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Buyers or opportunists? A heart to heart talk with fiverr Buyers


richjoy

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I don’t do “this-should-be-easy” jobs any more. First question in the are you a Dilbert Principle manager-self-test: “Do you believe that anything you don’t understand must be easy to do?”. I didn’t quit the corporate world to keep facing those people here…

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I have a client who has come back twice now, he understands that $5 is not much for the quality work I do for him so he pays double!!! That is the type of buyer we look for as writers. You see the thing is for him I will drop everything and write the best articles he has ever received because I know he will appreciate the work and effort put into his project.

As a writer I agree with everything you just said, As a new writer on fiverr though I have come to realize and accept that I have to sell my quality skills for as little as $5!!!

I swear the orders I have delivered so far would have sold for around $80-100 on a normal market but fiverr is not a normal market, its flooded with people who want to make extra money unlike us who actually want to build a career. The writing category is the most affected because that is probably the easiest thing for a little school boy to do and earn extra cash for a new xbox disc.

So I as a professional writer have set up a plan, to sell out as cheap as possible so I can get those reviews then maybe make what I am worth later down the road.

My idea is to set myself apart from these other part time mediocre writers and firmly establish myself as a professional writer who can be trusted.

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Wow, what a post!

My first take is you kinda scare me here, I am in the writing niche and does that mean I am gonna leave like you did? Well, I consider writing a passion.

You talk about sellers accepting ridiculous offer because of seperation to sell. I think its upon every business person to determine whats good for them. Another wake up call to newbies, to learn from your experience that made you wanna cry for wasting time on peanut.

Any buyer who takes a seller as slaves would get a deserving job. I see seller/buyer relation as a game of equals helping one another to get what they want. Even in employee/employer relations shows a poorly treated worker will deliver poor jobs… I know this because I had experience in human resource management.

Any seller that is not business like will only drive away their customers, buyers are no fools. I thinks fiverr is being up and doing in protecting players in the community.

Take home for me is t deliver according to your ability and keep learning to improve on your service. Your post is an eye opener for newbies, me in particular to brace up for great service on fiverr.

Thank you.

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As long as you promote yourself, have a portfolio of work that you can show and do things in a timely manner, then you can stick to your prices and get sales. We get messages all the time asking if we can lower our prices to fit budgets and get their project done in a faster time frame. We firmly stick to our prices and delivery times and let them know that there’s other sellers on Fiverr that can work within their price range. There’s always going to be buyers, so money is always going to be made. If you know a project will take a couple of hours and you’ll only make $1/hr then there’s no point in taking it. You’re basically working for free and tiring yourself out for nothing.

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I’ll respond to this heart-to-heart! I have a few thoughts to share… as Fiverr has grown up I’ve seen the gigs offered change…people offering bigger gigs for the $5. It used to be $5 for one simple file conversion between to versions of software, or a friendship bracelet or a postcard mailed from somewhere with a funny postmark or send you an e-book. Now, it’s offers to write your resume, proofread your book, and loads offering to create your logo.

As a brand designer (among other things) I know a well done logo requires a LOT of research into what the company is about and how they want to be perceived. Nobody does that well for $5. Never-the-less, I purchased two logo gigs during one bout of designer’s block. One sent a couple very useful ideas right up front I used to get my brain back in gear and I was pleased. The other who incidentally offered “unlimited revisions” sent stuff that looked nothing like what I described wanting (it was a country/farms association and he sent me things looking like ATT and Comcast logos.) When I reemphasized what I was after and asked for a re-do, he with no communication cancelled my gig and refunded the $5. So he didn’t offer what he said he did, wasted my time and removed any opportunity for me to leave feedback.

I often purchase gigs for a file conversion to take latest Adobe InDesign files back to the last software version. That is $5 well spent on both ends… a 2-minute task for one who owns both software versions and I don’t have to own both versions.

I needed a resume refresher and found someone here who reviews and orders them from an HR consultant’s perspective. When he saw mine (more of a curriculum vitae than a resume) he requested an additional $10 for the density of the information. It was a very fair request I agreed to.

As a buyer, I cannot find someone locally to review my resume, convert my files or do short-bit puppeteer work but I CAN access those on Fiverr!

I attempted to be a seller–I sell art cards of my photography work and offered to send out thank you cards or your card saying whatever you want. So I hear, two gigs isn’t enough to be noticed so after a year of no notice, I took it down.

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YES! Fantastic post. As a seller there is nothing more disheartening than feeling like you’re skills and time are not valued. I realize buyers are looking to Fiverr to get a good deal, but they have to realize as well, you are getting what you paid for. And while there may be a number of individuals able to provide them with the services they want at the low price they want, it is not a sustainable model. With Fiverr adding in the tip feature, I’ve been lucky enough to have several buyers who ordered a gig at the low price I was offering but then provided a hefty tip when they say the quality of what they received. Those are the types of clients I strive to find, keep and then get referrals from!

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I just purchased a resume and LinkedIn revision service on Fiverr, I will never do that again. I literally got back the same resume I had sent her originally. The only things she did was add a few boxes and reformated my resume. Same content but in her listing she states she rewrites all resume content. And she charged me an upgraded price. She had great reviews and articles written about her, proper credentials listed and been on Fiverr a long time. I’ve learned that doesn’t always mean anything.

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Even if it actually ends up taking just ten minutes, it’s because you have the expertise. You should get paid for your expertise as well as your time. Otherwise, everyone would be working for minimum wage.

I saw this foreign film once wherein they have an engineer (not their employee) come into a factory with a jammed machine. He bangs on a certain part of the machine with a hammer and demands a thousand dollars. “A thousand dollars for one stroke of the hammer?”, asks the owner of the factory, and demands a breakdown (a.k.a. itemized invoice).
One stroke of the hammer…$1
Knowing where to strike it…$999

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I have seen some sellers complaining about people wanting to pay only 5USD for some works and definitely 5USD is nothing for some of the works sellers do, however, if you publish 5USD to create something or sell something or whatever, then YOU HAVE to do it for 5USD, otherwise that´s scam. You don´t go to shops and get a shirt that says 20USD and then in the cashier they tell you “Sorry, that´s good quality” you have to pay 100USD, THAT´S SCAMM. If your work is worth 100USD then publish the correct price stop trying to scam people, that´s unethical, that´s rude and very stupid to offer my service for 5USD when I know it´s worth much more.

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  • 2 weeks later...

While we may not like the fact that some sellers sell a great amount of work for only $5, that is their right. Fiverr is a capitalist marketplace. Sellers may list their services for whatever prices they wish (within the terms of Fiverr, obviously). The buyers will be the deciding factor as to whether or not those services sell.

It’s the law of supply and demand. Find a market. Provide a product to that market at the prices the market can bear.

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