower rating because of the value for the money part of the evaluation. 

C. New buyer's reviews are weighted heavier with the algorithm, so I wanted to avoid the chance of damage to my internal stats. 

So, I told the buyer we were not a good match rather than trying to convert the contact into an order.  

[emmaki]

How many other sellers are doing the same, and how many rejections can a new buyer stomach before they decide that Fiverr's a waste of their time?

All because of a gamified ratings and levelling system that makes sellers prioritize things that don't really matter. 

They can go to UW, where they will have hundreds of identical top-notch ChatGPT proposals thrown at them from a throng of eager freelancers! 

Meanwhile on Fiverr, the people who don't care about this so much will be more than happy to do everything they can't do in exchange for money. And they'll be back with their cousin's hairdresser's sister's husband's friends ID card in a week if Fiverr kicks them out, anyway. 

Of course, that's not great for buyers either, as this is also a waste of their time. 

Still, the "strategic" value for money discounts in the hopes of to nudging up a star are probably an unexpected bonus for them, if nobody else including Fiverr. But how's a buyer to know about this undercurrent that's the actual problem? 

[visualstudios]

Just got a 5 star review on an order where the client didn't pick any checkboxes. I don't understand this system, at all.

[Alex.M]

10 hours ago, visualstudios said:

I don't understand this system, at all.

well, it's nothing that can be understood at the moment... I received a tip where I got 4 stars for the money for value part... bizarre honestly 

[arty182925]

2 hours ago, Alex.M said:

I received a tip where I got 4 stars for the money for value part... bizarre honestly 

I got the same thing not so long ago. And today I got 3 stars for the money for value part from long term client (not the first repeated buyer who rated me less then 5 stars for money for value).

[creativecolumn]

The buyer decides to place the order, cause he thinks it's "value for money", right? Fiverr should allow them to rate the delivery, instead of asking again about "value for money". Most buyers react to "value for money" part by thinking "if I actually need this thing for my life, or the prices seems too high for minimal style logo designs in the market" etc.

Edited February 13 by creativecolumn