Please multiply deadlines for multiple gig orders, and create an actual, working queue

[chellevanhoy]

Reply to @sincere18: So what happens when I get 5 orders overnight and it puts me over my limit?

[chellevanhoy]

Reply to @sincere18: If a buyer is trying to get top-quality work for a cut-rate price like $5, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that in lieu of spending the amount that delivery is actually worth, they contact the person who is delivering the work before ordering it.

As to your point about pausing your gig and upping the delivery time: the part you seem to keep missing is that a seller doesn’t necessarily know when those overloads are going to happen. It’s a little like trying to predict the weather. You are also forgetting that sellers don’t have to be online, or even awake to get orders. It’s entirely possible to not know you’ve been overloaded until you wake up the next morning.

I have thought about it from a buyer’s perspective. Most of this site is tailored to the buyer’s perspective. For instance: your cancellation suggestion. If I request a cancellation and the buyer refuses, so I have to force it, it hurts MY reputation as a seller because the buyer didn’t read my gig description.

[mgjohn78]

Reply to @chellevanhoy:
Been there, though i would never ever promise a 24 hour delivery as there are too many unknown factors. The solution was to go into vacation mode, add some caffeine pills to your coffee and do a triple shift. After that i increased my delivery times from 3 days to 7 (atm i have my delivery times set to 29 days as i’m on a job 4 hours away from my fiverr work space).
One thing you can do is log your time everyday and keep a stat sheet of how many orders etc you got done, then calculate your estimated delivery times based on an average of your busiest days, then add some extra time for unknown factors. Example if your computer breaks in the middle of a gig, how long would it take you to setup a backup etc.

I might be overcautious but have never been late and i think clients appreciate this.

[sincere18]

Reply to @chellevanhoy: I get where you are coming from, although when you are selling any service be it here or elsewhere a site should be tailored to creating the best for the buyers.

And I understand that you can maybe go to sleep and wake up to a bunch of orders, but once you get going and have steady sales you know this and can set your delivery time to accomodate your personal workflow time frame you want. Sure there can always be a spike here and there, but then if that is the case you can contact that buyer and let them know you need a day or two more. But the overall concept is that you are getting steady orders and you have a general idea of the amount of time you have to work on gigs.

[chellevanhoy]

Reply to @mgjohn78: Now that I’ve become better established as a Seller, I will probably drop the “24 hour” gimmick from my gigs. It was necessary to set me apart from the crowd to begin with, but I can let my reputation do the talking now and give myself some breathing room. Ironically, I got two orders while I was sleeping last night, within hours of writing about orders received while sleeping.

[sincere18]

Reply to @chellevanhoy: Well as I was mentioning above, if you get 5 more orders that puts you over the limit I would think you would be jumping for joy that your sales are increasing. Sure you might have to contact a buyer to work out a delivery date if this is a one time occurance, but your posts about this seem to suggest that this happens often. Does it? If that is the case once you get to a steady flow of waking up to 5 more orders, your overall sales strategy and work-flow needs to be adjusted. If it’s really a once in a blue moon kind of thing, then you treat it like any other job where you have to work a late night overtime to get things done. If ongoing then you adjust your delivery days.

[sincere18]

Reply to @chellevanhoy: Ah, ok that makes sense that you had a 24 hour thing. You can still have that though if you want, just up the charge a lot! So if a 24 hour order comes in you can just bump any other orders down the line and work on that first. Just an idea.

[chellevanhoy]

Reply to @sincere18: It doesn’t happen to me often, no. But it happens to many sellers, all the time. I’m not making this plea out of personal convenience, I am making it on behalf of the many other sellers I have seen who have, at one time or another, really needed a feature like this. The option wasn’t there for them and it should have been. That’s all. Yes, buyers should be catered to on a marketplace, but not to the extent that the people providing services, who are equally important, should be shafted.

[chellevanhoy]

Reply to @sincere18: I plan on adding an extra for 24 hour delivery. But, as I said above, this suggestion isn’t specifically for me. Read the responses to the new Translation pricing model, and you’ll see a lot of people asking for a similar feature in many, many categories. The difference? A set price and time-period that multiplies.

