The 'Request To Order' feature needs improvement for it to be worth paying for

[neilyhype]

The way the feature is currently implemented seems more of a limitation than helpful. I get 99% of my orders directly with no issues, but occasionally, someone places an order with requirements unrelated to my service. As you can see, I'd lose more money by turning on the Request To Order feature to prevent the occasional bad buyers (and if I don't turn on that feature, these occasional bad buyers can damage my gig performance drastically).

Things that would make this a helpful feature:

1. The buyer's order process should be the same as for instant orders, with a clear notice like: "Please be aware that the seller will need to review your requirements. After this review, your order will either be accepted or rejected, or the seller might request an adjustment to the pricing or requirements."

2. The seller receives the order and clicks 'accept' if the order is clear and within the scope of the service.

3. If the buyer's requirement is incomplete or unclear, there should be a button to 'Request More Information.'

4. There should be a button to 'Request Adjustment To Payment' if the buyer's requirement fits a higher package than the one they purchased (the buyer will get the option to accept the adjustment request or terminate the order).

5. There should be a button to 'Refuse Order' if the buyer's requirement is outside the scope of the service (the buyer gets a polite notification that the seller cannot complete the order at the moment).

These features would make Seller Plus pricing more justified. Honestly, the current Request To Order feature isn't worth paying for. It's simply another way for buyers to 'message you' without commitment. It feels more like the old Buyer Request feature.

 

I know Fiverr might not want to add these features, because of the potential transaction fees that will be associated if many orders are refused and refunded...but that is why it would be worth it as paid feature...and that is why EVERY eligible seller would be willing to pay for it.
 

Edited August 31 by neilyhype
more thoughts came to my mind

[filipdevaere]

You still need something to adjust the delivery time.
I need the RTO to give the orders the correct delivery time. I want to decide for myself whether I have to deliver in 3 weeks or 1 week. If I can't do that, I can't follow my schedule anymore.

I have too many orders. If everyone can place an order themselves, then too many orders will have to be delivered at the same time.

[donnovan86]

3 hours ago, neilyhype said:

1. The buyer's order process should be the same as for instant orders, with a clear notice like: "Please be aware that the seller will need to review your requirements. After this review, your order will either be accepted or rejected, or the seller might request an adjustment to the pricing or requirements."

 

It defeats the purpose of stopping people from buying directly and instead contacting you. That's the whole purpose of request to order, to make people contact you first instead of directly placing an order. What you describe is an order that's placed directly. 

Would you pay $1000 for a gig just to have it "reviewed" by the seller and then have it rejected, in a day? That's a day wasted, fees paid and so on. It would be a bad experience for buyers. 

3 hours ago, neilyhype said:

and that is why EVERY eligible seller would be willing to pay for it.

I wouldn't and I am eligible. I rarely use the service myself, but when I want to use it, then it's there for me and it works as advertised. I think having people contact you before placing the order and not paying anything is ideal. Making the process more complicated for buyers is not something Fiverr will do, since they care about the customer experience. Maybe they create another feature similar with RTO with more options, but I doubt they offer complete control to the seller. In my opinion, RTO is fine the way it is, and it's not a mandatory feature either.. 

[neilyhype]

44 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

It defeats the purpose of stopping people from buying directly and instead contacting you. That's the whole purpose of request to order, to make people contact you first instead of directly placing an order. What you describe is an order that's placed directly. 

Would you pay $1000 for a gig just to have it "reviewed" by the seller and then have it rejected, in a day? That's a day wasted, fees paid and so on. It would be a bad experience for buyers. 

I wouldn't and I am eligible. I rarely use the service myself, but when I want to use it, then it's there for me and it works as advertised. I think having people contact you before placing the order and not paying anything is ideal. Making the process more complicated for buyers is not something Fiverr will do, since they care about the customer experience. Maybe they create another feature similar with RTO with more options, but I doubt they offer complete control to the seller. In my opinion, RTO is fine the way it is, and it's not a mandatory feature either.. 

