Are sales declining? If so, why do you think yours are?

[emmaki]

I’m setting this up as I’m going to inbox some other TRS/popular sellers in the next week with this question. Now, new sellers have a familiar problem of not being noticed/no social proof/no ordering. That’s normal and fine (if annoying).

My interest lies in tried and tested sellers who have been here for a while, have great reviews but for some reason, sales suck lately. This is a little more worrying as an overall decline in sales points towards the platform as failing buyers (who simply don’t come back–you can see the complaints on the forum and decide whether they are correct or just being pissy, but they ain’t returning…)

Combine this with the new processing fee–nobody had an issue with the old system (in the main), the new system was… not executed very well imho–and you can see why buyers might switch to a competitor site, the main one having increased its fees to match Fiverr’s, pretty much. Does UW know something we don’t?

That’s my potted thoughts on the subject. I’ll leave this in conversations as I have no idea where this topic should be appropriately plopped…but yeah, I’m interested in hearing what you think.

So: are your sales declining, why do you think they are, and what would you do to solve this issue? Please answer this remembering that it’s a broad church and so it requires broad answers.

[emmaki]

Do you think if I get blocked from the inbox that I also get dinged on my response rate? That would be a little unfair (if understandable), Fiverr…!

[writer99025]

I don’t know if my sales are declining…I have very few orders from new clients, but many $100+ orders from old clients to be done over the next 40 days. Taken myself off search for 4-5 months now, doing as well as I did at this point last year.

[psychicbunny]

My sales declined pretty bad last month - right now it is picking up a little bit.
Do you think maybe your new gig packages has affected your sales?

[zeus777]

I can say for sure that compared to years ago ( when Fiverr was still pretty and there weren’t
millions of gigs), my overall number of sales have declined.
Having that said, I did raise my price a while ago so I think I am making the same amount.

In the past month or so, I had a VERY bad dry-up period, which was then followed by a
MAJOR flood of orders. (I don’t use gig packages BTW, I’m just being lazy and haven’t
applied it to my gigs)

I guess that’s just the way things are. Just when you thought that sales have gone down to a
point where it reaaaaaallly starts worrying you…you get bombarded with tons of gigs.
After that the random cycle of mini-dry spells and light showers of orders will hit you.

So what is the reason behind this? Why are my sales unstable??
I simply don’t know. I guess new illustration/translations gigs are being made everyday, and
they are giving better/cheaper deals and services.
I don’t have any intentions of lowering my price or change the services I offer though.
I guess the decline in sales don’t freak me out completely simply because Fiverr is not my
main course of income.

[writer99025]

Exactly…if Fiverr or freelancing was my main source of income I wouldn’t enjoy it so much, would be worried all the time.

[zeus777]

having that said though, if I lost Fiverr, my life ( in a financial way) will
mildly s*ck! 😛

[misscrystal]

It seems like decisions are being made about which gigs are shown. And it has nothing to do with number of good reviews or length of time on fiverr. It’s impossible to tell how the decisions are made. The top few lines of gigs are selected for reasons unknown.

[chrisdata]

Since August sales has been gone into ****. I wish Sep will picking up fast. I hate to worrying the sales get dry, I knew it’s normal but this time it happened for so long. I noticed some of my competitor, (especially from South Asia Countries seller) get banned from the site. I do not know what happened to them but they seem like an small online community who register multiple different account and doing the same gig, in very low price. Most of their work look identical but we have no way to proof that.

Nowadays fiverr seem not appreciate TRS, we are even rank lower than new comer who only have 1 positive review, we only get a little yellow T badge under our name, nothing much. Fiverr gonna do something to make TRS really special and get higher exposure.

I assume there’s some problem happening in fiverr marketing since August and they are fixing it maybe. Just wish us all good luck.

