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Fiverr pros and cons for new seller

smartsalesprof

By smartsalesprof
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texvox Rising Star

texvox

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On 8/30/2024 at 6:37 AM, smartsalesprof said:

I am a new seller, i want all of you to put me through how to succeed on fiverr

The pros and cons as I've seen them in several years on the platform - 

PROS:

  • It's a fairly "set it and forget it" platform. Once you get your gigs dialed in a lot of work can come your way without having to go out and find it.
  • Fiverr manages payments. You don't have to chase clients down to get an invoice paid.
  • Thanks to Fiverr's large marketing budget there are a lot of potential buyers browsing the site. That is a lot of opportunity for you. 
  • Free to join. Yes, you can pay for 1,000 different things once you join up, but there is no initial cost.

CONS:

  • Fiverr is currently experiencing a downturn in site traffic overall, and a dramatic downturn in traffic for certain services. For example, I was just told by a Fiverr rep that "Searches for 'VoiceOver' on Fiverr are currently down 37%." 
  • Fiverr is extremely buyer-focused to a fault. My experience, and the experiences of countless others freelancers here, has been that Fiverr strongly favors the buyer over the seller in the vast majority of customer service disputes, as well as the features they roll out. This has been especially true in the last 12 months. 
  • Fiverr is a very "generic" freelancing platform. This means that Fiverr may not include features or legal protections that your specific industry is used to operating with. Fiverr is good for freelancing at a high level, but because it's such a broad platform there are - understandably - a lot of "specifics" you may want missing.

Overall I still view Fiverr positively, but it is not the platform it once was. And for new sellers it's going to be a much more challenging experience getting the gig traction you need to earn a good living via Fiverr than it was for those of us who joined 2, 3 or 4+ years ago.

Edited by texvox
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uk1000 Grand Master

uk1000

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32 minutes ago, texvox said:

Free to join.

Though a new seller (eg. after creating a gig for the first time) will need to pay $3 to $5 for ID verification now.

Another con for new sellers is the maximum number of allowed gigs is 4. It used to be 7. Though it's similar for level 2 sellers now, who can have half the amount of gigs they used to be allowed. That prevents people trying new gigs.

And even if allowed to create new gigs, sometimes it might be easier if it was all just done in a custom offer if someone asks for something specific to be done but there was no gig for it. But there isn't that option.

Edited by uk1000
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visualstudios Grand Master

visualstudios

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20 minutes ago, uk1000 said:

Another con for new sellers is the maximum number of allowed gigs is 4.

That's not really a big con though, as 4 gigs is basically 3 more than what you should have as a new seller. Focusing is everything. Do one thing well, and take it from there - both in my experience and the experience of a lot of sellers I know, that's the way it went. Start with 1, and grow from there. Hell, I know some sellers at level 2, that have made (and are making) quite a bit of money consistently, with 1-3 gigs, and are not creating more because there's no point to it. Tall > Wide on Fiverr.

This also ties in to low barrier of entry. Each gig takes work to set up correctly (and you can't duplicate gigs and then customize, unfortunately). This means thumbnails, videos, copy, gig tiers, FAQ's, requirements, etc. 

It can take days to create and set up a good gig. May as well focus all that effort in one, than do a bunch of subpar gigs, or have to spend a month just setting up a lot of gigs with no guarantees of making any money at all. As a new seller, it pays to do one thing well, in multiple ways. Create your best gig, set it up properly, and then wait to see if the fish bite. Only after waiting a while, create a second, if you have a good idea for it. If after waiting a fair period they aren't selling at all, switch them up, there's no point in having gigs up that aren't selling. In any case, 4 is more than enough for anyone starting out.

 

Like, as TRS I could have 30 gigs up. I have 9 set up, and honestly could probably drop that to 6 with no big impact. The Pareto principle also applies here - 20% of your gigs will be responsible for 80% of your sales anyway.

Edited by visualstudios
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uk1000 Grand Master

uk1000

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1 hour ago, visualstudios said:

That's not really a big con though, as 4 gigs is basically 3 more than what you should have as a new seller. Focusing is everything. Do one thing well, and take it from there - both in my experience and the experience of a lot of sellers I know, that's the way it went. Start with 1, and grow from there.

Yes but roughly speaking (on average), it seems that level 0 sellers with more active gigs get more reviews each week I think (Fiverr could show the actual data for it though). So it seems to benefit. A level 0 seller with just 1 active gig seems to get the least amount of reviews/orders each week. Yes they could start of with a low amount of gigs and quality ones, but it will be harder for them to see what works best for them/what they they're best at if they're only allowed a few gigs in total until they're level 1. Same for level 2 where you can only have half what you could before. I'm not saying throw any gig up and see what works. They should still be quality gigs. Fiverr could also make it easier & quicker to create new gigs as well as allowing more of them and quicker making one active if a buyer in the inbox is asking to order that service.

eg. Fiverr could allow copying of FAQ or templates/other content between gigs. They could also allow exporting of all gig info and importing it, easier re-ordering of things (like changing sequence of FAQ questions).

The fact that Fiverr only allows TRS level to have 30 gigs shows that they think the must be some benefit to having that amount of gigs. Otherwise they wouldn't list it as a benefit for the TRS level.

Edited by uk1000
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visualstudios Grand Master

visualstudios

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1 hour ago, uk1000 said:

eg. Fiverr could allow copying of FAQ or templates/other content between gigs. They could also allow exporting of all gig info and importing it, easier re-ordering of things (like changing sequence of FAQ questions).

This would be massive. It's a bit ridiculous to have to change every gig manually if you want to add a new FAQ question, for example. We need gig templating, it would be very useful. 

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mandyzines Grand Master

mandyzines

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On 8/30/2024 at 1:37 AM, smartsalesprof said:

I am a new seller, i want all of you to put me through how to succeed on fiverr

I think it's important for you to know that you can spend a great deal of time, energy, and money building up your presence on this site only for the AI to misread something and either dwindle your exposure down to nothing or ban your account altogether for something you didn't do and you will have no recourse.

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