First, I would contact the seller before placing an order if a service costs more than $100 (way less than $1000)

So instead of 'testing' a gig to have it reviewed, I would simply message the seller the regular way for free. If something cost less than $50 and I'm sure that my requirements fit the gig description, why would I have a problem to pay and wait for it to be reviewed by the seller? That's exactly how it is done right now. The difference is that the seller is forced to cancel the order if it's not within the scope of their service, and this affects their account.

You can feel justified to pay for a simple feature that limits your service, I'd feel more justified with a feature that allows me to accept, refuse and adjust orders as I see fit. 

I am a seller and a buyer as well, so I have a lot of experience on both ends.

Edited August 31 by neilyhype

[donnovan86]

2 hours ago, neilyhype said:

You can feel justified to pay for a simple feature that limits your service, I'd feel more justified with a feature that allows me to accept, refuse and adjust orders as I see fit. 

 

Request to Order does that. The buyer contacts you because they can't place an order by themselves. Problem solved. You can talk with the person, see if you can do what they want and refuse if necessary, or you can send a custom offer. Why would you complicate the RTO feature when it's sound the way it is. You can't have request to order on and expect everyone to still place orders normally, that's not the idea behind this feature.

 

2 hours ago, neilyhype said:

If something cost less than $50 and I'm sure that my requirements fit the gig description, why would I have a problem to pay and wait for it to be reviewed by the seller?

You realize most buyers here want to place an order and wait for the result right? You said you buy stuff here too, would you be ok with placing an order, getting declined the next day, trying the same with 4 sellers and wasting multiple days without getting anything done? Just wasting time? People come here to get the job done fast, not to wait for a seller. Most buyers, from my experience, contact multiple sellers at once (for free) before they place an order with the person that seems the best fit. So why would someone pay not knowing if the seller would take their order or not? It increases the cancellation rate for the seller so it harms the seller, the buyer wastes time.. I don't see any reasons why RTO would be changed 🙂 As I said I rarely use it, but whenever I used it was good for me, and these changes would only make it worse. 

[neilyhype]

2 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

Request to Order does that. The buyer contacts you because they can't place an order by themselves. Problem solved. You can talk with the person, see if you can do what they want and refuse if necessary, or you can send a custom offer. Why would you complicate the RTO feature when it's sound the way it is. You can't have request to order on and expect everyone to still place orders normally, that's not the idea behind this feature.

 

You realize most buyers here want to place an order and wait for the result right? You said you buy stuff here too, would you be ok with placing an order, getting declined the next day, trying the same with 4 sellers and wasting multiple days without getting anything done? Just wasting time? People come here to get the job done fast, not to wait for a seller. Most buyers, from my experience, contact multiple sellers at once (for free) before they place an order with the person that seems the best fit. So why would someone pay not knowing if the seller would take their order or not? It increases the cancellation rate for the seller so it harms the seller, the buyer wastes time.. I don't see any reasons why RTO would be changed 🙂 As I said I rarely use it, but whenever I used it was good for me, and these changes would only make it worse. 

I think you're just responding just to disagree with me on something. 

If I turn on the Request to Order feature, I lose 99% of sales...but if I keep it off, I have to occasionally cancel orders that are not within the scope of my service. Do you see the importance of my suggestions now?

Are you saying its best to force sellers to complete orders that are not within the scope of their service description? I ask this because you mentioned "would you be ok with placing an order, getting declined the next day?" ... Yes, I would rather the seller/s refuse my order than feel forced to do something that they don't want to do. 

 

[donnovan86]

2 hours ago, neilyhype said:

I think you're just responding just to disagree with me on something. 

 

The Request to Order feature isn't for you then 🙂 You want to have orders coming in without people asking you, but then again you don't 🙂

There will always be the occasional random order that ends up getting canceled, it's the same for everyone. Request to Order is usually for larger, expensive gigs that need people to contact the seller beforehand to share details, instead of randomly spending hundreds or thousands without talking with the seller first. 

