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How to stop people from placing order without talking to me?

sayed2x2

By sayed2x2
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sayed2x2 Newbie

sayed2x2

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I m new on fiverr and I recently created gig for creating wordpress themes and I m getting a lot of request every day.

thanks to fiverr!! but I m having a problem. Even though I have mentioned in my video as well in the description that “Please inbox me before placing the order”, people are placing orders without talking to me. I have polietly asked them to cancel their orders but a few a still not cancelled. I know they would cancel but I m concered about my average delivery time, I dont want that to increase from 3 days.

Four days ago I had an order to create a new theme for wordpress and I wrote all the code throughout the night and almost completed it so that I can deliver it in one day and decrease the average delivery time but I had a question that the buyer took 2 days to answer, all hard word wasted. His two orders are still pending and he hasn’t replied yet. I understand people are busy but how do I cope up with such situations?

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mrspanda Newbie

mrspanda

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You can’t stop people from placing the order without talking to you.



Also, you do NOT want to keep canceling orders! It will hurt you from leveling up in a timely manner.



Just increase your gig time. State in your description that you can get it done in 3 days, but the delivery time is set at (maybe 10 days?) just in case there is a communication problem.



My average delivery time is roughly 7 days currently, but i have my gig set to 29 days just in case something happens. It hasn’t affected my orders because I noted that I usually take 7 or less days.

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mrspanda Newbie

mrspanda

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You can’t stop people from placing the order without talking to you.



Also, you do NOT want to keep canceling orders! It will hurt you from leveling up in a timely manner.



Just increase your gig time. State in your description that you can get it done in 3 days, but the delivery time is set at (maybe 10 days?) just in case there is a communication problem.



My average delivery time is roughly 7 days currently, but i have my gig set to 29 days just in case something happens. It hasn’t affected my orders because I noted that I usually take 7 or less days.

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sayed2x2 Newbie

sayed2x2

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Hey thanks I didn’t know that , but would it affect my rating even if I cancel with mutual consent(the second option in ‘resolve’)? And thanks mrspanda, I have increased my deliver time from 3 days to 7 days now. But is it ok to frequently change that time depending on the orders and time I have? And thanks marks I changed my gig discription after reading the discussion you showed.

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sayed2x2 Newbie

sayed2x2

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Hey thanks I didn’t know that , but would it affect my rating even if I cancel with mutual consent(the second option in ‘resolve’)? And thanks mrspanda, I have increased my deliver time from 3 days to 7 days now. But is it ok to frequently change that time depending on the orders and time I have? And thanks marks I changed my gig discription after reading the discussion you showed.

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bigbadbilly Rookie

bigbadbilly

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The reality is that most people won’t read the description. And only briefly glance at the gig. The best way to do this is to NOT have people contact you first. Just be very clear what you’ll do on your gig title.



As a buyer myself, and my wife as well, both of us agree that we do not order gigs that say “Contact me first”. And after asking around a bit, 2 of my friends that are buyers only are the same way. If they have to contact you before they order they simply move onto the next gig.



Nobody likes a gig that requires contact first. It shows the buyer that you really don’t know how to present yourself.



I know that most people on this forum are sellers, so they won’t agree. But from myself who started as a buyer, and from more than a few people who Buy only, having a caption to “Contact me first” simply turns them off the gig. And they’ll go to another gig that’s the same as yours and buy from them instead.



Simple answer? In my opinion? The “Please contact me before ordering” doesn’t work. Find a way to word your Title to show exactly what you offer.

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bigbadbilly Rookie

bigbadbilly

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The reality is that most people won’t read the description. And only briefly glance at the gig. The best way to do this is to NOT have people contact you first. Just be very clear what you’ll do on your gig title.



As a buyer myself, and my wife as well, both of us agree that we do not order gigs that say “Contact me first”. And after asking around a bit, 2 of my friends that are buyers only are the same way. If they have to contact you before they order they simply move onto the next gig.



Nobody likes a gig that requires contact first. It shows the buyer that you really don’t know how to present yourself.



I know that most people on this forum are sellers, so they won’t agree. But from myself who started as a buyer, and from more than a few people who Buy only, having a caption to “Contact me first” simply turns them off the gig. And they’ll go to another gig that’s the same as yours and buy from them instead.



Simple answer? In my opinion? The “Please contact me before ordering” doesn’t work. Find a way to word your Title to show exactly what you offer.