[eoinfinnegan]

I have been looking at search results recently, much more so than I have done previously. I have been looking for ideas on what they are based on.
Unfortunately I have not had much success but I have noticed a couple of things that really annoy me and definitely affect sales.
For instance: I noticed that my top gig, translation, was being shown with a base price of $25, not my actual base of $5. When I clicked it (in incognito mode so I wasnt logged in), I found that Fiverr, in their infinite wisdom, was showing my gig with the extra fast fee included while it was showing others without it. So in the search results it was showing all these translators with base price of $5 and then me with a base of $25. I suspect that this is why I have not had many $5-20 orders of late.
I could not find any reason for it, I would understand if I had set the filters to one day delivery and so my fee for that was being shown but that wasnt the case.

As for an overall fall in sales on the platform, I dunno, I did always suspect that there could be a big lull or even a permanent fall in sales as Fiverr repositions itself as a “not just for $5” platform - the whole idea of packages. All those buyers used to getting everything for $5 now find that many sellers do not sell anything for $5.
I have seen a couple of mentions of this elsewhere so it is possible that it may be a big deal. Or else its just the usual reasons for lulls; time of year etc…

There is also the fact that there are a huge amount of really, truly awful sellers here now. Many with 5 or more accounts who are simply trying to get a few quid rather than work as freelancers properly. Add in the fact that most experienced/decent sellers will have activated packages and have higher base prices and the chances of a buyer using a rubbish seller have gone much higher.
They have a couple of bad experiences and then head off to the competition as Fiverr is not as good as it used to be.

[chrisdata]

You’re right, I seen lots of Indonesia seller in my Illustration gig offering rubbish services, all of their gig look identical but all in just $5. It’s feel tough to get into the competition like that. Fiverr need to do something.

[myskillsforsale]

Okay, so I’m not a TRS but I’d like to chime in. Feel free to ignore me if 100 sales isn’t sufficient evidenced of usage of the platform.

August whole-heartedly sucked for me. I came in doing decently in May, killed it in June and July, and then August I made less than my first month on Fiverr – and that was, essentially, from a single repeat buyer and 2 random people. I even had advertising going on my behalf, and it’s still gone downhill. I had a client/collaborator promoting my work along with their advertising; I started a blog for my work and have been posting to it and promoting it so I’ll get more views. But overall – sales are down. Way down. If it weren’t for that repeat buyer, I probably would have given up on Fiverr by now.

I agree that the recent fee increase plays a big role into the decline of sales. I find it irksome both buyers and sellers pay a fee. When I started I thought it was just sellers – we give our 20% and that covers the processing and our use of Fiverr. Knowing now that buyers pay $6 and Fiverr takes 33%… well, it’s irksome. But, it has contributed to my repeat buyers purchasing larger orders, which I suppose is nice. Still, the small fish are worth something – quick, easy, and it does add up.

Is the processing fee structure discussed/shown during purchase? Perhaps buyers would feel more inclined to order in larger amounts if they noticed the total % in processing fee was reduced after a certain order amount. Or, perhaps, the processing fee should be tiered? Once into the $50+ range or $100+, make it a lower number (like 3% or something). Or have a cap (like Paypal’s processing fee?).

As for the influx of sellers… I like that Fiverr is a very open marketplace where anyone can join and buy or sell, but I do wonder if instituting a form of quality control is necessary. Buyers have to pass the “I understand if I get a refund it’s in Fiverr credit and not on my credit card and I don’t get to review the seller and this is what I have agreed to” quiz, and sellers have to be obviously not fake (appropriate profile picture, selected correct country as identified by IP address, never using stolen work or gig descriptions, doesn’t spam or advertise their work in BR).

Also, as a not TRS, I’m not against TRS setting higher base prices. I think that’s completely fair. If people complain about favoritism, maybe it could be tiered – at 0, you get 1/7 gigs to be a custom base, at 1 you get 3/15, at 2 you get 5/20, and at TRS you get like 10/30.

Another text wall, from yours truly.

[gailbunning]

This is my second year at Fiverr and I am at about 50% less sales than last year at this time. I don’t know why. I advertise the same, I still have a “cheap” gig but I did go to packages. I need to find other work to fill in the gaps unfortunately.

[misscrystal]

The number of orders per month is about the same so I’m not sure it’s declining but the peaks and valleys are much greater.

[idostuff4u]

I’m thinking a may have taught most of my buyers new skills… :o 😃