[sincere18]

Reply to @chellevanhoy: I get that, but as I was mentioning a multiplication of time is a turn off for buyers because then you never know. Some buyers choose sellers based on delivery days listed. I know I have often in the past. I may choose a seller that offers what I want in 3 days as opposed to 7 days. So I specifically choose the 3 day delivery seller.

If now I had to first contact sellers to find out where in their queue they are, and when my order could be delivered, that would be a huge pain and turn off, and I’d start taking business elsewhere or maybe only buy from new sellers who are willing to do a lot of orders to get things going or something. Remember a buyer does not know what your personal time frame is within the actual days a seller lists.

Just food for thought from a buyers perspective, as this is a discussion forum.

[sincere18]

Reply to @chellevanhoy: Ok, fair enough, but if it’s happening to sellers often and consistently that’s great! they should be changing their delivery times overall.

This is no different than someone working as an independent freelancer on their own. If someone has a lot of steady jobs coming in, they have to tell any new prospective client, that yes, they can work with them but it may take 2 weeks for delivery.

Do you think sellers here should not be extending the overall delivery days for their gigs as they get busier and busier with more and more orders?

[chellevanhoy]

Reply to @sincere18: You would still be able to make that decision as a buyer. You could choose a seller who is not using a working queue, or multiplying delivery times. That doesn’t mean that the option shouldn’t be there for sellers to take advantage of if they choose to.

[twistedweb123]

Reply to @reinier01: I don’t think I have made a sweeping statement. I directly answered a question provided to me and gave my personal opinion on it. I even state “personally”. I have not stated that no one should order in that scenario, I just wouldn’t.

I wouldn’t be surprised if many would argue getting paid $5 to write 1,000 words for major astronomy magazines is massively undervaluing yourself.

As I stated, I find there is a tipping point (based on many previous experiences) where increasing the quantity of a product/service whilst lowering or maintaining the price often reflects poorly on the perceived quality.

Let me give you some real life values:

1. You can have 10 burgers for $10, or 1 burger for $10
2. You can buy 10 computers for $10,000 or 1 computer for $10,000
3. You can buy 1 1,000 word article for $5, or 1 5,000 word article for $5…

All of these examples clearly demonstrate a perceived bias which a lot of companies use marketing their product. It doesn’t necessarily mean the service/product is poorer but it does increase a perception.

Look at Apple as an example - the latest iPhone release contains many features which are already widely available on much cheaper handsets. Why do people pay so much more for Apple? it’s for the PERCEIVED value, as opposed to the literal cost.

[twistedweb123]

Reply to @chellevanhoy:

Why would you charge a lower price for something which takes you longer? If a good 500 word article takes 30 minutes, then you should charge based upon the time spent to perform the service and NOT charge based upon the price of competitors probably spending less time than you.

If a buyer purchases a 500 word article from a seller for $5 and doesn’t like it, do you think they are going to source another $5 article? If that’s their strict budget they might but they also might look at more expensive options due their PERCEIVED value.

One real world example:

You buy a $10 pair of headphones and they break within a day. Do you go out and buy another $10 pair of headphones (fearful they may break in a day again) or decide to spring a little higher on a $30 pair of headphones in the hope that they are better quality and better value in the long run. This is PERCEIVED value. There is nothing to prove the $30 headphones are any better except the price. People often perceive the higher value item to be the better option. Beats by Dre is a prime example. Far better quality headsphones are available at a lower price but many consumers perceived Beats by Dre to be one of the best due to the price.

So, why low ball your service to match the bottomline sellers in a fixed marketplace? As I say, you shouldn’t look to match a competitor based on price and word count when you spend longer and (should) produce a better final product?

This raises another issue. What if you sell $5 500 word articles until you hit level 2. When you hit level 2, you sell 100 word, $5 articles. What will all of your returning buyers think? Will they be happy or go elsewhere, that’s a legitmate risk you may not know the outcome to. You may find yourself consistantly lowballing just to keep price recognition to previous buyers. Start as you mean to go - set prices which work for you, for the time spent.

If you want to earn $8 an hour (2x $5 articles with commission), that’s a different story - you’re doing what you want and aim to do. If that’s the case, I retract my comments. However, if you have grander aspirations your gig will not magically change overnight to $50 an hour just by levelling up if your core service is still taking you 30 minutes for $5.