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scriptwizard Newbie

scriptwizard

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I have a solution for you, please read my tip/s in this thread (& please leave a comment this thread is new & needs some comments/interaction (the tip relevant to you is in the very first comment of my list of tips #4):

http://forum.fiverr.com/discussion/7561/the-think-tank-thread-for-anything-to-do-with-writing-or-what-to-write-or-what-not-to-write-tips#Item_2

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scriptwizard Newbie

scriptwizard

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I have a solution for you, please read my tip/s in this thread (& please leave a comment this thread is new & needs some comments/interaction (the tip relevant to you is in the very first comment of my list of tips #4):

http://forum.fiverr.com/discussion/7561/the-think-tank-thread-for-anything-to-do-with-writing-or-what-to-write-or-what-not-to-write-tips#Item_2

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merileep Newbie

merileep

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I agree with @bigbadbilly. Me and my hubby are buyers. We don’t sell anything. There;s so much good stuff here on Fiverr!!!



But when I see a gig that says to CONTACT ME BEFORE BUYING I just go to the next gig that’s the same thing as what the first one was.



TIP TO SELLERS from clients that buy and not sell. Do what Big Bad Billy says and simply state your gig properly. If I don’t buy from CONTACT ME FIRST sellers than there’s probably LOADS and loads of other people that don’t as well.

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merileep Newbie

merileep

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I agree with @bigbadbilly. Me and my hubby are buyers. We don’t sell anything. There;s so much good stuff here on Fiverr!!!



But when I see a gig that says to CONTACT ME BEFORE BUYING I just go to the next gig that’s the same thing as what the first one was.



TIP TO SELLERS from clients that buy and not sell. Do what Big Bad Billy says and simply state your gig properly. If I don’t buy from CONTACT ME FIRST sellers than there’s probably LOADS and loads of other people that don’t as well.

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mark74 Apprentice

mark74

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Reply to @bigbadbilly: well, I’m a software developer so… am I supposed to be able to create every software buyers have in their mind? Naturally no.

Am I supposed to create a huge software for $5? Naturally no.

So, if buyer does not contact me first

  • he cannot be sure I’m able to do what he’s asking
  • he cannot know how much time (and so gigs) I ask to complete the software



    Many times in the past, even if my description was telling crystal clear that I do not develop websites, buyers directly placed their orders to have websites done!! So I needed to write the buyer that I couldn’t complete the job and had to contact Customer Support to cancel these orders… so a waste of time for me and CS too!!



    Come on, what’s wrong in contacting the seller?

    Consider that [Contact me first] was edited after tons of orders placed for things I cannot develop!! Most of buyers do not read description, simply…

    So, considering that mutual cancellations affect seller ratings, we have to do something to protect… this was my attempt… and luckily after this the number of orders was not lower, while the number of “unwanted orders” decreased! 🙂
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mark74 Apprentice

mark74

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Reply to @bigbadbilly: well, I’m a software developer so… am I supposed to be able to create every software buyers have in their mind? Naturally no.

Am I supposed to create a huge software for $5? Naturally no.

So, if buyer does not contact me first

  • he cannot be sure I’m able to do what he’s asking
  • he cannot know how much time (and so gigs) I ask to complete the software



    Many times in the past, even if my description was telling crystal clear that I do not develop websites, buyers directly placed their orders to have websites done!! So I needed to write the buyer that I couldn’t complete the job and had to contact Customer Support to cancel these orders… so a waste of time for me and CS too!!



    Come on, what’s wrong in contacting the seller?

    Consider that [Contact me first] was edited after tons of orders placed for things I cannot develop!! Most of buyers do not read description, simply…

    So, considering that mutual cancellations affect seller ratings, we have to do something to protect… this was my attempt… and luckily after this the number of orders was not lower, while the number of “unwanted orders” decreased! 🙂
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incufire Newbie

incufire

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The people who say that they won’t contact a seller first are NOT buying custom programming, development, or tech related design work. What Fiverr sellers should be able to understand from a very basic marketing perspective is that, not all things work for all services.



I am also a buyer, and buy quite a bit. I buy custom development and design work, and always contact the seller first to make sure they have the skills I am looking for and are capable of delivering what I want - even if the description doesn’t say to. This also helps me to understand how accessible and responsive a seller is. Will they take 3 days to reply? Will they understand what I am talking about? What if we need to go back and forth in our correspondence a few times? What if I have a revision or two? Will they be professional about it? Do they even speak my language?!