2 hours ago, neilyhype said:

Are you saying its best to force sellers to complete orders that are not within the scope of their service description? I ask this because you mentioned "would you be ok with placing an order, getting declined the next day?" ... Yes, I would rather the seller/s refuse my order than feel forced to do something that they don't want to do. 

 

I've had this happen dozens of times over the past few decades. If it happens, go to customer support and they remove any negative impact from cancellations. You can easily cancel stuff. 

Knowing how Fiverr caters to the buyers and they strive to improve and streamline their experience, this suggestion would just increase friction for buyers. Sure, maybe you are ok with wasting days trying to find a seller that agrees to do the work based on that system you mentioned. But most buyers just want the work done now. I know from my experience that a LOT of buyers are very impatient, so I can only imagine how unhappy many of them would be if they have to wait even more time until someone takes their order, let alone completes it.

So no, I am not arguing for the sake I arguing. I know the platform well enough to state that they want buyers to have a great buyer experience. Your suggestion would help you and maybe a few other sellers in that situation, but it would cause a lot of friction and wasted time on the buyer's side. And Fiverr would never do that. If anything, they will try to remove steps from the buyer experience just to make it easier, not increase the waiting time and wait for a seller that might take days to reply, only to decline. They are not playing with any buyer's money...

[neilyhype]

7 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

The Request to Order feature isn't for you then 🙂 You want to have orders coming in without people asking you, but then again you don't 🙂

There will always be the occasional random order that ends up getting canceled, it's the same for everyone. Request to Order is usually for larger, expensive gigs that need people to contact the seller beforehand to share details, instead of randomly spending hundreds or thousands without talking with the seller first. 

I've had this happen dozens of times over the past few decades. If it happens, go to customer support and they remove any negative impact from cancellations. You can easily cancel stuff. 

Knowing how Fiverr caters to the buyers and they strive to improve and streamline their experience, this suggestion would just increase friction for buyers. Sure, maybe you are ok with wasting days trying to find a seller that agrees to do the work based on that system you mentioned. But most buyers just want the work done now. I know from my experience that a LOT of buyers are very impatient, so I can only imagine how unhappy many of them would be if they have to wait even more time until someone takes their order, let alone completes it.

So no, I am not arguing for the sake I arguing. I know the platform well enough to state that they want buyers to have a great buyer experience. Your suggestion would help you and maybe a few other sellers in that situation, but it would cause a lot of friction and wasted time on the buyer's side. And Fiverr would never do that. If anything, they will try to remove steps from the buyer experience just to make it easier, not increase the waiting time and wait for a seller that might take days to reply, only to decline. They are not playing with any buyer's money...

Are you a developer or staff member for Fiverr? Are you one of the impatient buyers that you mentioned? Why are you contesting my suggestions? Do you have any feature request that you would like to be implemented that would benefit sellers? Or you think that Fiverr is perfect the way it is right now?

 

[donnovan86]

2 hours ago, neilyhype said:

Are you a developer or staff member for Fiverr? Are you one of the impatient buyers that you mentioned? Why are you contesting my suggestions? Do you have any feature request that you would like to be implemented that would benefit sellers? Or you think that Fiverr is perfect the way it is right now?

 

Yep, I made numerous Fiverr suggestions over the years. Some were implemented like the current success score, my idea was similar to that. Others, like the ability to stop people from ordering gig multiples if you want, it's been requested by me and many others, yet it's still not something we can do, I've been requesting that for over 6-7 years, if not more.

Not a developer or an impatient buyer. But I am a Fiverr forum member and I have all the right to express my opinion, just like you do. And just because you wrote your opinion that you feel strongly about, that doesn't mean everyone has to agree with it. I think making these changes would just lead to a more cumbersome buyer experience. There are fewer buyers on the platform the way it is, you want to make their experience even worse and drive them away just because those changes would benefit you? 