[chellevanhoy]

Reply to @sincere18: I am specifically talking about the numerous posts from sellers who get unexpectedly bombarded with orders. Does that mean more revenue? Yes. Does it also mean the possibility of a serious drop in reputation if the work is late or not up to standard? Absolutely. Which then hurts any future sales numbers just as much as lengthening delivery times does. Having these two optional features would provide a safeguard against just that. As buyers would still be able to select based on delivery time and the status of those options, the effect on customers would be negligible. As sellers would not have to enable the features, the effect on Sellers who don’t want to use them would be nil.

[sue_mcl]

Reply to @twistedweb123:
I completely agree with this, and built my gig up to a value I was happy with providing and which gives the customer great value too, however, that is now. In the beginning, I had to offer 6 time what I offer now just to try and get people to buy my brand new gig, from a brand new seller, as opposed to buying from one of the hundreds of other established gig options.

I really struggled with feast and famine because of that, and it was really hard to balance the flood of orders I would sometimes get (usually it would all be in one day or over a few hours, so I wouldn’t have time to react), with trying to build up reviews to be able to get to the point I could put my rates up so I could make reasonable money not have all my sales dry up because of the rate increase.

I am sure no-one would be intending offering bargain basement rates forever (and if you are, you might want to re-think it as you’ll get burnt out) but when you start out, it is one way to get established quickly, as generally, no one likes to buy from new sellers, it is a risk, compared to buying from a seller that offers the same or similar rates, but has hundreds or thousands of reviews.

[sincere18]

Reply to @chellevanhoy: what do you mean? Are you suggesting that there would be two time frames displayed? SOme would have a queu and state their delivery days the way it exists now and then other sellers would not have any info, more like just a freelancer site where you look for a person and then contact them? I guess I was confused what you are talking about now.

[twistedweb123]

Reply to @sue_mcl:

I understand starting out can be difficult and you may need to offer more to buyers for them to purchase from you but I think there is a bit of give a take.

I think the key to starting out is trying to rack up as much as early as possible. this is for two reasons:

1. You level up faster

2. As a new gig/seller, you are provided with over-exposure in search results. This includes, but is not limited to, things like appearing in “highest rated” and “recommended” when your gig sales don’t really warrant it. I have tracked and monitored this and noticed that this over-exposure fades after a while (like 30 days). It’s my belief that this is the point where you sink or swim. If your gig hasn’t done very well or you’ve been slow with deliveries (i.e. not turned a lot around within the time), your gig is likely to sink as it doesn’t have the feedback to rank in the search now it’s on it’s own merit and you have little buyers to fall back on as repeats. On the flip side, if you’ve cranked orders out quickly, racked up feedback and are a ‘trending’ gig (i.e. busy right now but not necessarily higher reviews than those in search) you seem to take up the advanced position in search on merit.

I often say, success on Fiverr requires a lot of initial effort in the short term for great success in the long term. If you setup a gig and leave it idle - it’s going to sink. This is why I think a feature such as a “working queue” with no clear delivery time and a slowdown on deliveries and orders would be completely detrimental to ‘swimming’ and hurt yourself in the long run.

Building your reputation to charge more and work on a better time/cost ratio is a key element of receiving more orders. However, people really do underestimate the power of perceived value. I have seen a lot of new gigs setup with ‘premium’ prices and they often receive orders over established sellers. If anything, I’m more likely to order from a new ‘premium’ priced gig at the hope of finding a fantastic talent who has just joined the platform, as opposed to a ‘regular Joe’ who has assigned themselves their own title & profession (i.e. “Expert of …”, “Professional…”) with little to no experience.

Think of it another way. You’re going to order from a new buyer - that’s a decision you’ve made - who do you order from:

1. The 1,000 people with all the exact same pricing & offerings
2. The 1 person who has a premium (yet still below market value) pricing with varied offerings?

This initial conversation came about based on the suggestions within the initial post. However, I fear we’ve come way off track. What was an initial response to the “working queue” idea has seemingly turned into a debate about how long you should spend on your gigs!

[chellevanhoy]

Yes. It would be like a stat listing on the side of their page, maybe under their rating. That way, the sellers have the option to enable the features and the buyers have the option to skip over those sellers. Everybody wins.