Sometimes development projects can get involved, and the price can be quite costly - yes, even on Fiverr. So it’s best to know what you are getting yourself into first, before buying some gigs. In fact I once bought a gig from a seller who “FORGOT” he even had a Fiverr account, which he had apparently set up over a year ago, and never got more than a few sales from. He told me that he was going to close his account after completing my gig. We mutually cancelled because I wasn’t confident and he didn’t want to do the job. . . It would have been better for me to have contacted him first.



What seems to be effective in your situation, is to make the first line at the top of the description (in bold) read, “IMPORTANT: CONTACT ME BEFORE PURCHASING THIS GIG” to discuss your project.



But another thing you might want to consider is offering a simpler gig that you know you can do for $5 that won’t change much for each buyer, then offering extras that allow buyers to customize the basic gig. In your description you can reference to buyers that they should contact you first before purchasing a gig extra. In other words, your gig might be for them to send you a description of their business, and you’ll send them back a written idea for a design, including a description of the look, feel,color-scheme, navigation, etc; and for an extra $20 you’ll include a hand drawn wire-frame mock-up of your proposed idea; and for an extra $20, you’ll create a full-color Photoshop wire-frame . . . you get the idea.



The way Fiverr is set up, you can’t make buyers contact you first, so be sure to always have something worth $5 that you can deliver in the event that the seller is unresponsive, and like others have said, extend the estimated time-frame of your gig. Extending the estimated time also adds value to the “Express” extra option. “I’ll complete this gig in 24 hours” sounds more attractive to a buyer when they think it would normally take 20 days for work to be delivered.

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mboland Newbie

mboland

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Dude, some people are complete scumbags! I have had this happen to me at least 7 times now. The other day this guy ordered, demanded that I record (I do voiceovers) 2 full pages of text, about 6 minutes of audio, for $5. When I told him it wasn’t happening because it was a $50 order he just placed, he threw a fit and said I was practicing bait and switch and it was illegal. Clown.

I EXPLICITLY say in my bio and all of my gigs to contact me before ordering and still 10%-20% of the time, people just order without a care in the world.



What pisses me off about this, is that:

A) It ruins my cancel ratio and could knock me back down to Level 1.

and

B) Fiverr is doing NOTHING about it. I’ve told them several times via customer support on here and several time son their Facebook page, and their response is always, “Just do the best you can and those cancelled orders won’t effect you as much.” WTF?!?



I love Fiverr, but THIS is my main problem with them. Glad I’m not the only one.



Mike

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luna_dreamer07 Newbie

luna_dreamer07

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I just had someone place two orders without heeding any of my instructions. One order was an Express piled on with extras. Would’ve been impossible to do the work he wanted in 2 days, especially with other orders. The buyer fortunately told me ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to choose Express, please take your time’, and I just delivered the order, but I have no protection against him giving me a bad review because it was a late Express order. This kind of situation unfairly erupts into nightmares for far too many buyers, but unfortunately there seems to be no rescue for us in the future.



This makes Levels irrelevant and too fragile for me. Yeah, I’m Level 2 but I could get 10 buyers placing orders w/o prior contact, and/or ordering things I can’t do. I could be at Level 0 by next week. I’m sure many great, talented Sellers lose levels because of haywire Buyers.



All we can do is keep going, and tell the troublesome buyers ‘I really, really wish you had followed instructions before ordering 20 of my Gigs, all with the Express option’.

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regency85 Newbie

regency85

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Ok, as a BIG buyer, let me straighten out a couple of things here…


  1. I almost ALWAYS contact the Seller BEFORE buying.



    I don’t know what small amount of purchases are being made by the couple of buyers above, (who say they don’t like sellers requesting “Contact First”), but I have NEVER skipped a Seller just because they requested contact!



    To do so, would be just plain Stupid - they could be the highest-quality seller in that category!

  2. While the suggestion above of creating a “simple” $5 gig (which requires no contact first), then adding “complicated” extras, sounds good… there’s a problem with that.



    Gig descriptions have a (surprisingly-small) character limit (set by Fiverr).



    And with all the Seller Threads in the forum here, talking about how buyers MISINTERPRET gigs and expect the “Entire World” to be delivered for a mere 5 bucks… even a “simple” $5 gig has to include “disclaimers” about what the gig does NOT include.



    And thus, even a simple gig can have its description EXCEED the pre-set character limit - thus again, requiring “Contact First”.



    Hope that helps clear up things, 🙂

    Robert
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