Why Is Fiverr Losing Buyers?

[kickgom]

9 hours ago, catwriter said:

The topic is about Fiverr losing buyers.

I know but i think all this is all related on how buyers and sellers feel here, i thinks there are not buyers if sellers are leaving too, are tired, or does not respond and just blocks the sellers because they are afraid of the rating system

 

9 hours ago, catwriter said:

The topic is about Fiverr losing buyers.

 

[kickgom]

9 minutes ago, kickgom said:

Thanks...I did not expect too much, but honestly i did no expect something automated... my previous ticket to this i was asking CS to check my cancelations, because the last 30 cancelations arrived in a bulk mode from the same buyers (part of this attached). And the main reason my level dropped was because of cancelations...and again i was just ignored and received a copy / paste response when i was asking for help because this was obviously someone who wanted me to affect me, why would i received so many canceled orders at once?...so i guess that if the system does not care about sellers or buyers it is a reason to leave

just to clarify...i only had 2 real cancelations in the last year, so i think cancelations would not be a reason for my level to drop

[melanie279]

I have seen a massive drop in business in the last 3-4 months. Each morning, I would wake up to 2-3 new requests, but I have had only 2 new clients since October. I have a few regulars who I always do business for, but that's it. I suspect AI. Why pay for a proofreader when ChatGPT can do it for free, right? But I have also been scammed on here as a buyer, so I'm not surprised buyers are leaving. And I am sick of having to wait two weeks to get paid if a project is completed automatically! I am now rethinking my career because I am flat broke and can no longer rely on this platform to pay the bills.

[hijabzehra12]

Because Fiverr lost their honest seller from the portal. Freelancers are now avoiding joining the Fiverr community and prefer to join Upwork. I was a seller on Fiverr and worked for 8 years, my first account was disabled after 4 years and I created Fiverr again and read the terms and conditions carefully I got some jobs and after 4 years of struggle I got a level 2 badge, everything was good I maintain 4.8-star rating and my clients extremely satisfied with my work but suddenly Fiverr flagged my account.

The reason was that I joined the Fiverr Community again.

this is nonsense if it is not allowed they shouldn't allowed to join or at least inform the seller after 1 order or after a month.

The customer support team says you can still share your gigs with clients and get orders. this is a very nonsense response from Fiverr. even though we can share our services directly with our clients so why do we pay 20% to Fiverr even though they are not providing any services like gig ranking, participation in the level system, and not even a brief match.

I have started to write against this matter on Fiverr, Trustpilot, quora, medium, and other platforms. As a freelancer, I lost my time and money. 

 

 

[melanie279]

I also had my level drop suddenly from top rated all the way down to new seller (after being here for years!) because of a mess up with cancellations and response times. They rectified this and bumped me back up to level two but not back to top rated. I've had all the right stats to go back to top rated for the past year and still no change. Frustrating!

[kickgom]

4 minutes ago, melanie279 said:

I have seen a massive drop in business in the last 3-4 months. Each morning, I would wake up to 2-3 new requests, but I have had only 2 new clients since October. I have a few regulars who I always do business for, but that's it. I suspect AI. Why pay for a proofreader when ChatGPT can do it for free, right? But I have also been scammed on here as a buyer, so I'm not surprised buyers are leaving. And I am sick of having to wait two weeks to get paid if a project is completed automatically! I am now rethinking my career because I am flat broke and can no longer rely on this platform to pay the bills.

Same here, you are not alone. I keep track of my competition and they barely have 1 or 2 orders too. So i think buyers are running away from the platform. Not even my regular clients are coming back as they did in the past.

That's why all this makes me think if the platform is having serious problems keeping alive...why would you try to fix something that is not broken?

[kickgom]

4 minutes ago, melanie279 said:

I also had my level drop suddenly from top rated all the way down to new seller (after being here for years!) because of a mess up with cancellations and response times. They rectified this and bumped me back up to level two but not back to top rated. I've had all the right stats to go back to top rated for the past year and still no change. Frustrating!

Totally understand how you feel, at least you recovered and they rectified. I know it is still not fair if you did not recovered your previous level, i tried this and i was just ignored with an automated response

Yes it is very frustrating and now with buyers running out of the plattform it is harder to recover

[catwriter]

6 hours ago, melanielm said:

I'm a novelist and quite active in multiple writers' groups online. These are people who regularly spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on each book: editing, proofreading, cover design, marketing, etc. They primarily use freelancers for these services. (I do, too.)

Every single time someone mentions Fiverr, the majority of people commenting emphatically say "No! Stay away!"

I'm in some writers' groups, too, but I did see people who use Fiverr for something they need. It tends to be one thing, though; as in, someone has a guy on Fiverr who does their covers. They don't mention that they outsource the rest of it to freelancers on Fiverr, it's just one person for one specific task.

[donnovan86]

45 minutes ago, hijabzehra12 said:

and prefer to join Upwork

I see no reason why you have to pick one or the other. You create accounts on multiple platforms and try to grow each account. Don't rely solely on a single account, because if that one tanks, closes, etc, you lose your only source of income.

Edited April 22 by donnovan86

[kickgom]

2 hours ago, donnovan86 said:

I see no reason why you have to pick one or the other. You create accounts on multiple platforms and try to grow each account. Don't rely solely on a single account, because if that one tanks, closes, etc, you lose your only source of income.

lesson learned the hard way

[donnovan86]

6 hours ago, kickgom said:

lesson learned the hard way

Yeah, with AI and so many variables right now, the last thing you want is to rely on a single source. If it dies, then you have no money.