Nothing against you man, I am just expressing my opinion regarding these suggestions. I know very well how fast people want their work when purchasing an order, do you really think that someone will pay and wait a day or two until a seller replies and says no? No way Fiverr would ever add this feature. That's why they made request to order, so you can have people contact you first and then you create an offer based on your needs.  You can't have request to order and also receive random orders that are made without your consent. Choose one or the other. You're not the first person that asks for Fiverr to add this, but do you really think Fiverr will take people's money while offering you the option to decline something that people paid for already? No chance. It makes no sense to do this on a freelancing platform, even if they have an escrow system in place. The number of refunds would be insane and for what? Just to waste buyer's time 🙂?

[newsmike]

5 hours ago, neilyhype said:

If I turn on the Request to Order feature, I lose 99% of sales.

I believe you'll find that this is not true. I had just as many sales when this was turned on. Only reason I'm not using it now is because they priced Seller Plus above it's value, Anyway, you won't lose any sales, they just message you and then you get to correspond before you send an offer. Try it, it's great, and you can just switch it on and off at will. 

[neilyhype]

1 hour ago, donnovan86 said:

Yep, I made numerous Fiverr suggestions over the years. Some were implemented like the current success score, my idea was similar to that. Others, like the ability to stop people from ordering gig multiples if you want, it's been requested by me and many others, yet it's still not something we can do, I've been requesting that for over 6-7 years, if not more.

Not a developer or an impatient buyer. But I am a Fiverr forum member and I have all the right to express my opinion, just like you do. And just because you wrote your opinion that you feel strongly about, that doesn't mean everyone has to agree with it. I think making these changes would just lead to a more cumbersome buyer experience. There are fewer buyers on the platform the way it is, you want to make their experience even worse and drive them away just because those changes would benefit you? 

Nothing against you man, I am just expressing my opinion regarding these suggestions. I know very well how fast people want their work when purchasing an order, do you really think that someone will pay and wait a day or two until a seller replies and says no? No way Fiverr would ever add this feature. That's why they made request to order, so you can have people contact you first and then you create an offer based on your needs.  You can't have request to order and also receive random orders that are made without your consent. Choose one or the other. You're not the first person that asks for Fiverr to add this, but do you really think Fiverr will take people's money while offering you the option to decline something that people paid for already? No chance. It makes no sense to do this on a freelancing platform, even if they have an escrow system in place. The number of refunds would be insane and for what? Just to waste buyer's time 🙂?

Question. What's the difference between a seller refusing an order after the buyer has been waiting for 2 days, and a seller cancelling an order after the buyer has been waiting for 2 days?

Your responses just seem to be saying 'Buyers should be able to order as fast as possible. Sellers should be forced to complete orders and do not interrupt the buying process, or their account will be penalized'

You mentioned "do you really think Fiverr will take people's money while offering you the option to decline something that people paid for already?" ...  why shouldn't I as a seller be able to decline an order if it's not within the scope of my service? Why would a buyer want a seller to complete an order that the seller doesn't want to do anyway?

I looked on your profile and a few of your negative reviews seems to be because you felt forced to do tasks that you have no expertise in. Are you satisfied with that? Don't you think you would eliminate those negative experience that both you and your buyers had, by having the ability to refuse those orders?

My feature request will allow buyers the exact speed that they currently get with instant orders, while allowing sellers the ability to accept, refuse, or adjust orders without affecting their account. I don't see in what way it would make things worse for anybody, unless you believe sellers should be forced to complete orders that they don't want to complete.

[neilyhype]

1 hour ago, newsmike said:

I believe you'll find that this is not true. I had just as many sales when this was turned on. Only reason I'm not using it now is because they priced Seller Plus above it's value, Anyway, you won't lose any sales, they just message you and then you get to correspond before you send an offer. Try it, it's great, and you can just switch it on and off at will. 

Maybe that's true, but in the beta stage, even Fiverr themselves warned that this feature might reduce orders.

I rather the process of instant orders, I just want the ability to accept, adjust, or refuse the order before it has any effect on my account. A seller should not be forced or penalized for completing tasks that they have no expertise in.