[priyank_mod]

9 hours ago, kickgom said:

just to clarify...i only had 2 real cancelations in the last year, so i think cancelations would not be a reason for my level to drop

2 cancellations or even just one bad private review are enough to tank our gigs for months. 

The weight of 'negative attributes' is much higher than all the great work with positive public reviews we deliver regularly.  

[shaon_design]

Some sellers have noticed a decline in the number of buyers on Fiverr, with over 200,000 active buyers lost between '22 - '23 according to Fiverr's investor reports. New buyers may not understand how the platform works or the implications of the review system.
Sellers are concerned about deceptive AI policies, unvetted Pro sellers, and the prevalence of AI-generated responses.
Fiverr's marketing targets upmarket users, but sellers may reject new buyers due to various reasons, leading to frustration.
Some buyers find their accounts disabled due to automated spam detection, and confusion arises from account setup processes.

These factors contribute to an atmosphere of fear and mistrust among sellers, potentially impacting Fiverr's bottom line.

[ahsanshukla1272]

According to my knowledge, they are living Fiverr marketplace because of Fiverr's higher commission.

[gary513]

On 4/23/2024 at 2:04 AM, kickgom said:

Thanks...I did not expect too much, but honestly i did no expect something automated... my previous ticket to this i was asking CS to check my cancelations, because the last 30 cancelations arrived in a bulk mode from the same buyers (part of this attached). And the main reason my level dropped was because of cancelations...and again i was just ignored and received a copy / paste response when i was asking for help because this was obviously someone who wanted me to affect me, why would i received so many canceled orders at once?...so i guess that if the system does not care about sellers or buyers it is a reason to leave

This is what happening to me as well. Someone playing dirty, and im also in logo design category same as you. Now i rarely get new buyer anymore because of this, CS and SM cant even help me.

[mandyzines]

On 4/22/2024 at 9:32 AM, kickgom said:

I keep track of my competition and they barely have 1 or 2 orders too.

My direct competitors haven't been doing very well at all, either, for a while now.

[tegal]

Hi, just for the record. I have been with Fiverr for a long time and they are getting really, really bad! They put a message on my earnings page that I owe a 0.61 overdraft charge. For what?? That's just the beginning, they charge the seller if they sneeze the wrong way. I'm looking elsewhere. My rating was over 5,  now I'm lucky if I'm allowed a level one! Watch out! They will charge for things you can't see and never answer why if you ask.

[webcraftcoode]

As a new freelancer to hard now get clients here 😒😒

[satu_das_gupta]

I am a new comer in Fiverr, not freelancing. Through this valuable post I can try to set myself in that platform with more activity. Thanks for sharing that.

[dponzio]

I do understand Fiverr's intention to reduce the number of buyers to focus on the quality ones, and the other reasons for such drop in buyers. The issue that I see from my standpoint is that the quality of "buyers" contacting me has not improved at all, but on the contrary, it seems to have gone down as well. In the past, at least one on 15-20 enquiries was genuine and from a sound mind. 

[rosiee007]

On 4/3/2024 at 12:01 PM, emmaki said:

As I'm sure some of you have noticed, buyers seem to be fewer than they once were (yes, I am aware that there are plenty of sellers who have plenty of orders). Now, according to Fiverr's own investor reports, they lost over 200,000 active buyers between '22 - '23. I'm linking to the G&M because it helpfully has an analysis of why that's bad. 

This is a great list of observations! With AI in the game, getting buyers to notice your gigs has become a lot more difficult. I remember I used to get 10-12 orders every month. I know it is not a huge number, but still better than nothing! It has been 2 months now, and I din't have any order in the pipeline.

[desmond_aubery]

My serious enquiries began rolling down around 2 months ago. I initially tied this to the Northern Hemisphere Summer slowdown in the Engineering field.

Recent waves of enquiries seem to be, in the main, time wasters. 

Anecdotal evidence is beginning to emerge of a US slowdown. (The EU is not doing any better). Food prices in some categories are decreasing, credit card debt appears to be rising, folks appear to be starting to tighten their belts.

Not quite sure of how this trend affects freelancers and us on Fiverr..

 

 

[melissaharlowvo]

Dang you people sound so negative. It’s curious how negative thoughts beget negative behaviors. Sorry to say this but I think some people bring the negative energy to their gig. People looking to scam look for those who have an open window. If you respond aggressively to poor reviews or don’t respond at all to positive reviews …perhaps that’s an open window? If your impressions are down or your clicks have dropped could it actually be you? What? Just be open to the possibility that your behavior caused something to slip or drop. It’s awful to admit that you may have imperfections but if you don’t take a hard look at your performance instead of embracing the blame game then maybe Fiverr is not the platform for you. 

Sorry, just being brutally honest.
 

 

[mandyzines]

I have an interesting update. After 8 months of barely getting anything at all and noticing my direct competitors not getting much, either, I experienced a bit of an uptick over the past two weeks.

I haven't changed anything in the past 8 months.

However, a lot of these orders had deliveries near the end of the week and autocompleted on the weekend or Monday and I've seen very little in terms of public reviews. We'll se how or even if that impacts the succstress scores.

The last person provided a PDF brief/script that included instructions to contact them offsite with any questions. I politely explained the TOS and how AI reads correspondence (or lack thereof) within orders and succstress scores us accordingly, so I had to keep in all on-site and use a particular pattern. I can see how not complying with his request could nip me in the bum, especially with a secret review.

[priyank_mod]

6 minutes ago, mandyzines said:

I can see how not complying with his request could nip me in the bum, especially with a secret review.

Faced this dilemma multiple times - this is literally a double-edged sword!! 🥲