I think the Request to Order feature can fix that issue with my suggestions

[mandyzines]

2 hours ago, newsmike said:

I believe you'll find that this is not true. I had just as many sales when this was turned on. Only reason I'm not using it now is because they priced Seller Plus above it's value, Anyway, you won't lose any sales, they just message you and then you get to correspond before you send an offer. Try it, it's great, and you can just switch it on and off at will. 

I need to work on my onboarding via DM's process, apparently, because "order now" gets me far more than them contacting me first. I've never upgraded to the premium subscription because of this. I guess it could be because they're considering several sellers and haven't concluded that I'm the voice they or their client wants when they message me. Often time, they want auditions and to compare pricing in the offers sent.

[donnovan86]

26 minutes ago, neilyhype said:

I rather the process of instant orders, I just want the ability to accept, adjust, or refuse the order before it has any effect on my account. A seller should not be forced or penalized for completing tasks that they have no expertise in.

I think the Request to Order feature can fix that issue with my suggestions

You can go to customer support and ask them to revise your stats if an order is placed by mistake..

38 minutes ago, neilyhype said:

You mentioned "do you really think Fiverr will take people's money while offering you the option to decline something that people paid for already?" ...  why shouldn't I as a seller be able to decline an order if it's not within the scope of my service? Why would a buyer want a seller to complete an order that the seller doesn't want to do anyway?

 

You have Request to Order to stop that from happening in the first place.

39 minutes ago, neilyhype said:

Your responses just seem to be saying 'Buyers should be able to order as fast as possible. Sellers should be forced to complete orders and do not interrupt the buying process, or their account will be penalized'

 

No one is forcing you to do anything, you can always cancel. And get your stats revised because the buyer asked for stuff outside of what you offer. 

39 minutes ago, neilyhype said:

I looked on your profile and a few of your negative reviews seems to be because you felt forced to do tasks that you have no expertise in. Are you satisfied with that? Don't you think you would eliminate those negative experience that both you and your buyers had, by having the ability to refuse those orders?

 

I didn't have request to order access when that happened. My problem with those reviews is the lack of initial contact and instead a direct order. Which Request to Order would solve, if activated. You force them to contact you first with RTO. That's the whole purpose, to talk about requirements first. It would be a good idea to force people to contact you first without having RTO. 

Regardless, what I said stands. Fiverr focuses a lot on the buyer experience, more than the seller experience. They continually add a variety of ways to trim down bad sellers, see the success score, reviews for canceled orders and private reviews. Meanwhile, their focus is on streamlining the buyer experience and offering them easier ways to find a person to work with, including AI like NEO. That's why I said your suggestions will most likely not see the light of day. Me and many others, we shared a lot of suggestions that would make the seller's life easier on the platform. And few to none of those were implemented. In your case, adding more steps to the buyer experience, I think that would never happen. Let alone make people wait hours or days until a seller denies a PAID order. I do think people should be forced to talk with the seller first before initiating an order, but realistically, a lot of people are in a rush and won't wait. 

[neilyhype]

5 minutes ago, donnovan86 said:

You can go to customer support and ask them to revise your stats if an order is placed by mistake..

You have Request to Order to stop that from happening in the first place.

No one is forcing you to do anything, you can always cancel. And get your stats revised because the buyer asked for stuff outside of what you offer. 

I didn't have request to order access when that happened. My problem with those reviews is the lack of initial contact and instead a direct order. Which Request to Order would solve, if activated. You force them to contact you first with RTO. That's the whole purpose, to talk about requirements first. It would be a good idea to force people to contact you first without having RTO. 

Regardless, what I said stands. Fiverr focuses a lot on the buyer experience, more than the seller experience. They continually add a variety of ways to trim down bad sellers, see the success score, reviews for canceled orders and private reviews. Meanwhile, their focus is on streamlining the buyer experience and offering them easier ways to find a person to work with, including AI like NEO. That's why I said your suggestions will most likely not see the light of day. Me and many others, we shared a lot of suggestions that would make the seller's life easier on the platform. And few to none of those were implemented. In your case, adding more steps to the buyer experience, I think that would never happen. Let alone make people wait hours or days until a seller denies a PAID order. I do think people should be forced to talk with the seller first before initiating an order, but realistically, a lot of people are in a rush and won't wait. 

I think you're forgetting that I am not suggesting a free feature. I am suggesting a feature for Seller Plus PREMIUM.

You said Fiverr caters more to the buyer's experience, but I think you're forgetting that I am buyer on the freelancer side and I'm a buyer of Seller Plus as well. 

As a seller though, I need the ability to accept, refuse, or adjust orders before they have any effect on my account. The features I suggested will allow me to do that.

 

 

[donnovan86]

6 minutes ago, neilyhype said:

You said Fiverr caters more to the buyer's experience, but I think you're forgetting that I am buyer on the freelancer side and I'm a buyer of Seller Plus as well. 

 

Yes but you're asking features for a seller not a buyer. I bought on Fiverr as well, and I know for a fact that it would be very frustrating to pay someone for any work, just to have a reply a day or two later that they can't do it. That's why request to order exists, to stop that and make people ask before buying. Anyway, clearly we have different points of view, but in my opinion it doesn't make sense to have request to order that also allows incoming orders without asking, and an additional waiting time. 

To each his own, I don't think it's necessary to modify request to order in this form. Maybe they can actually do something with people placing gig multiple orders, like 10x or 20x your gig packages, and you have 1x the deadline for that package. That is a problem, canceling stuff that's not something you work on is easy, whereas allowing people to stop/start gig multiples as they see fit or customize how much work they can take, that to me seems like a much more important thing and a priority feature. 

[neilyhype]

Just now, donnovan86 said:

Yes but you're asking features for a seller not a buyer. I bought on Fiverr as well, and I know for a fact that it would be very frustrating to pay someone for any work, just to have a reply a day or two later that they can't do it. That's why request to order exists, to stop that and make people ask before buying. Anyway, clearly we have different points of view, but in my opinion it doesn't make sense to have request to order that also allows incoming orders without asking, and an additional waiting time. 

To each his own, I don't think it's necessary to modify request to order in this form. Maybe they can actually do something with people placing gig multiple orders, like 10x or 20x your gig packages, and you have 1x the deadline for that package. That is a problem, canceling stuff that's not something you work on is easy, whereas allowing people to stop/start gig multiples as they see fit or customize how much work they can take, that to me seems like a much more important thing and a priority feature. 

I am asking for feature as a buyer, for my seller account. 

You said, "I know for a fact that it would be very frustrating to pay someone for any work, just to have a reply a day or two later that they can't do it." ...what's stopping that from happening right now with a cancellation? This is why I say your responses seem like you think it's best for sellers to be forced to complete orders that they don't want to do.

As I said, I don't see how my suggestions would cause any problems for the buyer or the seller. 

Just so you know, the reason Fiverr is not implementing these features is because of the possible transaction fees...not because of the buyer experience. They wouldn't create the request to order feature if they cared about the speed of order over the overall order experience.

Our payment for Seller Plus Premium will cover all of the possible transaction fees... and that is why I am requesting these features

[donnovan86]

22 minutes ago, neilyhype said:

...what's stopping that from happening right now with a cancellation? This is why I say your responses seem like you think it's best for sellers to be forced to complete orders that they don't want to do.

You can easily cancel and go to customer support to solve any issues. 

24 minutes ago, neilyhype said:

Our payment for Seller Plus Premium will cover all of the possible transaction fees... and that is why I am requesting these features

LOL. You think Fiverr would give back from SPP just to cover that... funny. They would never do that. If anything they would charge more for the service. Which, if you ask a lot of people, many think it's already overpriced. I for one don't need to have a success manager, so I only want a couple of features, and it could be way less expensive. I would also like to see a Premium version without the success manager, not everyone wants to have a manager, but could use those Premium features. Pricing it in between would be a lot better.